He’d done it again. It seemed that every time he saw Lois Lane, Clark came away with an appointment for yet another interview. And yet, he didn’t regret this one. He no longer held any illusions that he was capable of controlling the course of a conversation with the ace reporter, but that thought no longer inspired the terror that it had only a few days earlier.
Why was that? Because Lois had shown herself to be a friend to Superman. He still needed to watch his step, but if he did let something slip inadvertently, he trusted her not to use it against him. Lois knew that Superman had enough enemies as it was, and she seemed determined to show him that he had at least one ally as well.
So it wasn’t very difficult for Clark to project an air of easy confidence as he strode into the lobby of the Daily Planet and quickly scanned the directory for the newsroom. The handful of people who had been waiting in front of the elevators parted like the Red Sea to let him pass. A chime sounded, and the elevator doors opened. Clark stepped through them, and when they closed again a moment later, he found himself alone. He was used to being recognized in public, of course. But, whereas people who recognized Clark Kent normally either pretended not to out of courtesy, or attempted to make small talk with their favorite writer, these people, who didn’t have the option of pretending not to recognize Superman, had clearly decided to give him a wide berth. Clark chose to assume that it was a matter of respect and not fear.
Seconds later Clark emerged from the elevator into a small reception area overlooking an array of desks humming with activity.
It only took a moment for the hum to fade from dull roar to absolute silence. Every eye in the room was on him. Out of sheer force of habit, he almost broke into his Clark Kent ‘charm the adoring public’ smile, but stopped himself just in time. Allowing only a slight softening of Superman’s usual stern expression, he favored the crowd with a small nod of acknowledgement. Lois rose to her feet and strode toward him, her right hand extended in welcome.
“Good afternoon, Superman. Thank you for coming.” Her voice was pitched for the entire room to hear. “I’ve got the conference room all set up for our interview.” By this time he’d met her halfway down the newsroom ramp, and they shook hands in the manner of professional acquaintances.
“It’s my pleasure, Ms. Lane. I can think of no finer reporter to tell my story.”
Lois nodded and smiled in gracious acknowledgement of the compliment. “If you’ll follow me…” She led the way to the smaller of the Planet’s conference rooms and closed the door behind him. Clark noticed that the blinds on the conference room windows were closed. He took a seat on the far side of the table, catty-corner from the head of the table where a pad of paper, pencil, and small tape recorder were neatly arranged.
Lois walked to a credenza next to the door and poured two cups of coffee. “Cream and sugar for you, right?” she asked over her shoulder. To anyone but Clark, she would have seemed perfectly at ease. Her racing heartbeat told him otherwise.
“Yes, thank you,” Clark replied. Lois carried the two coffees to the table, then sat down and faced him across the corner of the table.
Without preamble she glanced at the closed door, then leaned forward and told him in hushed tones, “I think we have a problem.”
“I beg your pardon?” What problem could there be with Superman giving Lois Lane an exclusive interview? It was at the top of every reporter’s wish list.
“There are some things we need to discuss before I can interview Superman. But not here.” Cold fingers walked up and down Clark’s spine. Why was Lois referring to Superman in the third person?
“What do you suggest?” He was proud of how calm and assured his voice sounded.
“I think we need to talk somewhere private. Somewhere with no chance of our being overheard.”
Clark frowned at that suggestion. He didn’t think a change of venue boded well for this conversation. “You want to talk in your apartment again? That seems a little…irregular for an interview.”
Lois shook her head. “No, not my apartment. We shouldn’t be seen arriving there together, and, besides, as you pointed out last time, I have neighbors. I was thinking more of you flying us somewhere. Somewhere isolated with no other people around.”
Clark’s frown only deepened. “Would you be comfortable with that? I know a few islands that no one else ever visits, but that would make you completely dependent on me for transportation there and back again. Are you certain that’s what you want?”
Lois was already gathering her things and stuffing them into her shoulder bag. “Yes. That would be fine.” She stood up and walked to the conference room’s exterior window, which, Clark now noticed, not only had the blinds open, but the sash as well. He stood and followed her.
She pulled the strap of her bag over her head so that it rested securely across her body. Then she turned to face him and said, “I’m about to ask you to trust me with something big. So I think it’s only fair that I demonstrate a little trust in you first.” She gestured out the window. “Shall we?”
*****
Lois could hardly believe what she was about to do. If her hunch was right, she was about to give away what could be the biggest story of her career. But what was her alternative? If she went about this in her typical Mad Dog mode she might get a Kerth-worthy story out of it, but at what price? She’d be ruining a good man’s life and probably costing the world a hero that it sorely needed. Not to mention blowing whatever small chance she might have of actually getting to know this amazing man—the man who, at the moment, held her in his arms as they swooped over turquoise water under an azure sky.
No. Superman was literally one of a kind; she’d never get another opportunity to meet a man like him. She’d told him only days earlier that she was his friend, and she wouldn’t give that up for anything. Her reporter’s instincts might be telling her she was crazy, but her heart was telling her that this man was worth going a little crazy over. Maybe the way she felt right now, cradled in his arms, had something to do with it. For the first time in a long time, she was determined to listen to her heart and put the man before the story.
Besides, if her hunch played out, she was still going to get one whopper of an interview out of this.
As they came in for a landing, Lois realized too late that a short skirt and three-inch heels were not the most practical attire for a tropical beach. Superman noticed her trouble, and he tried to compensate for her wobbly footing by offering her his arm for support, but it wasn’t helping much. In the end Lois solved the problem by removing her shoes and nylons, leaning one hand on Superman’s shoulder for support as she did so. So much for her professional image. At least he’d been gentlemanly and turned his head. Still, she consoled herself, bare feet were more dignified than a twisted ankle.
Her troubles were magnified by the lack of convenient seating afforded by an uninhabited island. Lois did not relish the thought of conducting this conversation with her 5’6” self face-to-chest with Superman in boots. Sitting down would put them on more even ground.
Clark noticed that Lois was glancing around the island as if looking for something, but it took him a moment to realize what it was she was searching for. Once he figured it out, the solution was pretty simple.
“Lois? Are you looking for a place to sit?”
Lois cast a startled glance at Superman. “I thought you said you didn’t read minds.”
Clark gave his best reassuring smile. “I don’t. It just seemed the logical inference. And, if you don’t mind, I think I can solve your dilemma.” So saying, he peered briefly into the island’s wooded interior, gave a small nod of satisfaction, then disappeared between the trees. When he emerged, he was carrying two good-sized logs, which he arranged across from each other on a level stretch of sand.
To Lois’s consternation, he calmly removed his cape and draped it over one of the logs, motioning for her to sit before taking his own seat on the opposite log. It was lucky for her that he sat down when he did. Otherwise she would have been far too distracted by the sight of that magnificent backside to focus on the job at hand. With ruthless determination, she forced her gaze onto his face.
Clark felt positively naked without his cape, but what else could he have done? He couldn’t expect Lois to sit bare-legged on the rough log in that short skirt, and neither one of them had anything else to use as a blanket. He very carefully kept his knees together as he sat, placing his hands as casually as he could in his lap.
“So…” they both began at once. At Lois’s nod, Clark began again. “You said there was something we needed to discuss before our interview.”
“Yes.” Lois removed her shoulder bag and placed it on the sand at her feet. Then she turned to Superman with a determined expression. “I want you to know that what I’m about to say, and anything you tell me in response, is completely off the record. I’m not taking notes, and I have no recorder going. This is strictly between you and me, not for publication unless and until you say so, which I expect you never will. And I could be completely off the mark to begin with, although I doubt it. So I’m asking you to trust me as a friend here, okay?”
“Okaaay,” he dragged the word out, clearly not entirely comfortable with this arrangement. “But you haven’t said what it is I’m to trust you about. It sounds like you believe you’ve discovered something about me which I might want kept secret. Would you mind telling me what it is?”
“Yes. No. I mean no, I don’t mind. Yes, I will tell you.” Superman merely raised his eyebrows in response. Lois tried again. “Yes, well, the thing is, I’ve been thinking about you a lot over the last few days.” The eyebrows climbed even higher. “Not that way,” Lois hastened to add. At least, not *only* that way, she edited silently to herself. “What I mean is, I’ve been thinking about your ship, and your globe, and the things you’ve said and done since I first saw you on the Prometheus, and I think we might have a problem.”
Clark gave her a wary look. “So you said at the Planet. But I still don’t understand. What exactly is the problem?”
Lois gave herself a mental shake and went for the direct approach. “I don’t think Superman is really you.”
“Come again?” Clark didn’t know what to make of that remark. “Lois, I just flew us both here from Metropolis in less than ten minutes. The operative word in that sentence being ‘flew.’ How could I not be Superman?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t Superman. I said Superman wasn’t you.”
“And that means?”
“That means that you have another name. One that I didn’t give you.”
Oh, oh. This was getting into very dangerous territory. Clark could see only one possible escape route, and he gave it his best shot.
“Of course I do. But, since I’m not sure you could even pronounce my Kryptonian name,” and since even I don’t know what it is, Clark added to himself, “I chose to accept the name that you gave me in that first article. I still don’t see what the problem is.”
It was a classic piece of Clark Kent misdirection, and it might have worked--on anyone other than Lois Lane.
“Let me spell it out for you, then. I told you about the warehouse where I found your ship.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what I didn’t tell you about, but what I remembered yesterday, was the collection of files there.”
“Files?”
“Yes. That warehouse was filled with all sorts of big metal objects under tarps—UFO’s I suppose—including your ship. But there was also this big, dusty, steel filing cabinet with photographs and reports detailing where the various items were found. I didn’t have time to find the one that matched your ship, but I remember that they were all labeled with places and years. You know, like ‘Roswell, New Mexico, 1947.’ But here’s the thing: none of the dates I saw was after 1969. I’m positive about that.”
“The year that Project Bluebook was disbanded,” Clark provided.
“Exactly!” she exclaimed in triumph.
“I’m still waiting for the problem.” He could see precisely where this was headed, but he wasn’t going to give her any help in getting there.
“The problem, ‘Superman,’” Clark could hear the quotes around his name in her tone of voice, “is that your supposed supply ship was in that warehouse of very *old* UFOs, under a very dusty tarp. I don’t think it was a supply ship after all, or at least not a recent one. I think that ship has been sitting in that warehouse for over twenty years. Which means that either you or someone else from Krypton has been on Earth at least since then.”
“I see.” Internally, Clark was repeating, ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic!’ in an endless loop. It wasn’t helping. “And this is the part that you *don’t* intend to publish? Why not? Besides the fact that your evidence has gone missing? Or is that the only reason?” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Lois deserved better, but he had learned the hard way to be wary of reporters, and old habits die hard.
There was a flash of fire in Lois’s eyes at that remark. “Now don’t you start that again, Mister. I thought we already established that I don’t work that way, that I’m *trying* to be your friend here. It would help if you’d trust my motives just a little bit. Because, believe me, if I intended to expose your secret we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You would have read about it on the front page of the Daily Planet.”
Clark blinked. He wasn’t used to having anyone talk to him like that, either as Superman or as Clark Kent. Then again, this was the woman who had called out Lex Luthor in his own home in front of Metropolis’s social elite. Why should he expect her to be intimidated by Superman? Besides, she was only giving voice to what he had just been telling himself, anyway.
“I’m sorry, Lois. That wasn’t fair. And I do appreciate your talking to me first. I’m just not sure how to answer you.”
Lois crossed her arms and pinned him with a steady gaze. “For starters, you can tell me whether I’m right or not.”
The half-truth was on the tip of his tongue. It would be so easy to say, “I swear to you, Lois, that I never stepped foot in Metropolis before last month.” It would even be true, as far as it went. It just wouldn’t be truthful. Still, he needed a little more from Lois before he could do what he couldn’t believe he was thinking of doing.
“And then?” he hedged.
“And then, once I understand what’s really going on, we decide together what Superman is going to say in his interview.”
“*His* interview?”
Lois shrugged. “Like I said, we need to talk before I can interview Superman. If I’m right, if Superman isn’t really you, then, after you’ve told me whatever you’re willing to about who you are, you step back into character and I interview Superman—you know, that guy who appeared out of nowhere and saved my life a couple of weeks ago. The one who, as far as I’m concerned, has no past.”
Clark couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt like a condemned man who’d been given a last-minute reprieve. It couldn’t be that easy.
“Why?” He tried to keep the suspicious tone out of his voice, but her offer just didn’t make sense. “You’re one of the most ambitious reporters around. And one of the best. Why would you pass up a story that big?”
“For a couple of reasons. One is that I think Superman is amazing and I don’t want him to disappear. If I’m right and you’ve been here for years, that means you have another identity—one you’ve been protecting by hiding your abilities all this time. I don’t know what made you decide to show yourself now, but I’m really glad that you did. For me and for all of us. The world needs Superman.”
“Okay, I guess that’s fair enough. What’s the other reason?”
Lois leaned just a little closer and put a gentle hand on his knee. “Can we be really honest here? You stop being Superman and I stop being Ace Reporter and we just talk? Person to person?”
What could he say in response to that? Just accepting that offer would be tantamount to admitting that Superman was not the real him. But she already knew that, didn’t she? She’d seen past that façade the other night in her apartment when she looked below the cape to the man who needed a friend. Meanwhile, he was almost certain that her hand was burning a hole right through his tights.
“Okay.” He covered her hand with his own. “Strictly off the record,” he smiled.
Lois sat up again, releasing their mutual grasp, but she didn’t release his eyes from hers. “I think you’re an incredible person,” she began, “and I don’t mean because of the things you can do. I mean because of the things you *choose* to do. You have more power than any other person on this planet, yet you choose to use it to help the rest of us. That’s a rare and wonderful thing. I told you before that I want to be your friend. I meant it then and I mean it now. And I don’t betray my friends. Believe me,” she added with a little smile, “I don’t have enough of them to spare any.”
Clark was flabbergasted. It seemed so out of character for Lois Lane to bury a scoop of this magnitude, yet she made it sound perfectly logical. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said in wonder. “You’d pick a friendship with me over a front page story?”
“Any day of the week.” A small twinkle crept into her eye as she added, “but don’t let it go to your head, flyboy. I fully intend to get a front-page story out of this.” At his worried look, she added, “The first exclusive interview with the caped wonder? You better believe that’s worth the front page.”
Clark gave a decisive nod. “That sounds great, Lois.” She smiled, but her smile froze when he added, “I still have one more question, though.”
“Okay, shoot,” she said. Inside she was hoping that this question wasn’t going to be the one that blew the whole deal, but she tried not to let her fear show.
“Why bring this up at all?” At her questioning look, he continued, “If you never planned to publish your theory, if your plan was always just to interview Superman as if he’d just arrived on Earth, why tell me about your suspicions in the first place? Why not just interview Superman without ever letting on that you didn’t buy the whole story?”
Was that all? Lois relaxed and answered, “You’re kidding, right?”
Superman merely shook his head in response.
She was going to have to spell it out for him. “This is Lois Lane you’re talking to. An insatiable sense of curiosity is what made me who I am. Once I got the idea in my head, how could I not try to find out if it was true? Just because I’m not going to publish it doesn’t mean that I’m not dying to know! Wouldn’t you be?”
Clark let out a laugh, amazed and delighted at the sheer honesty of Lois’s answer. “Okay, Lois. You’ve got yourself a deal,” he announced. “I can’t promise to tell you everything you want to know, and you’re right that I won’t ever want this to be published, but, yeah, you’ve got the basic idea. Superman is a cover. He lets me use my abilities openly and still have a normal life. At least in theory.”
“In theory? It’s not working out so well in practice?”
“Who’s asking? Friend Lois or Reporter Lois?”
“We’re still off the record. I’ll let you know before that changes.”
“Well, off the record, just me talking, my real life isn’t that normal to begin with.”
“Are you going to tell me who you really are?”
“I don’t know. Not today, anyway.”
Could he imagine ever telling Lois the whole truth about who he was? She wouldn’t be the first person he’d trusted with his secret. Lana and Pete had both accepted the strange things he could do with good grace. He didn’t know where he’d be today if he hadn’t had them and his folks to confide in. But this was different. Lois already knew what he could do. What she didn’t know was who he really was. And after that disastrous evening at the Jade Inn, he intended to keep it that way. At least until she got to know him better.
Meanwhile, Lois was looking disappointed, and he felt she at least deserved an explanation. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Lois,” he offered. “It’s partly that this isn’t only my secret to keep. There are other people I need to talk to before I could even consider telling you everything.”
“And…?” Lois prodded.
“And…this might sound silly, but since we’re being brutally honest here, sometimes I’m not sure that even I know who I really am anymore. Or that I like who I really am. And I’m almost certain you wouldn’t. Like me, that is.”
Lois gave him a look of utter disbelief. “What’s not to like? You’re a pretty great guy.”
“You might not think so if you knew the real me.”
“Really? So this is the fake you talking to me now?”
He looked confused, as if she were the one who weren’t making sense. “No,” he began, “this is…” His voice trailed off. It seemed he’d lost his train of thought.
“This is just me,” he said quietly, as if he’d just now thought of it. A slow, satisfied smile spread over his features. “Thanks, Lois .”
Lois returned his smile with one of her own. “You’re welcome…I think. What specifically are you thanking me for?”
Clark tried to pour all the gratitude he felt into his next words. “For letting me be myself with you. For helping me realize that I don’t have to be the person I’ve been playing at for years, that the man with my name is not the real me any more than Superman is. For giving me hope that I can become someone I like again.”
“Wow, that’s a lot. I don’t know what to say.” Lois was a little overwhelmed by his reaction. She’d done all that? Just by stating the obvious—that Superman, or whoever he was under that flashy costume, was a pretty great guy? It looked like her initial instinct had been right—this man really did need a friend.
“You don’t have to say anything, Lois.”
No, she didn’t have to, but the entire conversation was getting far more intense than she had planned, and Lois had no idea how to get out of it and back to firmer ground. Finally, in sheer desperation, she seized on the thing that always saved her when her emotions got too much for her—work.
“So,” she began in a too-bright voice, “are we all set here? Shall we head back to the Planet ? Is Superman ready for his interview?”
Clark, who was starting to feel a little embarrassed by all his soul-baring, was happy to follow Lois’s lead. Shaking off his earlier solemnity, he stood and replied with an attempt at an easy grin, “He will be, as soon as the Ace Reporter stands up and lets him shake the sand out of his cape.”
Lois’s laugh rang over the island. “As you wish, Superman.” She stood and began to gather her things for the trip back to Metropolis. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “if you won’t tell me your real name, I’m just going to have to come up with another one. I can’t keep calling you Superman with a straight face.”
“Lois,” Clark grinned while shaking the sand from his cape, “you can call me anything you like. Except Norbert. I don’t think I could answer to Norbert, even for you.”
