He was sure that something bad - really, really bad - had happened to Lois.
Worse than hearing her friend being violated and killed.
Clark's imagination rioted at what they might have done - sickening him.
Lois needed support. She needed understanding. She needed stability.
She needed someone to help her.
Someone whole. Someone human. Someone who would know instinctively what she needed.
And Clark wasn't that person.
It had been his greatest fear - and now he was sure.
He could never be what Lois needed.
Part 9
~~ Monday ~~
When Lois awoke the next morning, her first awareness was that every muscle in her body ached. Her neck felt like she had slept with it jammed in a vice. Her back felt as if it had been twisted into a half hitch. She jolted to a sitting position, groaning as armies of angry insects burrowed through her brain.
What had happened?
The other side of the bed was empty.
Where was Clark?
The room had been tidied, and their meal from last night had been cleared away. The bathroom door was open.
"Clark?"
There was no reply to break the silence.
Lois sank back into the pillows.
Why was she feeling so dreadful? She'd finally spoken openly about the darkness that had relentlessly stalked her mind. Shouldn't that have brought relief? She had fallen asleep to the melody of Clark's heartbeat, safe in the protection of his arms. She should have slept well. She should have been feeling refreshed.
Instead, she felt like she had spent the night embroiled in turmoil.
Had she said something in her sleep? Had she been subconsciously reliving the events in the dark room? A wave of horror crept over her. Had she, in her sleep, mistaken Clark for Ivica or Elan?
Surely Clark would understand. Surely he wouldn't leave on the strength of something she'd said or done while asleep.
And it wasn't as if she could physically hurt him.
So, where was he?
Lois rose gingerly from the bed and searched the room for a note. There was nothing.
Her anxiety spilled through her gut like bile. Where was Clark? Had someone come? How could she have slept through it? Could she possibly have been drugged? Or gassed? Was that why she was feeling so awful?
As she reached for her watch to check the time, the door opened, and Clark walked in.
She stormed towards him. "Where have you been?" she demanded.
He looked shocked at the ferocity of her advance. "Ah ..."
"Are you all right? Did someone come? What happened?"
"I'm fine," he said blankly. "No one came."
As relief flooded through her, Lois realised that Clark looked like she felt - as if he'd survived a turbulent night.
What had happened?
She stepped closer in a more sedate fashion and put her hand on his upper arm. He tensed. "What's wrong?" Lois asked as her bewilderment smothered the spark of her anger. "Did you go to Florida again? Are they chasing us?"
"There's nothing happening in Florida," he said.
"You checked?"
"Yes!" It was as close to snapping as Clark had ever come when speaking to her. Before the word had even left his mouth, he had stepped past her and moved towards the bathroom.
"Clark! You can't just walk away. What's wrong?" Lois shook her head - which was a bad idea - trying to clear her thoughts. "I don't understand what's happening here."
He turned, his face closed. He folded his arms across his chest and waited.
Lois moved into his line of vision. "Clark, I'm sorry I shouted. When I woke up, and you weren't here, I was worried. I panicked."
"I should have left a note," he said. "I wasn't thinking too straight."
"Why not?"
His mouth tightened, and he said nothing.
Lois's tears made a determined push, stinging her eyes. She blinked them away. "What *happened*, Clark?" she said. "I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been run over by a bulldozer; you're acting like we had a huge argument or something ... but the last thing I remember was crying on your chest before we went to sleep."
"You didn't sleep well. You were restless all night."
"I kept you awake?" she asked, trying to find something meaningful in his cryptic answers.
"No. It wasn't you."
"But you didn't sleep?"
"Not much."
"Why? Was it something I said last night?"
"Lois, do we have to do this now?"
"Yes, we do," she said. "Yesterday, everything seemed fine. We -"
"Yesterday wasn't real."
His cold statement dammed the torrential flow of her questions. "Excuse me?"
"We need to stop pretending," Clark said.
"Pretending?"
"Yesterday. Lunch in the cosy cafe. The ice creams. Pretending we're normal. I'm *not* normal. I'll never be normal, and you pretending we can have any sort of future together is not making this any easier."
"But ... but you seemed to be enjoying it, too," Lois protested weakly. "You seemed relaxed. You seemed -"
"I was 'playing a role'," he said bitterly. "You should understand that."
"You were pretending to be relaxed? Why?"
"You were happy. I like it when you're happy. I was willing to do anything to keep you happy."
"Even pretend to be happy yourself?"
He glared at her. "You asked me my greatest fear, and I told you. I *can't* be what you need." He abruptly turned away and yanked open the lid of the suitcase. "I have to find work. There are a couple of ads in the window of one of the stores. Farm work. I came to ask you if I can use the car to get to the farm."
He'd gone looking for *work*? Here? Now? Without talking to her about it? "Of course you can use the car," Lois said, as her mind retrieved the details of her plan. "But first, we need to get identification. When we were in Florida yesterday, I noticed a store that takes passport photos. We could -"
"I'm not having my photo taken."
The harshness of his voice spurred on her tears, but Lois fought them down. "Clark - at the very least you need a driver's licence. And you need it *before* you drive the car."
"I drove it yesterday."
"You need a licence."
He turned on her. "There's a small chance that any early photos or descriptions of me have been destroyed. If they are hunting for me, they could be looking for a hairy freak. It's just possible that how I look now could be something of a disguise."
"I understand that," Lois said, utilising reserves of patience that she hadn't known she possessed. "But you still need some form of ID."
"Do you have the cards? Or pieces of plastic? Or whatever you were going to use to make the licences?"
"Yes." Lois snatched her bag and rustled through it. She pulled out her kit for constructing ID and threw it onto the table.
"Can I see your licence?"
Lois took that from her purse and thrust it at Clark.
"I can do it," Clark said. "Without photos."
"You can *draw*?" Lois asked. "Photo quality?"
"Yeah. If we get some crayons, I can do it."
"Crayons?"
"They melt."
"Have you ever done it before?"
"No."
"Then how -"
"No photographs," he said firmly.
His eyes were fixed on her - hard and unyielding. "OK," Lois conceded. "No photographs."
"Can I have the keys?" Clark asked.
"Yes, you can."
He held out his hand.
"But first, I need you to answer a few questions."
He sighed as his hand dropped. But he didn't move away.
Lois felt as if he'd tossed a bomb into the middle of her carefully constructed schedule. She needed to take them back a step or two. "I'm not buying that yesterday was entirely an act," she said. "Perhaps you were pretending to be more relaxed than you felt - we all do that. But I can't believe that you were just trying to be what you thought I wanted you to be."
"I have no idea what you want me to be," Clark said disconsolately.
He seemed fixated, and there was no point in covering this ground again. "What did I do that caused such a change in your attitude?" Lois asked. "Did I do something while I was asleep? Did I curse all men? Or hit you? Or swear at you? What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything."
"I *must* have done something. Yesterday, we were -"
"Yesterday, we were indulging in a silly, childish game of make-believe."
Lois shook her head. "No," she asserted. "No, that is *not* what we were doing."
Clark frowned, refusing to back down.
"You didn't answer my question," Lois said.
"You didn't do anything," he said grimly. "You were restless. You groaned some. Your heart rate was erratic."
"But I didn't say anything abusive? I didn't accuse you of something?"
"No."
"I didn't swear off men forever?"
"Lois," he growled. "This isn't funny."
"No," she said with a long sigh. "It's tragic."
"Can I have the keys?"
A flash of inspiration, driven by frustration and fear, hurtled through her mind. "No," Lois retorted.
He jolted at the sharpness of her reply. "I need to find work."
"You'll find work," Lois said. "I have the perfect place."
"Where?"
"Will you fly me to Metropolis, please?"
"Metropolis?" he exclaimed sharply. "We can't go -"
"Will you fly me to Metropolis, please?" Lois repeated calmly.
"What for?"
"I'll explain on the way."
He looked around the room. "Should we pack the car first?"
"No. We'll only be a few minutes."
Lois took a couple of swift steps towards Clark and leapt into his arms. He caught her - as she knew he would.
"Metropolis?" he said dubiously.
"Yes. I'm going to call Scardino."
"You can't -"
"Yes, I can. I'm going to call Scardino from a public phone while you watch him from above. You'll be able to see if he has any reaction to my call. I figure you'll be able to super-look or super-hear or super-something to determine whether there is a trace on his phone."
"What if he *does* trace your call?"
"We'll know that his message was deliberately misleading. And by the time he's traced the call to a local telephone booth, we'll be several states away."
Clark said nothing, which Lois took to mean that he couldn't think of any reasonable objections to her plan.
"I'm ready," she informed him lightly.
"All right," he conceded. "Hold on."
Seconds later, they were flying. Clark's face was set, and he maintained a stony silence - which suited Lois. She needed to think.
Now that the fog of sleep had lifted, she could remember some of the dreams that had hounded her during the night. She hadn't dreamed of being in the dark room. She'd dreamed of escaping - of being chased. Of the torment of being hunted and the fear of being caught.
Finally, as she'd made it to safety, she'd felt an overwhelming desire to go home. To go back to what was familiar. The desire still lingered - and it was that yearning that had precipitated the flash of inspiration.
The way forward had crystallised.
Now, she knew what they had to do.
||_||
Scardino's PA hadn't arrived at the office yet, so the call came through to him directly. It wasn't a number his system recognised. His first thought was that perhaps it could finally be Neville Moyne.
"Daniel Scardino," he said.
"It's Lois Lane."
"Lois?" Daniel couldn't help the squeak that gushed out with her name. He cleared his throat. "Ms Lane? Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"I'm really pleased to hear from you," Scardino said, realising it was true. He hadn't quite been able to dismiss the nagging possibility that the alien had turned on her. "Did you get my message?"
"Yes."
"The whole operation has been wound up," Scardino said. "All the records have been destroyed. The body was cremated."
"The body?"
"The body in the cell." Scardino paused, weighing his next words. "You did well, Ms Lane," he said. "I was impressed with the professional manner in which you brought the operation to its conclusion."
The line went silent, and Scardino wondered if Lois was trying to assess the sincerity of his compliment.
"Did you find an assignment for Shadbolt?" she asked.
"Not an assignment. But he has a job as a security guard."
"A security guard?"
"Yeah. It suits his needs - regular hours, he can stay in Metropolis, and he even gets two days off a week."
"I have to go. Bye."
Scardino heard the click of the line being disconnected and slowly replaced his phone.
Lois was safe.
She was with the alien.
Scardino hoped that it worked for them. They both deserved some happiness.
||_||
"Anything?" Lois asked as Clark flew them back to the motel room in Wisconsin.
"Nothing," Clark replied. "There was no tap or anything else attached to the phone. There was nothing to trace the call."
"What did Scardino do when he hung up from my call?"
"Went back to doing a crossword puzzle."
"Did you pick up *anything*?"
"No."
"OK," Lois said as she settled more comfortably into his arms. She closed her eyes and tried to relax away her lingering headache. The time for talking was over.
||_||
Clark flew them back to the motel room, feeling mind-numbingly confused. He had detected nothing to indicate that Scardino was conducting a search for them.
There were two possible dangers - either Menzies had organised a hunt without Scardino's knowledge, or Scardino's actions had been those of a man who realised that the alien had the power to spy on him from a great distance.
What was Lois thinking? Did she accept that, for now, they were safe from recapture? Was she suspicious of Scardino's actions? She seemed relaxed in his arms.
Clark had a nagging feeling that he was going to regret the way he had behaved this morning. He had slipped from the bed as the first rays of light had crept into the dark room. He hadn't slept - not for a moment.
All night, he had been torn - torn between the intoxicating closeness of Lois's body and his unshakable belief that there could be no future for them.
Her closeness had elicited a myriad of feelings that he had been trying to deny almost since the moment Moyne had thrown her into the cell.
Lois had been so many different things to him - the first kind voice in years, a light in his darkness, a compassionate guard, a true friend.
But none of that negated the fact that she was a woman.
And he ... well, he wasn't a man, but that didn't mean he was immune to the lure of a beautiful woman.
From the start, he'd known that they could never be together - *really* together. Last night had firmed that belief into certainty.
The more he had thought about what she had told him, the more sure he'd become that Lois had been raped by either Elan or Ivica. He couldn't fathom how she had managed to escape with her life, but he had no doubts about what she *hadn't* told him.
And it made him even more convinced that he was not the man for her.
He wasn't even a man.
So, he had gotten up, sped through a shower, dressed, and decided that the sooner he found work and was able to support himself financially, the sooner Lois would be free to seek the counselling and help that she needed.
Then, he'd come back to the motel, expecting that Lois might be a little surprised by his sudden purposefulness, but thinking that she - shaken by the memories she had dredged up last night - might make a token protest and then accept the inevitable.
Looking back, it had been a naive expectation.
Lois Lane didn't give up.
The fact that she was alive testified to that.
His decisiveness had done nothing other than incite hers. And Clark had a sinking feeling that - despite all of his 'powers' - in a battle of wills, Lois would outmuscle him.
He swept them through the door of the motel and landed with a gentle thud. He loosened his arms from around Lois, and she slipped to the floor. "Thanks," she said.
"You're welcome," he said stiffly.
"Can you pack away everything while I have a shower?"
"Lois ... I ... I would like to go out to the farm that is advertising for a labourer. Is it OK if I borrow the car?"
"No," she said. "We need to get on the road. We have a long way to travel today."
"Ah ..." Clark wasn't sure how to protest that he suddenly seemed to have no say in what they did.
"What's up?" Lois asked lightly.
"Ah ... Where are we going?"
"Smallville, Kansas."
"Smallville?" he gulped. "Lois, we can't -"
"Yes, we can. It's stupid for you to be working for someone else when your farm needs work. And it's stupid paying for motels when you own a house."
"But Lois -"
"We're going." She turned towards the bathroom.
Clark used a little extra speed to arrive there first and blocked her way. "Why?"
"Because I think you need to go home."
"We can't, Lois."
"We can, and we're going to."
"But ... at the very least, we should discuss it first. We should check Scardino again. Perhaps even Menzies."
"We are not going to discuss anything right now," Lois said.
"Why not?"
"Because you don't believe half of what I say - no matter how many times I say it."
"I ..."
"It's time for action," Lois said. "We'll try words again later. Excuse me."
She pushed past him, entered the bathroom, and firmly shut the door.
Clark stared at it.
Apparently, he was going home.
||_||
Wayne Irig looked up and down the wiry young man who had knocked on his door and inquired if he had any work available. "Have you worked on a farm before?" Wayne asked.
"Yes. Dairy and hogs."
"We have beef."
"I'm sure I could adapt."
Wayne hesitated. He needed the help. With Brett's wedding coming up next month, and winter approaching, and both farms needing upkeep ... "What's your name?"
"Phil Deller."
"Do you have a reference?"
Deller pulled out his wallet, extracted a folded piece of paper, and offered it to Wayne.
He read it and then glanced up to the young man. Something wasn't right. His nonchalance seemed overdone.
Perhaps he just really needed the job.
And Wayne really needed the help.
"The woman in town said that you would be the best to ask because you have two farms," Deller said.
"You can't live here," Wayne said. "You'll have to find somewhere to stay in Smallville."
Deller nodded as he replaced the paper in his wallet. "Start tomorrow?"
Wayne nodded. "See you at sunup."
Deller turned and sauntered away, lighting up a cigarette as he went.
Wayne watched him ... still not sure.
||_||
As they drove, the certainty that he'd made a big mistake solidified into an uncomfortable lump that lodged in Clark's gut.
What was more disconcerting was the realisation that he still had no notion about what he *should* have done.
The way they had been living - spending the days like two companionable travellers and the nights in the same bed - that couldn't continue. It couldn't.
It simply wasn't a sustainable situation.
Lois had given every indication that she would be willing to move things forward - that her easygoing friendliness was because she was waiting for him to decide what he wanted.
He'd already decided.
He'd decided a long time ago.
He wanted to spend every possible second of his life with Lois.
But what scared him - what had always tormented him - was that he simply could *not* believe that she would want to be with him long-term. And the thought of her leaving him ripped his heart into tiny quivering shreds.
The closer they became, the more devastating would be her departure.
He'd obsessed over it interminably, decrying his inability to cross the impasse.
He stole a glance sideways.
Everything about Lois suggested she was a woman on a mission. Her posture was straight, her hands were clenched around the steering wheel, her eyes were riveted forward, and she'd been constantly sitting a few miles over the speed limit.
"Lois?" he said, startling himself with the sound of his voice in the long-maintained silence. "What happens when we get to Smallville?"
"Before we get there, we need to have our story ready," she said, her eyes never deviating from the road ahead.
She was willing to talk to him. That felt like progress. "Our story?"
"I've been thinking it through. I think sticking close to the truth might be our best idea."
"The truth?" he gulped.
"There is a chance I will be recognised in Smallville," she said. "I wore a blonde wig when I was there, but we can't guarantee that it will be enough."
"So ...?"
"We can't hide away at the farm. We should be open and try to assimilate back into the local community."
*We*? Both of them? Clark couldn't imagine Lois being happy living a country life in a small community. Not for any longer than a week or two.
"I think we should say that I'm a government agent," Lois said. "We should say that parties unfriendly to the US government got it wrong seven years ago - mistakenly thinking that your family was being groomed as US spies. They kidnapped you and took you to some mysterious, unnamed country."
"My family?" Clark said incredulously. "Spies?"
"The whole idea of spies is that they are supposed to look like regular people," Lois said. "We'll say that the foreign agency got it wrong. The people of Smallville who knew your parents will probably mutter, 'Yeah, we could have told them that,' and roll their eyes at the incompetency of city types."
"OK," Clark said, not convinced but not wanting his lack of conviction to sound in his tone.
"Our story has to be able to cover not knowing where your mom is now or when she will be home, but still allow for her sudden appearance when we find her."
*If* they found her.
"So, we say that the US government spy agency that I work for knew of the capture of the entire Kent family and have been working to get you back," Lois said. "That's where I come in - I've been assigned to bring you home while the agency continues trying to locate your mom."
"I'm not sure about this, Lois," Clark said. "It seems only one step away from questions about why it would be my family that was under suspicion."
"It does need work on the detail," Lois said. "But the good thing about using a spy agency cover is that people are often more willing to accept *secrets* if there's a hint of national security involved. If they know a little, they feel privileged rather than burning with curiosity to know the rest." She glanced at him but didn't smile. "The old 'need-to-know' platitude can come in really handy sometimes."
"Yeah."
"Think about it," she said. "We'll firm up on it before we have to actually say anything to anyone."
"You really think we should be open about being there?"
"We'll have to be," Lois said. "I doubt we could live there without anyone knowing."
"We couldn't," Clark said. "The grapevine works pretty efficiently." Which led to another issue. "What ... what are we going to say about ... about us?"
"We're going to say that my job is to help you adjust back into normal life."
Was that what their relationship had been reduced to? Had he done *that* much damage this morning?
Lois glanced his way again. "Hungry yet?" she asked. Then she smiled.
She *smiled*.
He'd thought he'd chased it away forever.
Her eyes were back on the road, but traces of her smile lingered.
"Are you?" Lois asked.
"Huh?"
She chuckled - short and soft - but it brought untold relief to Clark's heart. "Are you hungry yet?"
"Yeah. A bit."
"Do you mind if we eat and run? I want to arrive in Smallville tonight."
"No, I don't mind." He doubted he would even be terribly cognisant of what he was eating. He just wanted to feast on the smile that he thought he had doused forever. He dragged his brain cells back to working order. "Are you sure Smallville is a good idea?"
"It makes sense practically," she said.
"I didn't mean that. I meant whether you're sure that we're not walking into a trap."
"Do you want to check on Scardino again?"
"I think we should," Clark said. He couldn't believe that Scardino would allow him freedom so easily. "Do you want to come with me?"
"Sure. Any reason?"
He wanted her in his arms again. "Maybe ... Do you know where Menzies' office is? Perhaps we should check on him, too."
She nodded. "OK. We'll do it when we stop for lunch."
"I also wondered if you wanted to go to your apartment. If there were things you wanted to get."
She considered that for a moment. "I think it's a good idea to check my apartment - see if there is any surveillance equipment there. But I don't think we should go in yet. Perhaps once we are settled in Smallville, I can bring some of my things from my apartment."
That sounded like she intended staying for longer than a week. "OK," Clark said. "Checking for surveillance equipment is a good idea."
Lois smiled again - and this time Clark was able to overcome his shock enough to analyse it. It lacked the bubbly warmth of her smiles yesterday. It looked like a smile she would give to a colleague - someone she liked. Not someone she loved.
Again, Clark was submerged with questions, and regrets, and uncertainties. If only he'd just let things be this morning.
But then ... they *couldn't* continue the way they had been. It had been a castle built on a foundation of cotton candy.
Eventually, it would have dissolved.
He knew that.
He wasn't sure about anything else.
But he knew that.
