She squeezed his hand. "Shall I get dessert?"
"What do we have?"
"Tiramisu."
"What's that?"
"A coffee, cake, cream, and chocolate mix that tastes divine."
"It sounds wonderful."
"I'll get it."
Clark nodded but didn't make any move to disconnect his hand from her grasp. "Lois," he said, and it wasn't a word, but a caress. "Thank you."
She smiled as love for him infused her heart. But it was a love that she couldn't speak out ... a love she couldn't act upon.
Not yet.
Part 18
Eric Menzies checked the time.
It was too early to think about going home. Phoebe had made it very clear that she found his presence intolerable.
He knew that being alone all day - and all night, too, since she had moved into the spare room - wasn't good for her, but he had no desire to incite her certain fury.
He trudged to the boxes that Scardino had brought this morning and picked out the first book from the top box. It was the logbook. Menzies took it back to his desk, pulled out a drawer, perched his feet on it, and picked up his glass of scotch.
He glared at the cover as if it were somehow responsible for everything.
This was going to end in trouble. He could feel it in his bones.
Anything involving Phoebe's nephew always brought trouble.
But if Eric looked through this logbook, he would be able to answer truthfully if Phoebe inquired.
Thankfully, Neville had had enough sense to speak in riddles when Phoebe had been with them. Even so, she had comprehended Neville's righteous indignation at his removal from the operation, and she'd later made it very clear that she expected Eric to impose retribution on the unnamed woman who had dared to mistreat her nephew.
Eric's focus swung from the book, and he gazed - as he did so often - at the photo of the little curly-haired boy that adorned his desk.
The whisky glass was empty when Eric finally broke from his contemplation of the photograph. He opened the logbook and began to read.
||_||
Clark rested the spoon in his empty bowl.
"Did you like it?" Lois asked. She knew he had - and she had savoured his enjoyment.
"It was delicious," Clark said as he dabbed his mouth with the napkin. "The whole meal was perfect, Lois."
"What would you like to do now?"
"Do you have any ideas?" Clark asked.
"Some," Lois said with a smile. "But I'd like your thoughts first."
He gestured to the table. "Lois, this is just so far beyond anything I ever expected to have again." He smiled with gracious appreciation. "We can do anything you'd like to do."
No. They couldn't.
"How about a movie?" she suggested quickly.
Surprise lit his eyes. "A movie?"
"I have a small television and a VCR in my office."
"A VCR? That's a machine to play video tapes, right?"
"Yeah. Have you seen them before?"
"I've seen them," Clark said. "Mom and Dad didn't have one at the farm, though."
Lois stood from the table. "I'll clear this stuff away. Then, could you move the table, please? We'll set up the television on it."
"Are you sure you'll be comfortable enough sitting on the floor?" Clark asked.
Lois paused at the door. "I dropped into my dad's place on the way home from the airport and took his camp mattress and sleeping bag and an extra pillow. We should be very comfortable."
"Are you sure?"
She could see his regret at the deficiencies of their surroundings. "Clark, it's not about where we sit." She smiled at him. "It's about the company."
He opened his mouth to respond and then let it relax into a smile.
Lois waltzed into the staffroom in a swirl of happiness.
She was in love with Clark.
Totally.
Utterly.
Wholeheartedly.
In love with the man.
But the face ... the smile ... She hadn't expected *that*.
The memories of their meal ... the promise of the movie ... it was enough to push away the cold harsh reality of their situation.
She would enjoy this evening. She would enjoy basking in the warmth of his smile. She would delight in restoring another little piece of what Trask had taken away.
Tomorrow ... she would decide how they were going to find answers to their questions.
But she wasn't going to allow the shadow of tomorrow spoil their time together tonight.
||_||
"There," Lois proclaimed. "Almost like being in a movie theatre."
Clark's eyebrows arched as he sat next to Lois on the springy thickness of two mattresses. "A movie theatre?"
She gestured to where the small television was positioned on the table. "We're looking *up* to the screen," she explained. "Just like in a theatre."
Clark chuckled as he put one pillow behind his back and hunkered to get comfortable. "If you have a *lot* of imagination."
Lois shoved her pillow behind her and tried not to look too longingly at Clark's broad shoulder. Would he notice if her head slipped sideways during the movie?
"What movie do we have?" Clark asked.
That hadn't been an easy choice. Lois hadn't consulted Clark - not wanting to highlight the seven-year gap in his knowledge of the world. She had avoided anything violent, anything romantic, and anything particularly heart-wrenching involving families. But she'd also not wanted to insult him by choosing a movie that was aimed only at children less than ten years of age. "Do you like dogs?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "Of course."
"I thought you would - being a farmboy." She picked up the video case and handed it to him. "Beethoven."
"Beethoven," Clark said as he perused the cover. "I figure *not* the composer?"
"No," she said. "The dog." She looked at the cover, and her doubts rose again. Perhaps it was too juvenile. "Do you think it will be all right?"
Clark smiled. "I think it will be exactly right," he replied. "As you said, it's about the company."
Lois pressed the remote, and the movie began. Three minutes in, she readjusted the pillow and inched closer to Clark.
Twenty minutes after that, her head made first contact with his shoulder.
He looked down at her with a smile. "Tired?"
She nodded - and the movement settled her further into his shoulder.
As the movie played out on the little screen, Lois filtered everything through Clark's reactions. She smiled when he chuckled. She laughed when he laughed. She tried to discern the things that had changed from the world he remembered.
Too soon, it was over.
And Lois no longer had an excuse to recline on Clark's shoulder.
It was late.
As she had watched the movie, Lois had given some thought to how they were going to end a date that couldn't finish as most first dates did - on her doorstep.
She couldn't kiss him.
A hug stayed - just - on the right side of the line.
Friends hugged each other.
Friends did not kiss - mouth on mouth. And it wasn't fair to Clark to hint at such intimacy with a peck on the cheek.
It would open all sorts of possibilities that couldn't be opened yet.
Not until he was free.
So - Lois promised herself - whatever she *felt* like doing, however much she was captivated by those brown eyes and that mouth that begged to be explored, she wouldn't kiss him. Not while she was still his guard, and he was still her prisoner.
But once they were free ...
Clark waited until she lifted her head from his shoulder. Then he stood and offered her his hand. He pulled her to her feet, and they stood together - their hands still attached.
She was only a few inches from his face - a face that was no longer hidden behind the bushy beard.
And every fibre within her was being drawn towards him.
Clark pushed his free hand into the pocket of his grey trousers and looked at his feet.
"What are you thinking?" Lois asked.
He smiled self-consciously. "I'm not sure whether I should offer you your sleeping bag back. You can have it - of course - but I'm not sure if you ..."
Lois put her hand on his elbow. "Dad's is bigger. Would that be more comfortable for you?" She grinned. "Or have you become accustomed to Winnie?"
"I'd like to keep yours ... if you don't mind."
She gently squeezed through his jacket. "I don't mind at all."
"Thanks."
"We can't leave your suitcase in here," Lois said wistfully. "And you'll have to get changed back into your shorts and tee shirt."
"I know," Clark said.
"I'm sorry," Lois said. "I wish it could be different."
"It *is* different," Clark said. "It is so different."
"Thanks for understanding." She looked around the cell. "Did you make the 'wig'?"
Clark released her hand and went to the corner of the cell. He returned with a hairy object that made Lois want to laugh aloud. She restrained herself - until she saw the grin on Clark's face.
"Would you like to see it on?" he offered.
"No," she said with a giggle. "I like you just the way you are now."
Her words choked their shared amusement and intensified the feeling in Clark's eyes as they meshed with hers.
You *like* me?
His mouth didn't move, but that in no way lessened the impact of his question.
Lois smiled and rubbed her hand down his arm. "Yes."
Wonderment laced his smile, and for a moment, they stared at each other.
"I ... I like you, too," Clark said.
Lois had to look away. She didn't trust herself to keep her recklessness in check if she kept drinking in the ocean of feeling in those spectacular brown eyes.
She took the bathing cap-wig from him and laughed. "You did a great job," she said.
Clark looked down at her with earnest appreciation. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you so much for a wonderful evening."
"Thank you," Lois replied. "I had a great time, too."
Before she could be tempted to drown in his gaze again, Lois pushed the wig into his hands and picked up her dad's sleeping bag.
For the next few minutes, they worked together to remove all evidence of their date from the cell. On one of her return trips, Lois brought down her sleeping bag for Clark and gave it to him with a cheerful, "Here's Winnie."
He grinned and thanked her, and as she took the VCR back up the stairs, she reflected on how she and Clark were getting more adept at negotiating potentially awkward situations.
Did that say something about him?
About her?
Or - her heart did a happy dance - about *them*?
She was so sure about Clark. He was what had been missing from her life. He was someone who gave her the freedom to be exactly the person she had always wanted to be.
Herself.
With Clark, she could be Lois.
No pretence. No hiding. No deception. No charades.
Linda had given her that, too.
But with Clark ... it was so much more.
He filled her heart in ways it had never been filled before.
And she loved him.
||_||
Eric Menzies stared at the hand-written words as a horrified revelation crashed over him.
Neville had killed again.
Eric flipped back to the start of the book.
He skimmed through it - reading a sentence here and there - whenever he saw the words 'Achilles' or 'rod'.
In every instance, the presence of the rods was enough to totally disable the alien. They had been used at his capture. They had been used to enable the surgery to be done. Trask documented his order that no one was to enter the cage without the protection of the rods.
And then came this ...
He killed today.
Deller and Moyne entered the cell, and the animal attacked Deller. Despite the valiant efforts of Moyne, the kill was swiftly and expertly accomplished.
Deller had become lax in obeying the rules - fatally so. He entered the cell with Moyne, but only Moyne was armed with the Achilles rod.
And a few pages later, this ...
He killed again.
Moyne and Bortolotto entered the cell to take him food. As they placed the food on the floor, he sprang on them from behind, killing Bortolotto instantly. Moyne ran for his life - and watched, horrified and helpless, as the beast mauled the broken body of his prey.
Eric turned back to the page where it had all become so gut-wrenchingly clear.
March 1, 1988
Today, I strengthened my position over the enemy. We exposed him to the Achilles for a full twelve hours overnight, leaving him weak and defenceless this morning. The surgery was performed by Moyne and Shadbolt.
The rods ... whatever they were ... weakened the alien to such an extent that two men were able to perform surgery on him.
And Menzies knew enough about Jason Trask to strongly suspect that no anaesthetic had been used.
Yet two men hadn't been able to prevent the alien from killing. In the first death, Trask had noted that Neville had a rod - which, according to everything else Eric had read in the log, would have rendered the alien totally incapacitated.
Deller had died.
Neville had killed.
Again.
Probably twice.
Why hadn't he, Eric, followed up?
He'd known Neville had a vicious streak.
He'd strongly suspected that Neville had killed during his previous assignment.
But Eric, fearing the recriminations from Phoebe, had used every ounce of his authority and ability to bluster through a situation to dislodge the glare of suspicion from Neville. The next thing Eric had heard, Neville had been assigned to the bizarre and very hush-hush assignment that involved guarding a monster believed to be an alien.
Eric had sighed with relief. This assignment would keep Neville occupied, and it would keep him in Metropolis, which, in turn, would mollify Phoebe. Eric had given no thought to whether the captive was actually an alien - but he did know that even the suspicion that he was not human would be enough that, should he die, his death would barely raise a rustle of questions.
Never once had it entered Eric's mind that the victims would be fellow agents.
He sank his head into his hands as self-condemnation clawed at his insides.
Phoebe wouldn't cope. She wouldn't. For reasons Eric had never understood, she'd always had a particular fondness for her sister's son. Perhaps it had begun when Neville was a child, and Phoebe had been facing the heartache of not being able to conceive a baby of her own.
Then - when they had just about given up - Phoebe had become pregnant, and their son, Malcolm, had been born. For seventeen years, life was good. Phoebe was happy. Eric had enjoyed the time at home between assignments. Malcolm had grown up - he had been indulged by his mother, but Eric's attempts at discipline had never been vigorous enough to cause any real ripples in the harmony on the home front.
Then, as unexpectedly as his conception, the veil had lifted on Malcolm's drug abuse, and their lives had been thrown into turmoil as their son fought his heroin addiction.
Eric had taken leave from work to try to save his son.
It had been for nothing.
Malcolm had died from an overdose two months ago.
Phoebe was inconsolable.
She hadn't left the house since the day of Malcolm's funeral. Every one of Eric's suggestions had been met with hot tears and enraged accusations that she would still have her son if Eric had stayed at home and been a father.
He'd failed his wife.
He'd failed his son.
And now, this with Neville ...
It would kill Phoebe if anything happened to Neville.
After he'd come whining about his removal from the alien operation, Eric had investigated the details of the new assignment Scardino had given Neville. It was perfect. He would be working alone. He would be working in one of the most volatile and dangerous places on earth. He would be working in a place where death was an everyday occurrence.
Neville would survive. Eric had no doubt about that.
And he probably couldn't get into any sort of trouble that was likely to follow him back to the US.
But ... something had to be done to ensure that no one reopened the case of the two agents who had died on Bessolo Boulevard. Not while Phoebe was so fragile.
Eric closed the logbook and stared at the photo that had been taken on Malcolm's fifth birthday - the first one when Eric had been home.
He hadn't been able to save his son.
But he would save Neville.
And to do that, he had to ensure that the alien operation was terminated and removed from every record.
||_||
Clark knew that sleep was not going to come quickly.
His mind was overflowing with the events of the day. That seemed to happen a lot lately.
Since he'd met Lois Lane.
His parents weren't at the farm. There was some disappointment in that - but he'd never believed that Trask would have allowed his parents to return to Smallville.
Scardino had met with Moyne's uncle today. What would come of that meeting? What would it mean for Clark? More importantly, how would Moyne's continuing involvement affect Lois? Would she be in danger from him?
Clark couldn't think about that without needing to jump up and begin pacing. And he couldn't do that with Lois on the other side of the window.
He pushed back his fears - pushed them away to the dark recesses of his mind and opened up the book of memories that he and Lois had written today.
There were so many of them.
The movie.
Lois had made a perfect choice. He'd laughed more than once. He'd glimpsed the world as it was now - he noticed slight changes to the cars, and the clothes, and the fads of language, and the advancement in technology.
He'd revelled in everything - those things so mundane that he doubted they would mean much to anyone else. The grass, the flowers, the animals, the trees, the stores, the sky, the people ... everything.
But his overwhelming memory was ... would *always* be ... the feel of Lois's head leaning against his arm. When she had first touched him, he had hardly dared to breathe. He hadn't wanted to do anything that would make her think that he didn't like her being there.
He did.
He loved the feel of her against him.
There was so much else to recall.
The meal ... He would never forget the meal. They had sat at a table - it had been a fold-away table with no cloth, and they'd still been in a grimy concrete cell, but none of that had mattered.
The food. The wine. The dessert. Sitting on chairs. At a table. Using plates and cutlery. Sharing a meal with someone.
And not just with anyone, but with a woman who took his breath away every single time he looked at her.
And that was when she was dressed in jeans and a sweater.
Tonight ... Her dress had been exquisite. It was modest in style, but the soft material had lightly clung to Lois's body, hinting at her womanly curves.
She'd worn shoes of the same colour - with heels high enough to shape her calves and accentuate the slight swing of her hips when she walked.
Lois Lane was a beautiful and sophisticated woman.
And she'd chosen to spend the evening with him.
She had given him things that he'd thought would never be his again.
Being able to dress in the clothes of his choice.
Wearing socks and shoes.
Clark ran his hand through his short, neat hair.
From tomorrow night, he would wear the cap when he slept. Tonight there was no need - it was Lois who was *guarding* him.
Lois.
Every moment spent with her made him more certain that a life without Lois wouldn't be a life.
And yet ... he couldn't get past the certain knowledge that it would end.
It *had* to end.
Why would a woman like Lois choose to spend her life with an alien?
She wouldn't.
He wouldn't let her.
She was young, and beautiful, and free, and one day she was going to meet someone and fall in love with him, and there couldn't possibly be a place in her life for an alien prisoner from another planet.
"Are you still awake?"
Her voice floated across the silence. Clark sat up and looked towards the window.
"I'm tired, but I don't feel sleepy at all," Lois's voice said.
Neither did Clark. He still had far too many memories to relive to want to waste time on sleep. But what was keeping Lois awake? She must have caught an early flight to Wichita. She should be asleep.
"Thank you for a lovely evening, Clark."
He smiled and waved to her and hoped she would realise he was trying to say that he had had a wonderful time, too.
"Goodnight, Clark."
"Goodnight, Lois."
He lay down again - facing the back wall so Lois would assume he was going to sleep, and she wouldn't be distracted by his wakefulness.
He was a long way from sleep.
There were two memories of the night that he had deliberately left until last.
There was the moment when they'd been laughing together over the ridiculous sight of his bushy hair exploding out from the bathing cap. The moment when she'd said, "I like you just the way you are now."
Her declaration had stolen his ability to speak. He'd stared at her like a dumbstruck doofus, and she had answered his unvoiced question with a resounding affirmation.
Lois *liked* him.
And then later had come the moment that would be forever carved into his mind.
The moment when their date had ended.
Actually ... the minute before that.
She had stood just inside the cell at the door.
He had stood and faced her - with absolutely no idea of how to bring closure to what had been the most unforgettable evening of his life.
Clark had been on a few dates. He'd taken the girl home. He'd stood on her doorstep. Mostly, they had parted with a hug. On four occasions, the girl had reached up and kissed him - once on the cheek and three times on the mouth.
All of the kisses had been quick.
All of the kisses had surprised him.
All had left him wondering how the girl would react if she knew she had kissed an alien.
But tonight ... Lois was no girl. She was a beautiful woman.
And she *knew*.
Clark had known she wouldn't kiss him.
But he'd wondered ... hoped ... obsessed over whether she would hug him again.
She'd smiled up at him ... he loved her smile so much ... particularly when she looked directly at him with those soft brown eyes.
She'd thanked him for a lovely evening.
As she said the words, her eyes and her smile had told him with certainty that she wasn't just being polite, she wasn't just playing a role.
She had truly enjoyed his company.
He didn't understand how that could be possible, but she had already told him that it was all right if he didn't understand why she did the things she did.
With anyone else, his suspicions would be rampant.
With Lois ... he believed her.
She *had* enjoyed being with him.
He had managed a few bumbling words about how much he had enjoyed being with her and then he had waited ... his breath snagged ... to see if she would do anything before she turned around and walked away.
She had paused. He wasn't sure for how long, but it had felt like many minutes. Then she had risen onto her toes, placed her arms around his neck, and hugged him.
The thing he remembered most vividly was the feel of her fingers as they had made contact with his neck. Perhaps the years of being covered with hair had made the skin there more sensitive.
Or perhaps it was just Lois.
Her touch had made his neck tingle.
He could still feel it.
He had curled his arms around her, loosely enough that she could avoid their bodies making contact if that was what she wanted. But she had leant into his chest. She had nestled her head into the curve of his shoulder.
Then, after a much-too-short time, she had backed away, bid him goodnight with a soft smile, and stepped into the staffroom.
Clark adjusted his position on the camp mattress.
Lois was just a few yards away.
Was she asleep yet?
She'd said she would come to see him for a few minutes before Shadbolt arrived tomorrow morning.
And then she would be back for her shift in the afternoon.
What would they do?
Would she be able to find O'Brien? Would he give her any information?
For so long, Clark had despaired of ever knowing the fate of his parents.
But Lois ...
Lois brought hope to the most hopeless of situations.
But now Moyne's uncle was involved.
Clark didn't want to think about Moyne.
He wanted to think about Lois.
And he had so much to think about.
Her head on his shoulder.
The rose scent of her perfume.
The feel of her fingertips on his neck.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
Her head on his shoulder.
The rose scent of her ...
