A/N: Admittedly, this is a short one -- Apologies included. Would it help if I said that the shortness was due to gathering momentum? 
Enjoy!-----
Pride, Prejudice and Jimmy Choos-----
[-4-]
Lois crossed her arms over her chest as she watched the Walker Landing truck turn onto the main road from the end of the long drive. “Well that was rude.”
Clark turned away from her and began organizing bales of hay into different piles.
She turned to face him. “You ran him off!”
“He had other deliveries to make,” Clark answered with finality. “I’m going to go get the tractor.”
Lois’s attention was immediately redirected. “Oh! I’m coming! I get to drive, right?”
Clark warded her off with a raised hand. “No. You get to stack,” he said pointing toward the barn. “You’re not qualified to drive the tractor.”
“Not qualified?! I’ll have you know that I drive a Hummer 2 in SoCal traffic on a regular basis.” At Clark’s expression she frowned. “You *do* know what an H2 is, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I just can’t figure out why you need a military-spec off-road vehicle in Los Angeles.”
She scoffed. “You’ve obviously never had to navigate Roberston Boulevard after having brunch at The Ivy.”
Clark rolled his eyes. “The answer is still no to the tractor.” He pointed to the hay again. “Stack.”
Lois’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I’m about really tired of your autocratic power trip.”
Clark’s eyes narrowed as well. “Okay, fine. Let’s make it a democracy. I’ll give you a choice: stack the hay or muck the stalls.” With that, he turned and stalked away muttering angrily to himself under his breath.
He was about to round the side of the barn when he was forced to sidestep in order to avoid running over his mother.
“Where’s the fire?” she asked in surprise.
“Sorry, Mom. I’m just going to get the tractor so I can spread the bales around the field.”
Martha peered around him to look at the stacks of hay in the drive next to the barn. “Of course. I thought I’d get a chance to say hello to Johnnie. He usually helps you stack when he comes by.”
“Yeah, well. Now we’ve got Lois,” he said with obviously false optimism.
Martha looked at him quizzically. “Lois, huh? I would have guessed that she would have been an *incentive* for Johnnie to stick around a little longer.”
Clark’s brow furrowed. “She has no standards.”
“Standards?”
“She was flirting with him!”
Martha looked back toward the hay bales and noticed that Lois was now reclining on one of them, having completely removed her flannel outer shirt and using it as a blanket. “I see,” she said knowingly.
He followed her gaze and, knowing that her tone said more than her words, asked, “What does that mean?”
The older woman gazed up at him for a few silent seconds; a mischievous smile threatening to spread across her face. “Honey, you were jealous.”
“Jealous?! Of what? No, I wasn’t!” When his mother merely raised her eyebrows in response, he added, “She was trying to get him to do her work! I was saving him from her manipulations.”
Martha nodded seriously. “Clark, it’s an understandable reaction. She is *awfully* pretty.”
Clark’s expression steeled. “I’m not attracted to her,” he stated. “I’m not.” He flicked an angry glance toward where Lois lay sunbathing. “I’m going to go get the tractor.”
~\s/~
Lois paced back and forth outside of the stables. “God, Chlo, it’s barbaric out here. I swear it’s like modern aged slavery...” After Clark had returned with the tractor and reiterated his ultimatum, she had chosen the chore that would offer some privacy. She had no intention of *actually* mucking the stalls.
“…No! I will not be able to stay here until Sam figures out that I’ve had enough. I played his game for five days. If he doesn’t call his own bluff, I’ll find my own way out.” She sidestepped a large muddy pond as she continued to rant. “It’s inhumane. Everything smells like sh…,” she paused, glancing around for hidden cameras before selecting a new word, “…crap—and I mean *everything*—and this damn chicken they have out here refuses to let me sleep past the witching hour…”
“…I *know* it’s a rooster! That’s not the point!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be working in the stalls?”
The sudden introduction of a new voice alerted Lois to the fact that she really had been caught and caused her to drop her phone. Trying to catch it before it hit the ground, she bobbled it a few times before watching in horror as it bounced off of her shoe and into the mud pit. “Damnit!” she exclaimed, rushing over and preparing to go fishing.
“Uh… I don’t think you want to do that,” Clark warned.
“That’s my phone… I need my phone. It’s like my life… my only connection to the outside world… to civilization!” she stammered, looking up at him with wild eyes.
Clark grimaced as she plunged both arms elbow-deep into the sludge. “It’s just… that’s not mud.”
Lois pulled her arms out of the thick mire with her phone in tow. She used the hand that wasn’t holding the phone to wipe at some of the liquid that had splashed onto her upper lip. “Then what is it?”
Clark raised his eyebrows and gave her a pointed look.
With dawning comprehension, Lois’s face blanched. When she looked down at the now dead appliance in her hand, she screamed. When she looked at the liquid manure that was caked and dripping from her arms, she screamed again.
A few seconds later, Clark was looking on in mild amusement as she ran around in zigzagged circles, screaming in revulsion and protest at her dad, at her life, and at anything that had ever pooped.
~\s/~
Lois had lasted a full fifteen hours without her phone before she gave into desperation and braved the eight mile walk into town. Bone tired and defeated, she was sitting on the wooden bench outside of Harris Handies when the Kent’s red truck slowed to a stop in front of her.
“Lois?” Martha called from the driver’s side window. “Honey, what on Earth are you doing out here?” Looking around in confusion, she asked, “Is Clark with you?”
Blowing her bangs out of her face, Lois pushed herself off of the bench and limped over to the truck. “No. It’s just me.”
“Just you?” Frowning, Martha gestured for the young woman to go around to the other side of the vehicle and get in. “Sweetie, how did you get to town?”
Lois sighed as she moved the grocery bags to the side and slid into the seat. “Walked, hitchhiked… mostly walked.”
Putting the truck into motion, Martha glanced at her passenger in concern. “Lois, if you wanted to come into town so badly, you could have come with me to do the shopping…” She frowned. “Is everything okay?”
Closing her eyes, Lois leaned her head against the window. “No, I mean, yes, everything is fine now. I just needed to make a phone call.”
“Why didn’t you just call from the house?”
Lois’s eyes popped open and then narrowed angrily. “Why didn’t I just call from the house,” she repeated flatly, silently cursing Clark Kent for tricking her, “because there’s a phone. In the house.”
Martha turned her head to regard Lois briefly. “Of course there’s a phone in the house.”
Lois pressed her lips together tightly to keep from speaking. Her attention was caught by the sight of a Pop Watcher’s magazine sticking out from one of the paper bags. Pulling it out, she smiled at the image on the cover of a young blonde musician and her polka-dotted acoustic guitar. “Mrs. Kent, I wouldn’t have expected you to be a Sully fan.”
Martha glanced down at the item in Lois’s hands and chuckled. “Oh no, that’s not for me, Dear,” she answered. “That’s for Clark. Anytime there’s a story about Chloe Sullivan in a magazine, he wants it.”
Arching an eyebrow as she digested that information, Lois settled back into her seat feeling smug. Her trip to town had suddenly become more profitable than expected. Not only had she talked her cousin into coming to rescue her from Exile Island, she had finally learned a name she could drop that would actually cause Clark Kent to turn his head.
She smiled, lost in imagining how bringing Clark’s popstar crush onto the scene just before packing her bags and taking off would make him regret not being as impressed with Lois Lane and her connections as he should have been.
Yes, Lois thought as the truck rumbled down Route 8 to a soundtrack of down home country and bluegrass, she was finally back on top.
-----
tbc...
