A/N: I'm excited to be back! RL is not fun, especially when it's all about writing massive papers... that's not my favorite brand of writing. You know what I mean? Anyway, we have a story to tell over here, so let's hop to it!
Note: I mistakenly had my dates wrong a couple of chapters ago so this fic is really set in Spring, not Summer... it's not a huge deal, but I'm bringing it up for your imaginative re-shiftings, if need be. The only things that changed in previous chapters as a result are: (1) in chapter 8, Clark tells Lois that a couple of his friends are back for Spring Break instead of Summer, and (2) in chapter 9, Lois's introspection about being at the Kent Farm says that the townsfolk only know her as the girl staying at the Kent Farm for a few weeks, not the Summer.
See? Easy-peasy. C'est tout!
Now, onto the next phase... (Don't feel bad if you need a refresher. I sure did!)
~s
PS- Thanks for sticking with me and urging me to come back. I missed you guys (and nagging is actually guilt-inducing and effective)!
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Pride, Prejudice and Jimmy Choos
[-10-]
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“Okay, Clark, you win.”
Clark turned his head and looked over the wall of the horse stall he was in to see that Lois had entered the building. “What did I win?” he asked lightly, turning his head back to focus on the final horseshoe he was attaching to Blessed, a beautiful mocha and crème colored Palomino.
He heard her sigh in frustration. “You know what you won, Clark. Okay? So let’s just stop. It’s over.”
At that announcement, Clark froze his actions—to the distaste of the mare—and spun his head toward the stables entrance in time to see Lois’s ponytail swish as she turned to exit.
“Lois!” Clark called; then feeling panicked, he carefully—but *very* quickly—finished his task and hopped over the gate. Suddenly, he was standing in between Lois and the large open doorway. “Wait,” he added—both of them too distracted to even register just how quickly he had moved.
Clark started to lift his hands to put on her shoulders when he realized that his gloves were still on. Hastily pulling them off, he ducked his head to look her in the eye. “What do you mean ‘it’s over?’” he asked.
Lois sighed again and looked down at the ground. “Clark…”
“No,” he interrupted. “You can’t just come in here, tell me that I won and then tell me that we’re done in the same breath!” he exclaimed, finally settling his hands on the sides of her arms. His voice lowered, “How can we be over when we didn’t even really begin?”
Clark watched as Lois bit her lower lip and shot a glance toward the hand on her right shoulder. Fighting the urge to move his hands in response to the look, he let the silence stand and waited for her to answer.
Finally, she let out an uneasy chuckle, “Neither of us were expecting anything to come from this,” she began. “I mean… you were out to prove that small-town charm was real and I was out to prove that I wasn’t affected by any of it.”
Clark remained quiet but he had the impression that her declaration of ‘any of it’ was about more than just his flirting.
“It doesn’t work,” she finished, taking a step back to dislodge his hold on her.
Clark frowned. “What doesn’t work?” he asked, genuinely confused. “I know that we weren’t looking for anything… that this, whatever this is, whatever it could be…”
“See, right there, Clark. Stop. There is no ‘could be,’” Lois said, turning sideways and shifting her body away from him.
Clark turned with her and took a step forward. “Tell me why.”
Lois stepped backwards again. “What?”
“Tell me why,” he repeated, following her retreat. “Why won’t you let anyone all the way in?” he demanded, letting a hint of his frustration emerge.
A week of the flirtation duel had passed to unexpected results. Yes, as Lois had said, when the ruse had started, he was out to prove a point and she was out to deny it, but eventually it had become clear that they both enjoyed the company. They had started talking about things that they didn’t talk to anyone else about—at least, that’s how it was on Clark’s end. Since she already knew about the Daily Planet dream, he was able to explain to her why it could never happen.
On Lois’s side, she revealed to him the pressure she felt about having to live under the radar so as not to call attention to—or distraction from—her mother’s legend. There were still some things that they didn’t talk about—she still wouldn’t open up to him about her music and he had no intention of unlocking the vault regarding his heritage—but in all other aspects, the ruse had become the rule.
The over-the-top flirtation he had planned had become subdued and genuine. He was really starting to… well, *strongly like* having her in his space. So much so in fact, that he was beginning to want to keep her there.
“All the way in?” Lois asked, finally halting her steps as her back touched the wall. “Have you?”
Clark faltered as her redirection highlighted the exact thing he had been thinking about. He reconnected his gaze to her eyes. “Do you want to?”
“Do you?”
He let out a groan as it appeared that they were just going to continue the answer-a-question-with-a-question routine. He lifted a hand and placed it on the wall to the side of her head. The next statement was hard for him to even think, much less say, “I want to try.”
“Clark…” she started as his outstretched arm bent slightly with his deliberate advance.
“Your turn,” he said, still moving forward at an achingly slow pace. “All you have to say is that you want to try too.”
He watched as expressions of uncertainty and hesitation flicked across her face. When it started to look like she wasn’t going to be able to come up with a decision in the next few seconds, he decided not to wait.
Smirking, he started to lean down and forward only to be interrupted by the sound of his mother calling Lois’s name. There they were, standing in a position that was damn close to fruition, and the moment was shot to hell. When he refocused his gaze—still deeply entrenched in her personal space—Lois swallowed and lifted a hand to push against his chest.
“We should go,” she commented awkwardly, sidestepping to move out of his almost-embrace. “I should go…”
He grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving. “What were you going to say?” he asked, needing to know.
Without turning around, Lois halted her steps briefly. “I was going to say okay,” she answered.
Grinning brightly, Clark released her hand when she tugged it away and started heading toward the house. “Okay?” he repeated to her back, wanting to confirm what he thought—no *hoped*—that meant.
Lois turned to walk backwards for a few steps, looking at him with clear uncertainty in her eyes. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but yes… We can try.”
~\s/~
Still reeling from the emotional almost-encounter with Clark, Lois was not even close to being prepared to see the person sitting at the kitchen table when she entered the farmhouse with the purpose of answering Mrs. Kent’s call. “Daddy?”
Her father rose to his feet as he noticed her. “Well, if she’s calling me Daddy instead of Sam then the investment has already paid off,” he said, addressing Martha, who was sitting on the other side of the table.
Lois blinked a couple of times in rapid succession to clear her mind… or to try to get a hold of it, at least. “What… What are you doing here?”
Sam frowned. “Picking you up,” he replied succinctly, using his right hand to tug up the sleeve of his suit jacket so he could glance at his watch. “The plane is waiting and it’s wheels up at nineteen hundred hours.”
Lois blinked again. “Tonight?”
“Tonight,” he confirmed.
Lois turned and looked out of the kitchen window, startled to notice that she had missed the presence of the black Town Car when she’d walked to the house a few minutes ago. “I… ah, you couldn’t have called first?” she asked, turning back to face her father again.
“Called?” Sam questioned as if it were a foreign concept, and Lois realized that to him, it was. Samuel Lane planned things and other people carried it out. That was the way he liked his world to work.
“It’s just… I haven’t packed or… anything,” she stammered, catching the sympathetic motherly expression that Martha Kent was wearing over her father’s shoulder.
Sam nodded, acknowledging and dismissing her concern in the same gesture. “That’s why I gave you an hour.”
~\s/~
Lois was in the middle of folding all of her clothes—even the dirty ones—so that everything would fit into her suitcases when someone knocked on the cottage’s door. Sighing, she placed the shirt she was folding on the bed and crossed the room. When she opened the door and saw a grinning Clark Kent on the other side, she swung the door open wider and returned to her folding.
With her back turned, she heard Clark enter the room. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’m leaving,” Lois replied in a quiet voice.
“Leaving what?”
Dropping her head, she turned around.
“Leaving?” Clark asked again, obviously confused.
Lois nodded her head toward the still open door. “You see that car out there? That’s my dad here to pick me up.”
“Your dad, but you said… we…” The confused expression on his face morphed into one of hurt. “So, what? This was some kind of trick?”
“What?” Lois asked, frowning.
“You were getting back at me for flirting?”
“Are you kidding me?”
He spun around and threw his hands in the air. “You knew you were leaving and you let me believe that you actually cared!”
Lois let out an incredulous chuckle. “Unbelievable,” she muttered under her breath.
Clark turned back around. “What?”
Sitting down on the bed, she looked up at him and shook her head. “Oh, you want to hear what I have to say now?” When he just crossed his arms over his chest in reply, she continued, “Of course I didn’t know he was coming, Clark. But this is exactly why I didn’t think we should pursue anything in the first place! There was always going to be a day like this—this is always going to be the outcome—you had to have known that… right?”
Lois released a sigh when Clark’s only response was to look away. His naivety was starting to irk her because it made her look like the bad guy. “Tell me something, Clark,” she started quietly. “In that scenario of us that you’ve been cooking up in your head, did it ever go anywhere but here on this farm?”
Her eyes narrowed at his expression, having her answer even in his silence. “It didn’t, did it?” she asked, scoffing quietly.
“And what if it didn’t?” he suddenly demanded. “What do you have to leave for? What is it that you’re rushing back to? Being a socialite that no one knows?” he asked, using his fingers to sarcastically bracket her so-called profession. “How is it so far-fetched for me to believe that you’re better off here… with me?”
Lois was quiet for a minute, struggling to figure out how to answer. “Because it’s not a matter of choice,” she finally said. “The reason you didn’t consider anyplace other than this farm is because you *can’t* leave. I mean, isn’t that what you’ve been saying all this time? You can’t leave because of this or you can’t leave because of that—except I think the truth is that you don’t *want* to leave.”
She was expecting his expression to cloud over at her words, so she wasn’t surprised when that is exactly what happened. She pressed on, “Clark, I *can’t* stay.”
He sucked in a breath. “If I were to go by your logic, then I would have to assume that it means that you don’t *want* to stay,” he shot back.
Lois lowered her head and picked up another shirt to fold. “I know you don’t understand this, but there *is* a difference, Clark. I really can’t stay.”
“You’re right,” he answered tightly. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Lois could imagine that his jaw was stubbornly set. “I don’t understand.”
The sound of a throat clearing pulled her attention to the door. “Miss Lane,” a man greeted politely. He was wearing the requisite black suit, white shirt, and black tie of a hired driver. “Your father asked me to come and get your bags.”
Lois nodded and jumped up from the bed. “Right, of course.” She turned and glanced around, moving to zip up the two smaller bags that she had finished packing. “Um, I just need to finish the big one, but everything else is ready to go,” she said, waving toward the other bags.
When the driver reached for the black guitar case after picking up the two smaller bags, she darted over and halted him with a hand on his forearm. “Be *very* careful with that,” she warned.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied with a polite smile. “I’ll take these out and come back for the last one.”
“Thanks.”
With a nod, the driver stepped out of the house and once again left her alone with a grumpy farm boy.
Unsure of what to say, she went back to putting the rest of her belongings into the remaining suitcase. When she zipped it up, she turned and saw Clark watching her every move closely.
“So, I guess this is it,” he finally said.
“I guess so.”
He crossed in front of her and lifted the bag from the bed. “Over before it began.”
With a frown, Lois swallowed the urge to cry and followed behind him as he carried her bag through the doorway.
~\s/~
Lois was staring out of the window, distractedly watching the landscape melt into a green and brown blur as her father droned on in the background. The details of the conversation he was having on his cell phone were lost on her as she tried to come to terms with the whirlwind that had been the previous few hours of the day.
As odd as it seemed, she could understand her father’s abrupt entrance and rearrangement of her life. Growing up as a dual-identitied pop star had meant that she often made quick entrances and exits. In her life, the world was a stage and since her every move was a performance, every night was a curtain call.
So, yes—she could understand that her dad had expected her to be ready to act on cue, because that had been how their roles had always been played. There was no reason to be surprised that he had read his part of the script: Her father hadn’t changed…
…She had.
Her time at the Kent Farm had changed her enough that being pulled back into the bright stage lights of her life left her momentarily blinded.
Swallowing a sigh, Lois refocused her attention through the window as the hired car pulled onto the tarmac of the small private airport she had first encountered that day long ago when she’d been expecting Hawaii. The car slowed to a stop and she opened the door to get out, needed to stretch after the hour-long ride. She leaned against the car, watching as the driver got out and went about the task of getting her bags. Her father was still in the car on his phone call so she simply leaned against the car and crossed her arms over her chest.
There before her, in all of its silver and gold majesty, was her private jet—the chariot that was going to take her back to her kingdom.
“Why are you lookin’ at that bird like you think she’s gonna take you down?”
Lois turned toward the gruff voice with a huge smile on her face. “Perry!” she exclaimed, launching at the white-haired, stocky statured man that had sauntered up behind her. “What are you doing here?” she asked after pulling back only far enough to be able to look at his face.
“I had to come and get my girl,” he replied sternly, keeping his expression grim.
Perry White had first made his acquaintance with the Lane family when the retired fighter pilot was hired on as Ellen Lane’s head of security. He’d been a well loved older brother figure to the late singer, and after her death, had stayed close to the little girl he’d watched grow up. When Lola Dakota had begun her reign as America’s favorite pop princess, Perry had naturally reassumed his former position.
Lois hugged him again and squeezed tighter and tighter until he finally let out a laugh. Laughing herself, she stepped away and narrowed her eyes in mock pique. “Oh, so *now* you want to fly with me? Where were you when I got dumped out here in the first place?”
Perry shrugged curtly. “That was one rodeo I didn’t want to ride in,” he muttered, flicking a disapproving glance toward the car.
Lois’s eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t agree with Sam’s punishment?” she asked, suddenly feeling vindicated.
Perry turned so he was fully facing her. “Oh no, Darling. I definitely thought you needed to have your hide tanned, but I didn’t agree with the subterfuge.”
Lois grudgingly accepted his admonishment. Perry’s military background made him pretty obtuse about what he considered right and wrong. Growing up with him as an ever-present overseer, Lois had learned that he rarely wavered and rarely saw anything between than the two extremes. He was another one of the few people who knew the truth about Lois Lane’s relationship to Lola Dakota and, amazingly enough, that was one lie he was willing to withstand. “So it’s okay to send your kid to the dump as long as you don’t lie about it?” she asked, pouting.
Perry chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Oh, it’s nice to have my wild child back. You ready to fly?”
The question suddenly made her thoughts return to the yellow farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. She was starting to think that she was really going to miss the backwards state of Kansas. “Yeah.”
“Say goodbye for your dad and come on up,” Perry said, giving her a final squeeze before letting go and stalking off toward the plane.
“Say goodbye?” Lois repeated in confusion as she watched her adopted uncle walk away. Right as she was running the words through her head, her father climbed out of the other side of the car. “Goodbye?” she asked.
Sam looked at her blankly for a second before comprehension dawned in his eyes. “Ah, yes. I’m dropping you off. I have to catch the New York-Sydney flight, but first I have to catch a flight to New York out of Topeka.”
“Sydney? Topeka? New York?”
Sam rounded the car and chuckled as he moved to stand beside her. “Don’t sound so offended. I’m the one who has to take a *commercial* flight,” he said, with pretend dread. “You’re in good hands with Perry. He’ll get you back to L.A. safe and sound.”
“Why can’t I go to Sydney?” Lois whined, barely registering how easy Lola slid back onto stage.
“You can’t go to Sydney because you have to get back to the studio and learn Cat’s choreography. You have Coachella on the books in two weeks and the newly refreshed and rehabbed Lola is going to make her appearance.”
“Why can’t we just do the choreography from the videos?” she asked. “Two weeks is not long enough for me to learn a whole set!”
Sam gently pushed her in the direction of the plane and nodded as the Town Car driver returned to the vehicle. “You can’t do the choreography from the videos because every one and their grandmother has it memorized and has their own version on YouTube.”
Lois reluctantly moved toward the plane. “It’s endearing!” she called out as her dad lowered himself to sit in the car.
“Hey, Lo!” he yelled, right before closing the door. “Martha told me you really did well. I’m proud of you.”
As the sleek black car pulled away, Lois frowned. It was good to hear, but suddenly she wasn’t sure she shared her father’s sentiment.
~\s/~
Pacing the area that served as a converted loft in the barn, Clark felt like he was going to explode… or implode… or something. He was angry. He was angry with Lois for leaving, with her dad for interrupting, with his mom for not interrupting… He had something for everyone and anyone.
Knowing that his state of mind wasn’t necessarily a good one, he’d decided not to do chores. He knew animals could easily pick up on the way their caretakers were feeling and the emotions he was emoting would only lead to someone getting hurt.
Someone getting more hurt, that is.
Yes, he was angry with the world and with every *thing* in it, but most of all he was hurt. He was hurt and he was angry.
What made it all worse was that the person at the top of his list of blame was himself.
Narrowing his eyes, Clark glared around at his surroundings. It had been a long time since he’d been up here brooding. While the tree house had been his haven when he was a child, the loft had become his “cooler” when he’d gotten too big to pace inside the fort. The loft represented the pain and confusion of his teen years, and all of a sudden, he felt like he was back in that place… in that age.
It was his fault. He had started to let her in. He had even started to lo…
Refusing to let the thought materialize, Clark reached out and picked up his old football. Everything in him wanted to squeeze the damn thing into a pulp. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that the ball had been a gift from his father… and that it wouldn’t provide enough resistance to even make it a worthy stress ball.
Pressing his fingers firmly against the tough leather without consciously being aware, Clark let his mind flick back to the thought he left unfinished and decided on the word he wanted to use.
Loathe.
He had even started to loathe her.
That was how he planned on repairing his wounded ego… He didn’t want her. He was going to remember the holier-than-thou attitude she’d arrived with, and he was going to ignore anything else that might have changed the way he saw her. Right now, she represented pain and confusion, and he didn’t want any of it.
He turned around at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, trying to calm himself down enough that he wouldn’t take it out on his undeserving mother. He couldn’t help his angry tone or his words, though, when he saw exactly who it was. “What are you doing here?”
Lois’s eyes dropped from his briefly before she met his gaze again. “We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”
She took the final step up to get to the loft level and Clark unconsciously retreated.
“Don’t, Clark,” she said, sounding as if she were almost pleading with him. “You don’t know what I had to do to get back here! I had to get Per… and the plane…” She waved a hand distractedly.
“Are you staying?” he interrupted. There was no sense of welcome in his posture and he knew it.
They were back to day one.
She bit her lower lip and he knew he had his answer. “No,” she answered after the brief hesitation, flicking a glance over her shoulder. “I had a taxi bring me out here… he’s still outside. I, ah,” she paused and swallowed. “My chariot turns into a pumpkin at midnight.”
He knew it was meant to make him laugh, but at that moment, even Robin Williams riding by in a fat suit and throwing food (“Drive by fruiting!”) wouldn’t have coaxed a smile out of him. “What do you want, Lois?” he asked, adding the feeling of fatigue to the list of emotions that were fighting for headspace.
She quickly crossed the area and stood in front of him, inserting herself into his personal space. Instead of day one, they were now back to earlier *that* day when he had done the same to her in the stables.
He held the football in front of his chest, clutched between both hands as his last line of defense. “What do you want?” he repeated, still trying to get at her purpose for being.
She lifted a hand to his face and began stroking his cheek with her thumb. “I want to say goodbye.”
The little voice in his head that had been stoking his internal fire all night screamed at him to pull away. It started ringing warning bells and setting off torpedo sirens. It reminded him that the situation had not changed—that it would not change. It threw a mental alarm clock set for midnight in his face. And then, as Clark swallowed thickly and turned his face further into her hand, the little voice—who had become a big voice—reminded him of the ‘L’ word (“Loathe!”) and repeated his mantra (“He didn’t *want* any of it.”).
Clark grudgingly accepted that the voice was right. He didn’t want her there. He didn’t want her in his space, in his mind, in his sight…
…But most of all, he didn’t want to *need* her like he did that in that moment.
He needed this goodbye. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t an answer, but whatever it was… he needed it. And he needed it *right now*.
The voice in his head was silent as he dropped the football and ducked his head to finally complete the kiss he had been denied of earlier.
~\s/~
tbc...
