PREVIOUSLY...
Lois studied him for a moment before nodding. To Clark, a life was a life. And every life was precious - even that of Lex Luthor.
“And here I thought you must have rushed around the building to relieve yourself.”
“What?” Clark gasped.
She shrugged. “You seemed to be shifting around a lot before you left and yet were fine when you returned and so I just thought...”
“...that I slipped into an alley to relieve myself?”
Lois shrugged. “Well, hey, better that than me guessing the truth. I hate to think what I might have done with it.”
* * * * * * * * *
END OF SEASON ONE
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AND NOW...
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Chapter Twenty-One
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Suddenly, Lois realized that she’d lost Clark’s attention. He had his head cocked to the side in that manner she knew so well - the manner that said someone was in trouble.
“What?” she asked.
“Mugging,” Clark said, jumping to his feet. “I’ve got to...”
Suddenly, his voice trailed off. She was shocked when he slumped back into his seat, looking dejected.
“Clark?”
“I can’t go. There is no Superman.” He ran a hand through his hair in irritation, obviously still bothered by the sounds he was hearing. “How do I do it?” he asked. “In this reality, how can I stand to sit idly by while people need my help?”
“I think we’ve already established that you still find ways to help. Can’t you do that now?”
His eyes suddenly lit up and in a flash he was gone.
She leaned back in her chair and sighed. He’d be careful. She knew he would. But he was right. This screwed up reality needed a Superman, at least as much as hers ever had. Besides, she knew if they were here much longer... She’d already noticed him get fidgety several times today.
“We’ve really got to get this mess straightened out,” she said to herself, turning her attention back to her computer screen. As she did, she reached into the bag Clark had brought back a few minutes earlier to withdraw a sandwich.
The next story she came across didn’t spark any relevant memories. Apparently, Arianna Carlin had gone after the new Mrs. Luthor. Lois had managed to stop Arianna and get the story. A quick look at Clark’s computer informed Lois there was no matching story in the Star.
“What are you smiling about?” Clark said as he reentered the room, carrying two cups of coffee.
“Nothing,” Lois said immediately, scrolling down past the story quickly. She stopped on the next story and had to smile once again.
“Okay, so what’s going on?” Clark asked, coming over to get a look at the headline. “Uhh... You got the Lenny Stokes story.”
“I also got the Arianna Carlin story.” She couldn’t resist the playful dig.
Clark raised his coffee cup in tribute. “To paraphrase Churchillian rhetoric: across the havoc of war, I salute a great opponent.”
Lois’ eyes narrowed as she looked at him. A moment later, she was kneeling before him as her hands cupped his face. “We’re not opponents, Clark. We’re not rivals,” she said intently. “You work at the Daily Planet. You’re my partner, my best friend, my lover, my husband and the father of my child. We’re partners, Clark - in every sense of that word.”
Clark blinked at her heartfelt outburst. “I just meant...”
“You’re having the same problem I am, aren’t you? Keeping things straight in your mind.”
He let out a breath and nodded.
“Clark, we have to keep things straight. I can’t be your enemy. I just can’t.”
He placed his coffee on the table and reached out taking her hands. “I could never be your enemy, Lois. No matter how messed up things are in this altered reality. You have to know that.”
Lois closed her eyes for a moment, before nodding.
“So we keep working. We get Vicky back. We get our lives back,” Clark said softly. “Okay, so you got the Lenny Stokes story. What’s next?”
Lois rose to her feet, taking a seat again in front of her computer. She was about to scroll on when she suddenly stopped. “Wait! The Lenny Stokes story. That’s when the Kerth nominations came out, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well... I remember something about that.”
“Is it relevant?”
“Maybe,” Lois said before beginning her story.
**Perry was on a rampage. Not an unusual state of affairs these days. But today’s rampage was even more intense than normal. The Kerth nominations had come out and for the first time since she’d been eligible, Lois’ name had not been on the list.
On the other hand, Clark Kent’s name had been. Since the list had first been posted, she’d listened to comments about how that scum-bag didn’t deserve it - usually followed by comments about how she should have been nominated instead. At first, she’d found herself tending to agree. But as the days passed, it just got old. And constantly being reminded that she hadn’t been nominated herself wasn’t helping much either.
Besides, she’d read Kent’s piece on the retirement home scandal. It was good, solid work - heavy on facts and yet at the same time, conveying a lot of emotion. Not that anyone else at the Daily Planet would agree with her. Nor would she ever admit it to any of them.
Still, with the ceremony happening tonight, the rhetoric had gotten worse. How Kent couldn’t tell a story if it jumped up and bit him. How he’d probably stolen the story and should be investigated. How, instead of getting a Kerth nomination, he should be thrown out of the reporter’s guild for the falsehoods he’d written about Perry White.
“Tough break.”
Lois looked up to see Ralph leaning across her desk.
“What is?”
“About Kent getting the nomination,” he said. “I suspect you’ll be feeling a little depressed tonight. Isn’t it the first time you haven’t been invited to the ceremony?”
Lois was tempted to thank him for reminding her, but she held her tongue. Although, had Ralph been smart, he’d have recognized the warning in her eyes.
Instead, he leaned closer to her. “So... how about spending the evening with me?”
Had he actually wiggled his eyebrows at her on that last question? Disgusted, she rose to her feet. “I don’t think so,” she said, nauseated. It was definitely time to get out of here if Ralph was trying to take advantage of the situation.
“Hey, come on,” he said as she walked away. “I know this great little place where they have mud wrestling. Beats out the Kerth ceremony for entertainment any day of the week. Hey, you might even like to be one of the contestants. I think you’d be great at it. They take walk-ins.”
As Lois stepped into the elevator on her way out of the newsroom, she briefly pondered the ethics of Ralphicide.
By the time she arrived at her apartment, however, the depression Ralph had predicted was beginning to settle in. Was she losing her edge? Okay, so maybe she’d been the one to break the last two big stories, but not even to get a nod of recognition with a Kerth nomination...
She stepped over to the fridge, taking a carton of ice cream out of the freezer. After getting a spoon, she settled into a chair at her kitchen table. How had Kent managed to snag her nomination? What if he won? How had this travesty happened?
She stopped herself in mid-thought. Was she really petty enough to degrade his story just because he had received the nod instead of her? Everyone else at the Daily Planet seemed to feel he didn’t deserve it. She knew that. After all, they’d spent the past few days telling her so.
But Kent had written a great article. He deserved that nomination. She knew that.
The real problem wasn’t his nomination. The real problem was that in spite of all her efforts, in spite of throwing herself into her work for the past couple of months, all it had taken was seeing his name on the nomination list to bring back all her memories of him. Memories of his face. Memories of how it felt to kiss him. Memories of them rolling around on his bed, clothing absent. The sound of his voice. The way he smelled. The way he held her. The way his hands felt against her skin.
Well, ice cream wasn’t helping. Getting up, she stuck it, spoon and all, back in the freezer. Maybe a walk would help. She grabbed a jacket, put on her shoes and ambled towards the door.
She could still remember his voice when he’d come to her apartment, begging her to give him a second chance. Or was that a first chance? But what had he expected of her? To risk her job, her career, everything that was important in her life for a relationship that didn’t have a prayer of working?
She didn’t trust him. It really was as simple as that. So, hormones aside, what chance was there for a relationship between them?
She passed a department store and stopped when she saw a television playing in the window. The local news, obviously. She was just about to move on when she stopped in her tracks. She recognized many of the people who could now be seen on the screen - although seldom were they dressed so elegantly. Television coverage of the Kerth awards.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Kent. Damn! Who would have guessed he could look so good in a tux? Suddenly, thoughts of tearing that tux off him, slowly, piece by piece were running through her mind. A moment later, the scene changed to the newscaster. Lois’ mouth snapped shut and she looked around self-consciously before moving on, images of Kent in a tux - or out - burned into her retinas.
How she ended up at the flower shop, she had no idea. Her mind had found a way to amuse itself during the trip. Not that she had any reason for being at a flower shop, but now that she was... She decided to stop and smell the flowers. It had been far too long since she’d done that.
She was just starting to relax, enjoying the tranquility that could be found surrounded by the sight and smell of the multi-colored flowers, when her eyes caught sight of a television playing silently behind the counter. A different newscast was playing. But it too was showing images of the Kerth awards.
How had this happened? Why wasn’t she there? How on Earth had Kent gotten a nomination?
She was doing it again - being petty. “He wrote a great story,” she said to herself. “He deserves the nomination.”
“Can I help you?”
Lois spun around to see a woman standing there, waiting for her response.**
Clark was nodding slowly as she fell silent.
“What?” Lois asked.
“It’s just... I was wondering how that came about.”
“What came about?”
Clark leaned over, giving her a quick kiss before beginning his story.
**Clark felt unaccountably depressed as he ambled up the steps to his apartment. He’d just won his first Kerth. He should be ecstatic.
Oh, he knew what the problem was, of course. He’d been so excited when looking forward to tonight. His first Kerth nomination. He hadn’t expected to win, of course. But it wasn’t the ceremony that had him excited. It was the dance he’d been told would follow - and the prospect that Lane might be there and maybe, if he was really lucky, he’d get her to agree to dance with him.
He’d figured that maybe enough time had passed now that she wouldn’t be quite so angry with him over the whole Perry/Luthor incident. He’d even deliberately avoided Linda’s hints that she’d love to be his date, preferring to go alone - just so that he could be sure he would be free when he finally had his chance to ask Lane to dance.
But Lane hadn’t been there. He’d seen a contingent from the Daily Planet, of course. But the only person that mattered to Clark hadn’t been there.
None of it seemed all that important if she wasn’t part of it. It was crazy, he knew, but he kept wondering what it might be like if she had been his date. He could almost see her hanging on her arm decoratively, fawning appropriately and then just fading into the background during his big moment. She would have been beautiful, yet invisible.
He stopped half way up the steps to his apartment. Where had that idea come from? That wasn’t Lane. She didn’t hang on anyone’s arm, she didn’t fawn and he couldn’t see her fading into the background in a room full of bathing suit models. And he wouldn’t want her to. She was a powerhouse. And that was what he found so attractive.
He let out a breath. What did it matter what she would have been like as a date? It wasn’t as if he was ever going to find out.
He arrived on the top step when something lying on the doorstep caught his eye. A flower? He bent over, picking it up.
Opening the door, he stepped inside and wandered into the kitchen. Placing the flower on the counter, he turned his attention to the accompanying card.
‘Congratulations.’
He crinkled his eyebrows for a moment as he turned the card over in his hands. No name? Suddenly, he froze. It couldn’t be. Or... maybe it could.
New excitement was in the air as he rushed to his secret closet, almost tearing the door off its hinges in his effort to open it. He grabbed the note Lane had left when she’d snuck out of his apartment in the middle of the night.
“Yes!” The writing matched. Suddenly, he had the feeling he’d been waiting to have when he won the Kerth. It was like standing on the top of the world.**
“I really hate this,” Lois said.
“What?”
“I was supposed to be at the Kerth ceremony with you. Not leaving flowers with unsigned notes on your doorstep.”
“It was only one flower, honey. And one note.”
“You know what I mean. How much longer before we get this straightened out?”
Clark left his seat, sitting down on the table next to her chair. “Do you want to quit for the night?”
“No!” she said emphatically. She glanced at the clock. It was getting late. “Look, let’s just see how much further we can get. Then we can go back to my place.”
“Why your place? You’ve never even seen it.”
She shrugged. “Curiosity, maybe.” She didn’t mention that seeing her apartment might, at last, relieve the worst of her fears - that she was married. But it was time to find out. “Maybe it will help jog some other memories. Besides, I’m really going to need a change of clothes for tomorrow.”
Clark nodded. “Okay, so what’s next?”
Lois scrolled through the articles on her computer, Clark watching. He knew he should be looking at his own computer, but he wanted to stay with Lois for the moment. She was right. These memories and the accompanying feeling that they were rivals was tearing him apart, too.
“Hey, I’ve got something,” she said, looking up at him.
Clark took his eyes off her to look at her screen and together they read the next three headlines that had her byline on it.
‘Scandal At Viologic,’ by Lois Lane.
‘Planet Informer Murdered. Reporter Linked,’ by Lois Lane.
‘Financier Tied To Attempt On Governor’s Life,’ by Lois Lane.
“The story where I thought I got my source murdered,” Lois said softly.
“I remember this. Everyone was talking.”
“I can imagine.”
Clark looked at her sympathetically.
“It’s okay, Clark. It isn’t real, remember. Or... well, it was. Except then I had you with me to help me through it. Except...”
“What?” he asked when she didn’t continue.
She held up her hand, trying to get a grip on the memory pulling at her brain.
“What?” Clark asked again.
“I can remember after I was fired... I was so depressed. I’d spent the entire evening on the phone, contacting all my sources. None of them would talk to me. I was the reporter who had gotten her source killed...”
**He’d hung up? He’d actually hung up on her! Letting out a primitive yell, she flung the phone across the room. She felt somewhat better. Still, it wasn’t enough. Her rolodex followed the phone, sending a shower of white cards all around the room.
Oh, yeah. That felt good. Spotting the papers on her desk, she rushed over, using her arms to sweep the desk clean, scattering papers all over the floor. Still not satiated, she kicked her wastebasket across the room.
Finally, she collapsed into a chair, feeling emotionally numb. Perry had fired her. Okay, so he’d called it a suspension, but she knew what that meant. He’d said he had no choice. Her source was dead. She could no longer prove the truth of her story about Viologic. And the Daily Planet lawyers were breathing down Perry’s neck.
Still... how could Perry have done that to her? Didn’t he know that the Daily Planet was all she had? Without it, who was she?
A knock on the door to her apartment brought her head up. Maybe all was not lost. Maybe one of her sources had come by with some good news.
She rushed for the door, throwing it open only to stare in shock at the man standing on the other side.
“Kent,” she whispered, suddenly lost in a pair of soft brown eyes.**
TO BE CONTINUED...
