"Monday," Eric said. "By Monday, there is to be nothing left to even hint that any of this happened."
"But -"
Eric slammed down the phone.
Whatever Neville had done to those two agents, there would be no record of it. There would be nothing that could come back and upset Phoebe.
He had saved her from that.
She would never know that he'd done it for her.
But Eric was sure that if the trouble with Neville blew up, Phoebe would try again ... and next time, she wouldn't fail.
Part 23
~~ Friday ~~
Lois slept immersed in memories of Clark.
Good memories. Memories alive with hope and blooming with promise.
When she awakened, it was a few minutes past seven.
She lay in bed as thoughts of Clark lingered like the waning final notes of a beautiful song.
He had felt it, too.
He was more circumspect than she had been, but that was to be expected. If she had been in his position, she would have been haunted with similar uncertainties, similar fears that everything would be taken away ... again.
But Lois knew that she wasn't going to walk away.
What she felt for Clark was unlike anything she had ever felt before. She wanted to be with him ... but it was so much more than that. When she wasn't with him, her world faded to sepia.
She missed him. Suddenly, a forceful torrent erupted, birthing an idea. Lois lurched from her bed. She didn't want to wait long hours to see Clark again. She would go to the compound and into her office. She was sure she could concoct a viable excuse.
Shadbolt might think she was checking on him if she arrived unexpectedly two mornings in a row.
But ...
Any concern for where Shadbolt's ponderings might lead didn't come close to overpowering her desire to see Clark.
Lois dressed and drove to Bessolo Boulevard.
She unlocked the external door and stopped long enough to poke her head into the staffroom. Shadbolt was relaxed in the chair with his feet perched on the table as he read a space magazine. He looked up but didn't adjust his position.
"Hi, Evan," Lois said. "I have to sort out some notes for Scardino."
She didn't wait for him to respond before hurrying up the stairs. She opened the door to her office and locked it behind her.
Then, she crossed to the window. Clark was on the ground, doing push-ups - the wig jostling on his back with each movement. The muscles of his arm swelled under the sleeve of his tee shirt in a way that captured her eyes and held them spellbound.
Lois gulped.
It seemed that Clark's body was being sculpted daily. Was it because he hadn't been exposed to the rods for over a week? Was this how he was *supposed* to look?
She wrenched her feasting eyes from his body. "Clark?" she said.
He leapt to his feet, pulled the wig from his head, and looked towards the window.
"Good morning," she said.
He smiled and waved.
"Would you come over here, please?"
He walked to under the window and looked up. His forefinger pointed skywards.
"Yes," Lois said.
He slowly rose until he was level with her, his feet dangling.
"Good morning," Lois said, being careful to keep her voice to a whisper. "How are you?"
He smiled and nodded.
"You can obviously hear me," she said. "Can you see me?"
He shook his head.
"Is it safe to put your hands on the window?"
He scanned the edges of the window and then put his palms flat to the glass.
Lois matched her hands to his. "My hands are against yours," she said.
He looked at his hands and smiled. His mouth moved, but Lois wasn't concentrating enough to understand what he was trying to say.
"It's OK," she said. "You can hear me, and I can see you. That is enough."
His answer was a smile of agreement.
"Did you sleep well?
He nodded.
"Are you OK with what we talked about?"
Clark's lower jaw dropped in a precise and deliberate movement, and Lois chuckled softly. His smile evolved.
"It *was* kind of mind-blowing."
He nodded emphatically.
"I'm going to Scardino this morning. I'll try to find out what transpired at the meeting."
She read the concern in Clark's eyes.
"I'll be careful. Don't worry."
The broad, bulging-under-his-tee-shirt muscles of his shoulders lifted.
"I know you think you can't help," Lois said, smiling and hoping he would hear it in her words. "But just concentrate on when I arrive later this afternoon, and we'll have eight hours together to discuss everything."
His mouth moved, and Lois was able to discern his words.
"I'm looking forward to it, too," she said. "I couldn't wait to see you - that's why I came now."
His grin showed his delight at her comment.
She gazed at him - his face, his hair where the wig had left ripples of disorder, his large hands. Then she remembered that his only link to her was through her spoken words.
"Sorry," she said.
His expression was quizzical.
"If you must know, Mr Nosy, I was looking at you."
His eyebrows jumped.
"Yes, really."
His face was poised between surprise and pleasure. The words sprang into Lois's mind, and she opened her mouth. Now wasn't the time, but the compulsion was too strong to be denied.
"I love you, Clark."
The look on his face was something she would treasure for the rest of her life. His eyes opened wider and blinked rapidly, his mouth fell apart, and his fingers twitched.
Even had she been able to hear him, Lois was sure he wouldn't have been able to speak.
"I love you," she repeated.
Then, she remembered. She was supposed to be waiting for him to take the lead.
"I'm sorry, Clark. I should have -"
His head shook wildly, and his mouth formed the word 'no'. She continued watching his mouth.
"I love you, Lois."
She smiled, and her eyes blinked against the sting of tears. "You can't see me, so I'll describe for you - my eyes are damp with a gush of tears, and my heart is thumping around my chest ... and I can't remember a moment in my life when I've felt like this."
A fragment of the moisture in his left eye broke away and skittered down his cheek.
Lois chuckled and tried to bridge the gulf with words. "I just want to stare at you," she said. "You look so happy, and incredulous, and it's like you're almost daring to believe. When I look into your eyes, I can see the euphoria that I am feeling. I wish I could touch you."
"Your words touch me."
"I can lip-read some of what you're saying, but even though I can't hear you, you touch me, too - with your eyes and your smile."
His smile widened.
Lois wanted to gaze at him forever, but the outside world impinged on her consciousness, and she realised that it was going to be hard to explain a prolonged time in her office.
"I have to go," she said, hoping he would hear her regret.
She could see his disappointment.
"I will be back at two o'clock."
Clark nodded.
And then, his hand moved from the glass and went to his mouth. His kissed the pads of his fingers and blew towards her.
Lois laughed, and she saw that he had heard her.
His tinge of self-consciousness transformed into a wide smile.
"Does that count as a kiss?" Lois asked.
His shrug was so transparently flirtatious that giggles burst from her mouth. His eyebrows narrowed in semi-serious reminder to keep quiet, and she stifled her outburst.
"You are a tease," she whispered.
He grinned.
"And as much as I'm enjoying flirting with you, Mr Kent, I need to get out of here."
His smile died.
"Bye," Lois said. "See you soon."
He nodded and dropped onto the floor.
Lois picked up a handful of blank sheets of paper and shoved them into her bag. With a parting glance to Clark, who - bewigged again - had returned to his push-ups, she exited her office and locked the door.
When she arrived in the staffroom, Shadbolt was sipping a mug of coffee. A second mug was steaming in front of a vacant chair.
Lois looked from the coffee to Shadbolt.
"I made a drink for you," he said.
Why? Lois tried to iron the questions from her face as she slipped into the seat at the table. "Thanks," she said as she picked up the mug.
There was silence as Shadbolt took another gulp of his coffee. "I figure I owe you some sort of explanation," he said, his eyes not venturing in her direction.
"You do?"
"You got me out of a real fix yesterday," he said. "It was imperative that Layla finish the dress last night. It had all this elaborate stitching on it, and she said that even if I got another machine for her, there was every chance that the stitching would look different from what she had already done."
"Layla?" Lois said. "That's your daughter's name? It's very pretty."
The stiffness in his expression loosened a little. "Yeah," he said. He waited a few moments as if thinking about something ... or probably someone. His eyes refocussed, and he looked across the table to Lois. "You must be wondering how a cantankerous old grump like me ended up with two daughters."
"It's none of my business."
Shadbolt rubbed his fingers down his cheeks. "I wasn't very fair to you in the beginning," he said. "In general, I don't like women."
Lois couldn't help smiling at his directness. "I discerned that."
"Sorry." Shadbolt's smile flickered. "I can appreciate the irony," he said. "Me, a chauvinistic dinosaur, single-handedly raising two daughters."
"I would *never* have guessed."
He took a long gulp of his coffee and then set it on the table. "I was on assignment in a foreign country," he said. "And I met a woman."
Lois sipped from her coffee and waited.
"Shanti," Shadbolt said, and bitterness tainted the word. "I'd met women before. I was always honest - I always made it clear that I would be moving on ... but Shanti ... Shanti was different. I fell for her so hard that I believed every word she said ... everything about the man who had gotten her pregnant and left her, everything about how her family had rejected her and Layla because she wasn't married. When the assignment was over, I came home, pulled some strings, and got them into the US. I married her three days after she arrived."
It sounded like a story that should have had a happy ending.
"I was away a lot in the early years, and it soon became obvious that Shanti wasn't happy. I applied for any position that would keep me in Metropolis, and a few months later, I got this assignment. I missed being out in the field, and things didn't really improve with Shanti. I had the afternoon shift then, which meant I could be there for Layla in the morning and take her to school. Shanti told me she got a job working at night, so we only saw each other for a few hours each day."
But there was another daughter.
"Then, Shanti announced she was pregnant - five months pregnant. I wondered how she hadn't realised earlier, but my entire knowledge of pregnancy could have been written on a postage stamp, so I believed her. A couple of months later, she stopped working, and we saw a bit more of each other, and things weren't too bad for a while. I discovered that I was looking forward to the baby arriving and hoping that perhaps we could revive what we'd once had."
Shadbolt looked at her with a stony glare.
"What I *thought* we'd once had," he corrected bleakly.
Lois grimaced but said nothing.
"Anyway, the call came while I was here that Shanti had gone into labour, and I was to go home for Layla when she came from school. I had wanted to be with Shanti, but she said that in her culture, it was considered perverted for a man to be at a birth. The next morning, the hospital called."
"Your daughter had been born?" Lois guessed with a little smile.
"That was partly why they called," Shadbolt said with no discernable pleasure. "But mostly, they wanted me to come and get my daughter because her mother had left the hospital without her."
"Left?" Lois gasped.
"Shanti told the nurses that she had wanted a boy, and she had no interest in another daughter. The nurse told me that a man came to get her, and they left together. She'd already completed the paperwork - although she left the name part blank - and listed me as the father."
"She just *left*?" Lois asked. "She left her baby?"
Shadbolt nodded. "Looking back, I realised that her work - all those night shifts - probably wasn't a job but an affair. The nurse said she had thought that the man who came to pick her up was the baby's father."
"Oh, Evan," Lois said, easily able to imagine his shock and pain.
He released a harsh breath. "So there I was - a man most suited to the life of a bachelor with a newborn baby and a teenage daughter."
"Shanti didn't come to get Layla?"
"No. About a year later, I received divorce papers from her lawyer, but other than that, the girls and I never heard from her again."
"You didn't try to track her down?" Lois said.
"Nope," he said. "The girls deserve better than a mother who doesn't want them."
"I think their dad cares about them a lot," Lois noted.
He shrugged with a half-formed smile. "Except I don't like women."
"We're not all the same."
"I wouldn't know," he said. "I avoid women whenever possible."
"You wouldn't have had much time - between working here and looking after the girls."
"Not much time," he agreed. "And absolutely no inclination."
"You must be very proud of your girls."
He nodded, and the austerity of his features softened. "I am," he said. "They are the joy of my life - and despite the unconventional way we were thrown together, I wouldn't change a thing."
"I can tell that you're a wonderful father."
"Most of the time, I feel totally overwhelmed," he said. "Totally unprepared and unsuited for what they need. That's why I got so agitated about the sewing machine. I hate to think that either of the girls misses out on anything."
"What is your younger daughter's name?"
Shadbolt half smiled. "Abi," he said. "Short for Abigail. Do you know what that means?"
"No," Lois said.
"Father's joy."
"You chose her name?"
He nodded. "Somehow, it seemed important that she know that someone wanted her." A strange expression twisted across Shadbolt's face. "I'm not completely naive, Ms Lane," he said. "I do know that there is every chance that Abi isn't my biological daughter. But my name is on that birth certificate, and nothing else matters."
"It doesn't matter at all," Lois agreed.
Shadbolt stood abruptly from the chair and took his empty cup to the sink. "I would appreciate it if none of this went any further. I try to keep my work and my home separate."
Lois drained her coffee and added her mug to the sink. "I should go. I have a few things to do before my shift."
"There won't be any problems if you're half an hour late," he said. "I'll still have time to pick up the girls."
"Thanks for telling me about them."
"See you later, Ms Lane."
"Lois."
He grinned. "Lois."
She picked up her bag and left the compound, her mind awhirl.
Clark loved her.
And - more momentously - he seemed to believe that she loved him.
And Shadbolt ... who would have thought?
||_||
Lois carried three of the trays into the nursing home and gave them to Ronny.
Her face lit with excitement as she examined at them. "Lois! These are wonderful. They are *exactly* what I was hoping for. Your friend is brilliant."
"They are fairly simple."
"The best things are," Ronny said.
"I'll go and get the other three," Lois said. When she returned with the rest of the trays, Ronny held out an envelope.
"What's that?" Lois asked.
"Payment. Three hundred dollars."
"Three hundred dollars?" Lois gasped. "That seems too much."
Ronny vehemently shook her head. "No," she said. "Good work deserves good pay. Look at these mitre cuts - they are perfect. These trays are the work of a master craftsman. I can't believe they are finished already. Your friend deserves every dollar. Let me know if it's not enough - I'd happily pay more."
Lois slipped the envelope into her bag, mentally picturing the moment when she would give it to Clark. That too, would represent a step back into the real world - and give him hope that there would be ways he could earn a living when he was outside of the cell.
"Thanks, Ronny," she said. "I'll go and see Dad. I've brought him three more jigsaw puzzles."
"Three?" Ronny said. "That's fantastic. He really enjoyed doing the first one."
Lois walked to her father's room, smiling at the other residents as she went. "Hi, Dad."
She admired his completed puzzle and showed him the three boxes. When she asked if he wanted her to disassemble the completed puzzle, he blinked once. Lois chatted as she pulled apart the pieces of the Thunderbird. Then her dad indicated which puzzle he wanted to do next - a picture of woodlands - and they began.
Lois had put about a dozen edge pieces on the tray when she noticed that Sam was making the diving plane movement again.
Lois grinned. "You want to know about the man I love?"
He blinked once.
"Well, I told him that I love him, and he said that he loves me."
Her dad blinked once again. Lois took that as approval.
"He's amazing, Dad," she said, knowing the joy of her earlier encounter with Clark was bubbling in her voice. "He's honest, and caring, and gentle, and so very strong."
Her dad stared at her, and Lois could guess his question.
"I think what we have is real, Dad," she said earnestly. "I know that we met at a time when we were both vulnerable, but I honestly believe that whenever we had met, we would have fallen in love. We are meant to be together. I want to be with him. And I believe he wants to be with me."
Her dad reached for her left hand and rested his thumb on her third finger.
Lois understood immediately. "Marriage?" she said.
He blinked once.
Lois didn't have to think about her answer. "That is what I want, Dad. This is serious. This is forever. I want to marry him."
The right side of her dad's mouth twitched - the closest thing she had seen to a smile since his stroke.
"It might take some time. He's been through some difficult times. His dad died recently."
Her dad stared at her with eyes that seemed full of concern.
Lois rose from her seat and hugged him. "Thanks for understanding," she said. "Thanks for being my dad."
From Lois's bag came the shrill of her cell phone. She unfolded from the embrace and smiled an apology as she took her cell from her bag. Her heart dived when she saw that the call was from Scardino.
"Lois Lane," she said.
"It's Daniel Scardino," he said. "I need to see you."
His tone and his lack of build-up reached into Lois and snaked a path of trepidation through her pounding heart. "I'm visiting my father," she informed him coolly.
"When can you be here?"
Much as she dreaded what he would say, Lois knew she wouldn't be able to relax until she had found out why Scardino needed to see her. "Less than an hour."
"See you then."
Lois replaced the cell as fear scorched through her insides. The meeting. The meeting with Menzies. He had probably ordered her from the job.
In her mind, she listed the things she needed to do and then formulated her plan.
At the top of the list was her dad.
She put down the puzzle box and turned to him. In his eyes, she could see that he'd perceived her agitation. She covered his hand with her own. "Dad," she said. "There is something I need to tell you."
He nodded slowly.
"The man I love has to go away. I have to go with him. I don't know when I'll be back, but I want you to know that he will always look after me. I'm sorry that you weren't able to meet him, but I'm asking you to trust my judgement here. I trust him, and I know that he would never let anyone hurt me. I'll be with him - I'll be safe. And as soon as we can, I'll come back to Metropolis and visit you."
He blinked once, and Lois's tears rose.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she said brokenly. "I have so enjoyed spending this time with you, and we made such great progress in learning to communicate again. I want that to continue. I want to come back and keep going. But I can't give you any idea when that will be."
He blinked again.
"Hold me, Dad," Lois said as she stood from the chair and wrapped her arms around her father. His right arm lifted and grasped her back.
They stayed together for long moments as Lois drew strength from her father.
When she pulled away from him, her cheeks were wet with tears. "I love you, Dad," she said. "You do the puzzles, and keep working at the therapies, and I'll visit you as soon as I can."
He blinked once, and his hand made a slow path to his heart. "I know you love me," Lois said. "I will never forget that. I wish this could be different. I wish ..."
His hand reached for her face and clumsily brushed the tears from her cheeks. She looked deep into his eyes and saw his support. He knew so few of the details, but he trusted her. She felt a gush of love for her dad and hugged him again.
When she straightened, she arranged the foam pad in the bottom of the jigsaw puzzle box and put the pieces on it. Then she placed it on the bed where her dad could reach it.
"See you, Dad," she said, fighting down her tears.
His right hand lifted in farewell.
"I will be back as soon as possible."
He blinked once, then his face turned away, and his hand moved towards the box.
Lois gasped at first, but then she realised that he was telling her to go - to go and do what she needed to do.
"Dad?"
He looked up.
"Could I borrow your car, please?"
He blinked once.
"Thank you."
His focus returned to the box, and Lois left his room, her tears flowing freely.
||_||
Lois let herself into her dad's home and sprinted up the stairs. She went into his study, pulled out his hardcover copy of The Great Gatsby, and found the little key she wasn't supposed to know was hidden behind there.
She used the key to unlock the deep drawer in his large wooden desk and took out his black doctor's bag. She opened it and rustled through it, quickly finding what she needed. She took out a single-use scalpel, a syringe and needle, and a vial. She checked the label and recognised a brand name of prilocaine. Next, she found five packages - a laceration repair pack, a sling, a sterile pad, gauze squares, and butterfly clips. She pulled a handful of gloves from the box and added them to the steadily growing pile.
Did she have everything? She closed her eyes and retrieved her memories of the time when she had watched her dad treat Lucy's badly gashed leg.
Skin disinfectant!
She searched through the compartments of the bag and found the small packages of disposable wipes. In her mind, she went through the procedure, checking off what might be needed for each step. Confident she had everything, she snapped the bag shut, and replaced it in the desk drawer.
She gathered everything into her own bag, and a few minutes later, the key had been returned, and Lois stood at the door, inspecting the room for telltale signs of her visit.
Satisfied, she crossed the wide hall to the bedroom that had been hers when she had stayed with her father after he had separated from her mother. She entered, chose some items from the clothes she had left languishing in the closet, and shoved them into her rapidly filling bag.
She rummaged through her drawers and found one of her early wigs. It was hideous crimson in colour and looked more like a stuffed toy than something anyone would actually wear. Linda had dared her to buy it and double dared her to wear it.
As Lois pushed it into her bag, its shagginess reminded her of Clark's wig, and from the nebula of her assorted plans, one crystallised. It wouldn't change anything long-term, but it might buy them some time.
And every minute might be important.
Her idea expanded, taking on a life of its own. Despite the direness of the circumstances, she couldn't help the spurt of amusement that teased her mouth into a smile. She scurried back into her father's study and walked up to Jonas, the skeleton her dad had inherited from his uncle, who had been an orthopaedic surgeon.
"You're coming with me, Jonas," she muttered. She disconnected him from his stand and hunched him over her shoulder. After collecting her bag from her room, she went down the stairs and took the spare car keys from the hook in the entrance hall. In the garage, she unlocked her dad's Buick, lay Jonas in the trunk, and folded his legs onto his cavernous ribcage.
Upstairs again, she went into the bathroom and was pleasantly surprised to find her old toothbrush, a pot of moisturiser, and a rudimentary collection of make-up essentials - all in passable condition.
In the kitchen, she opened the pantry and crammed several packets of cookies, a handful of candy bars, and some cans of soda into her overflowing bag.
She put her bag next to Jonas in the trunk of the Buick and then checked the oil and water levels. The gas was over two thirds full. She wouldn't need to go to a gas station in Metropolis and risk someone linking her with her father's car.
The Buick started easily despite the length of time since it had been used, and Lois drove it into the street before parking her Jeep in her dad's garage.
She locked the Jeep and the garage and then got into the Buick and drove to Scardino's office.
