Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Trusting Me, Trusting You 4:Highway (16/21)

It would be dark before she got to the bus stop. Evan punched in the security code and opened the gate. "Come on," he said. "I'll get you a cup of tea."

He saw the battle raging inside her. Saw how tempted she was by the thought of a hot drink and somewhere to rest. How far had she walked? Had she taken the bus? Or had she walked much further than the two miles from the bus stop? When had she last eaten?

"It's quiet here this time of the day," Evan said. "Most of the scientists have gone home."

He saw her moment of capitulation and wondered why delivering her letter had been so important to her. "Thank you," she said with quiet grace. "Tea would be wonderful."

Evan took her suitcase, re-locked the gate, and re-set the alarm. "Come this way," he said. "What's your name?"

"Esther Wallace."

She wasn't wearing a wedding ring. "We'll get you that cup of tea, Miss Wallace," he said, "and then I'll find you somewhere to stay for the night."


Part 16

"Would you like another cup of tea, Miss Wallace?" Evan asked. She'd accepted his offer of a meal and eaten it without appearing famished, but she had devoured the tea with evident enjoyment.

Miss Wallace reached for her plain calico bag.

Evan stood quickly. "I'll get it," he said.

He returned with the cup of tea and placed it in front of her. "Thank you, Mr Shadbolt," she said with a soft smile.

Evan turned his attention to his own drink, wondering what he was going to do with this quiet lady who had been so determined to deliver her letter.

Where did she live?

Her clothes were - as far as his unpractised eye could determine - unfashionable. They were dark in colour, unadorned with any sort of frills, and eminently practical - but not of inferior quality. After entering the cafe, he had lifted the coat from her shoulders and been surprised by its weight.

And without her coat, he'd seen that she wasn't as malnourished as he had feared. She was lean, but food and tea seemed to have brought a complete recovery from what Evan surmised had been a long walk to the base.

So why was she here?

Did she have any plans beyond getting the letter to Superman?

And why had that been so important to her?

He'd walked back from the front gate with her; he'd brought her to the cafe and provided her with a meal. And at some point, he'd realised that he wasn't going to be able to drop her at the bus stop and continue with his life. She hadn't admitted it, but Evan was sure she had nowhere to stay tonight.

She wasn't a Metropolis local. She was visiting his city.

And as far as he could deduce, her sole purpose for being in Metropolis was the letter that sat in the pocket of his guard's jacket.

"Miss Wallace?" he said. She looked up from her tea, eyeing him with calm composure. Evan decided to be direct. "Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?"

"I haven't planned anything," she said.

"Do you have the bus fare to get home?"

"I'm not going home."

"Did someone hurt you?" he asked quickly. "Is there a reason you can't go home? Is that why you want to contact Superman? Do you need his help?"

"No," she said. "No one hurt me."

"Why is it so important that you get the letter to Superman?"

Her smile came briefly. "Because so often today, people forget as soon as the danger has passed. I wanted him to know that we are grateful for what he did."

"Did you see the press conference today?"

Her sandy-coloured eyebrows lifted. "There was a press conference?" she gasped.

Evan nodded. "Yes," he confirmed gently. "In Centennial Park."

"And Superman was there?"

"Yes."

Her face fell, and she stared into her tea.

"There were thousands of people there," Evan said. "No one got to talk to him personally."

"He's not coming back here?"

"No."

Miss Wallace sipped from her tea, her face carefully blank, but Evan could sense disappointment in the slight droop of her shoulders.

"I live with my two daughters," he said. "They can share a room tonight. You're welcome to stay in my older daughter's room."

She looked up with a brave smile. "Thank you, Mr Shadbolt. But I ... I need to keep moving. I need to leave Metropolis."

"But not tonight," Evan said, moderating the firmness of his tone with a smile. "It's too late. It's going to be a cold night. I can drop you off at the bus depot tomorrow, and you can take the bus to wherever you need to go."

She hesitated for only a moment. "Thank you," she said with sincerity. "Thank you."

The ease of her agreement surprised him. Perhaps working as an agent had caused him to expect everyone to be instinctively cynical of another's motives.

This woman - this Miss Esther Wallace - trusted him enough to go with him and stay the night in his home.

Perhaps it was a good thing that he'd found her. With that sort of outlook, she would be an easy target for someone with less than honourable intentions.

"I have to do a few things before I leave," Evan said. "Stay here and enjoy your tea. I won't be any longer than twenty minutes. If anyone asks questions, tell them to contact Evan Shadbolt."

"Thank you."

Evan walked from the cafe, carrying with him the memory of her smile.

||_||

Lois had tried to relax in Clark's arms as they'd flown home to Smallville, but her mind felt as if it were being telescoped in on itself as she pondered the next step in this journey of decisions.

Ruby Rhodes' question had shaken her. What if Clark had noticed her use of the word 'imprisonment'? What if he had demanded answers?

Had enough time passed? How would Clark react to knowing he had been locked away for seven years for the 'crime' of being an alien? Would he again suffer under the weight of the hatred and distrust that had been his daily experience for years?

Was it possible to concoct a sanitised version that omitted the worst of the abuse?

Was it possible to tell him anything without awakening other memories?

When they'd arrived home, Lois had forced herself to smile and speak cheerfully as she excused herself from Clark's dinner preparations.

In the bedroom, she stood at the spot where their spoken promises had brought authenticity to their marriage certificate. Outside, the moonlight caused dappled shadows to dance across the ground.

How much longer did she have?

Would Eric's 'grain of a lead' find Martha Kent?

Everything had happened so quickly. Lois felt as if she had stepped onto a sled at the top of a large icy mountain. She hadn't even had the time to settle comfortably before they had been hurtling downhill.

Just four days ago, she had been at the EPRAD base, her stomach in a tangle of trepidation as Clark had prepared to fly into space to change the course of the asteroid.

The weight of responsibility seemed unbearably heavy. Clark's future was in her hands. In truth, it had been in her hands since the day she had walked into the compound to begin her assignment as the overseer of the alien operation.

She heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, forced a smile, and turned to greet him.

Clark didn't stop at the doorway, but came right into the room - to the window. He smiled down at her, but his expression was so full of concern that it caught at her heart. "Are you OK?" he asked softly.

She nodded, not trusting her voice to speak without cracking.

Clark folded her into his arms and held her close. "I feel it, too," he said. "The need to stop and draw breath."

"Things have happened so quickly," Lois said, her head lounging on his broad shoulder. "And it must seem even more so to you. It must feel as if so much has been packed into the three days you can remember."

"But a lot has happened to you, too," he said. "You've faced some big decisions."

Lois's breath congested as she wondered if he'd remembered something. He continued to hold her close, and slowly the tension trickled from her body.

After long minutes of soaking in the sanctuary of Clark's presence, Lois lifted from his shoulder and turned in his arms to face the window. To her left was the dark bulk of the barn. Recalling their conversation over breakfast, she said, "Have you been into the barn since we got back from Metropolis?"

"Yeah."

"Was it all right?"

"Yeah." Clark released a long breath. "It was all right. It just feels as if there is something there, something I should remember."

"Have you been into the other bedroom yet?"

"Yeah. I went in there while you were in Smallville yesterday."

"Was it OK?"

"It wasn't as bad as I had thought it might be. I think that knowing what happened in there helped a lot."

"Do you think it could be something like that in the barn?" Lois asked. "Do you think something happened in there, but you can't remember the incident?"

She felt Clark shake his head. "No," he said. "It's different. It's not ... evil - like I felt in the bedroom. It's more ..." She heard his grunt of frustration. "It's more like it's a huge maze, and if I could get through it, I would perhaps understand. But every time I go in there, I just keep hitting dead ends."

An idea sprouted in her mind, and Lois turned to Clark. "I have a suggestion," she said. "But if you don't want to do it, that's OK."

He smiled - perhaps because of her sudden spurt of energy. "What would you like to do?"

"I think there is merit in meeting something head-on, so we could go to the barn together. It will be cold, so perhaps we will need to take a blanket. We could sit on the hay. Maybe in the dark, wrapped together in a blanket. And just talk. About anything. Or not talk. Either way, we could face whatever it is together."

"After we've eaten dinner, we could take our coffee and some of your apple pie out there."

Lois smiled as her sudden enthusiasm chased away the heaviness of her mood. "It will be like a picnic," she said. "A moonlit picnic for two."

Clark kissed her. "Let's go eat," he said. "And I'll put on the coffee machine."

||_||

Evan had been a little uneasy about his daughters' reaction to their unexpected guest, but his concerns proved to be unfounded. Esther - she'd asked him to call her that as they had driven home - had slipped into his family as if she had belonged there for years.

She hadn't been at all fazed when he'd told her that Layla was deaf. She'd known to turn towards Layla when speaking and had included his elder daughter in the conversation with an easy naturalness that warmed Evan's heart.

After they'd enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies together, Layla signed that she needed to go to her room to work on a school project, and Evan allowed Abi to go and watch her nightly half-hour of television.

Which left Evan and his guest alone in the kitchen. "Go and sit down," he said. "Mrs Kingsley cooks the meal for the girls, but it's my job to clear it away."

She smiled. "We'll do it together," she insisted. "It won't take long with two of us."

So they had. As the table had been cleared and the dishwasher stacked, they'd chatted, covering a broad range of general topics, but never broaching how she had come to be at the gate of the EPRAD base with a letter for Superman or how he'd come to be the single father of two daughters.

By the time they had restored the kitchen to order, the whole situation was feeling decidedly surreal to Evan. It had to be her influence, he reflected, because usually people - women especially - found him to be distant and crotchety and therefore avoided him.

"Time for you to go to bed, pumpkin," Evan said to Abi when he and Esther went into the living room.

Abi shot him that look that females of all ages seemed to have as natural weaponry, but stood from her chair without objection and hugged her father. "G'night, Dad," she said. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Abi-girl," he said.

She paused.

Evan waited, wondering what she would do.

Abi stepped up to Esther and hugged her. Esther responded, smiling. "Goodnight, Abi," she said.

"Goodnight, Miss Wallace," she said.

"You have a lovely family, Evan," Esther said as Abi's footsteps faded up the stairs.

"Thanks," he said, wondering if she would ask the obvious question regarding the whereabouts of the girls' mother.

"Will you take me to the central bus depot tomorrow morning, please?" Esther asked.

Obviously, she wasn't a curious woman. Or perhaps she was, but she didn't pry. "Of course," Evan said. "Do you know the time of your bus?"

"No."

"My shift doesn't start until midday tomorrow, so if you have a long wait, perhaps we could have coffee." As the final word left his mouth, Evan's throat seized. He had just come alarmingly close to asking a woman for a date - something he had promised himself he would never do again.

"You've been very kind, Evan," Esther said. "But I have already taken up too much of your time."

Perhaps she did see him as a crotchety old grump after all.

He stood, planning to offer her the television guide. At the same moment, she stood, and suddenly, they were standing within a few inches of each other.

"I would like an early night," Esther said with a sweet smile. "Goodnight, Evan."

She turned from him and went to the stairs.

Evan collapsed back into the armchair. She was ... lovely.

Who was she?

And had she really come to Metropolis for the sole purpose of delivering a letter to Superman?

||_||

Lois and Clark ate steaming apple pie and melting ice cream as they lounged into the soft hay, protected from the chilly night air by a large blanket and regular applications of superheat. When they had finished the pie, they took the cups of reheated-on-the-spot coffee and slowly sipped the smooth liquid.

"Are you all right?" Lois asked. "Can you still feel something here?"

"Yes," Clark said. "But it doesn't seem quite so disconcerting when I'm with you."

"Maybe you are growing accustomed to it."

"I ... I've been wondering if perhaps my dad died in here," Clark said.

Jonathan Kent hadn't died here, but if Lois admitted to knowing that, Clark was going to push for details.

"It's possible," he continued. "He would have spent a lot of time in here."

"But you said it's not necessarily a bad feeling."

"It's not. So perhaps it is balanced by all the good times I spent in here with him."

Lois nodded and concentrated on her coffee.

"Are you all right?" Clark asked. "You've been very quiet since we got home."

Lois snuggled a little closer, drawing comfort from Clark's arm as it tightened around her shoulders.

"Are you worried about something?" he asked quietly.

She was. And her worries had been gnawing at her gut since Ruby Rhodes had stormed onto the dais and used the word 'imprisoned' in reference to Clark. "We have so much," she said. "Being with you, being married, being so euphorically in love."

"They don't sound like things to worry about," Clark said gently.

"I guess I'm so happy now that it's easy to worry about losing some of it."

"Like Linda?"

"Yeah," Lois said, following his lead with relief. "We worked together for a long time. We knew some of what we did was dangerous, but I never really thought about how life would be if I lost her."

Clark put down his coffee and turned to her. "Honey," he said. "I'm really sorry that Linda was killed, and I know how much her passing hurt you. But it's not realistic to worry about losing me. There are significant differences."

Lois took another mouthful of her coffee and then placed the cup on the floor. She nestled her back against his chest, and his arms folded along hers as she tightened the blanket around them.

"There's something I need to tell you," she said. Her heart began to thump. Was now the moment? Should she tell him about the cell? What should she say? How could she start? How could she find an explanation for something that was unexplainably cruel and intolerably brutal?

"OK," he said.

In his voice, she heard his trust. He wasn't overly worried. He believed that whatever she was going to tell him, they would deal with it together.

Was she willing to jeopardise that? Now? Right now? Or did she want this wonderful feeling of closeness to continue? Clark had come to the barn, but being here hadn't triggered his memories. Today was almost over.

She would do it tomorrow.

She would tell him about the cell. Tomorrow.

"There is a substance that weakens you," Lois said.

"A substance? Something I eat? Like an allergy?"

"No. It looks like a green rock. Perhaps it came from your planet. We don't really know too much other than if it's in the vicinity, it causes you to become like everyone else."

"I lose all the extra abilities?"

"Yes. You lose your great strength. And speed. And you become vulnerable to the same things the rest of us are vulnerable to."

"Like bullets?"

"Yes."

"So if someone wanted to kill me, they could shoot me if they also had some of the green rock?"

"Yes."

Clark was silent, and Lois could imagine his mind trying to assimilate this new and unsettling information.

"To the best of my knowledge, it was all destroyed," Lois said.

"Who knows about it?"

"The same people who know about you. Eric. Daniel. Evan. Daniel and Evan had it destroyed."

She felt a tremor through Clark's body, and her breath stopped. "Did Moyne have some?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So *that's* why I couldn't protect you?"

"You did protect me," Lois proclaimed. "You stopped me from killing him."

"You said the green stuff weakens me," Clark said. "You said that it makes me like everyone else. That shouldn't have stopped me from physically restraining Moyne. You said you and he scuffled. Even with the green rock, why did I just stand there and let him attack you?"

Lois knew she was going to have to give him more detail. "The green stuff doesn't just take away your powers," she admitted. "It causes you pain."

"So much pain that I watched someone assault you?"

"Yes. It causes you intense pain."

She could feel his disbelief. "Why couldn't I fight it?" Clark said. "Surely if someone was hurting you ..."

"Clark, it totally debilitates you. It overpowers you and causes you agony."

He was silent for a long moment. "That's kind of sobering," he said eventually. "Until now, I'd thought ..."

She knew what he'd thought - that he was physically invulnerable.

"Yesterday, I was taking down some boxes that had been stored on a high shelf," Clark said. "One of them fell and landed on my foot."

"You didn't feel anything?"

"I felt something," Clark said. "But not pain. I opened the box, expecting it to be empty, but it was filled with tools. Wrenches, spanners, levers; even a couple of half-sized crowbars."

"So it was heavy?"

"Very heavy."

"And there was no damage to your foot?"

"No," Clark said. "I took off my shoe and checked."

"You don't feel pain," Lois said. "Not unless there's some of the green rock around."

"Is it the only substance that has that effect on me?"

"As far as I know."

"Is there a lot of it?"

"I've seen a few pieces. Daniel told me he had it all destroyed."

"Where is the piece that Moyne had?"

"Daniel took it."

"If Superman ever has enemies, they are going to want to get hold of more of it."

"Superman doesn't have enemies," Lois said.

"He will eventually."

"Why? When he's here to help us?"

"If Superman saw some armed men going into a bank and attempting to rob it, what would he do?" Clark asked.

Lois felt fresh comprehension scurry through her mind. "Oh."

"He's going to step in," Clark answered his own question. "The bank workers and customers are going to be safe. The money is going to be safe."

"But the would-be thieves are going to wish that Superman had kept his nose out of their business."

"Exactly," Clark said. "And the next criminals who plan a bank robbery are going to realise that the green rock is a vital ingredient in their success."

"The public doesn't know it exists," Lois said.

"Moyne knew."

"Moyne's dead."

"Was Moyne an agent?"

Lois's fears rose again. "Yes."

"He was the 'disgruntled agent' who leaked information about me to the reporter?"

This was getting precariously close to the cell, but Lois couldn't think of a way to evade the question. "Yes."

"So Superman already has enemies?"

"Moyne was a sick man and a vicious murderer," Lois said. "He killed two fellow agents. And he didn't just kill them; he mutilated their bodies."

"There will be others who want to bring down Superman," Clark predicted. "And the more he does, the more determined they will become."

Lois hadn't thought too much about that.

"Are you sure you want this?" Clark said. "Are you sure you want your husband in this fight?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Because if good doesn't fight, evil will win."

"Are you sure you want *your* husband leading the fight?" Clark said. "Because this isn't something that can be done half-heartedly. If I enter the fight, if I make a stand, there will be no turning back."

"You're already in the fight," Lois said. "Your heart will always stand for what is right and true and just. And your body will always follow your heart."

"Are you OK with that?" Clark said, his low voice echoing softly around the barn.

"Remember my vow to you the night we were married?" Lois said. "I said I will support you in however you choose to use your special abilities."

Clark brushed back her hair and kissed her neck. "I love you," he said as he pushed aside her sweater and kissed her shoulder. "And I need you."

Lois turned and took his face in her hands. She kissed his mouth tenderly. At least, she had intended it to be tender, but the kiss took on a life of its own, igniting her body with insistent need.

"Ever ... made ... love ... in ... a ... barn?" Clark asked - his words squeezed out between fiery kisses.

"No ... But I ... *really* want to."

It was therapy, Lois told herself with the last vestiges of a functioning brain. More good memories to stand against the bad.

Then she gave herself up to the power of Clark's love.

||_||

~~ Sunday ~~

Evan shot upright from his pillow.

He stared into the darkness.

His mind whirled.

What if ...

He shook his head, trying to draw comprehension from the haze of sleep.

What if Esther knew Clark?

What if that was why she had been so insistent on giving him the letter?

What if ...

What if she didn't just *know* him?

What if she'd raised him?

What if *Miss* Wallace was *Mrs* Kent?