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Part 4

Part 5

Clark stepped out of the freight elevator into the Daily Books’ Receiving room, pushing a large cartload of boxes. The smell of fresh blood hit his senses immediately. “Whew, Jimmy! What died in here?” he asked with a wrinkled nose, before noticing her. That woman who had haunted his dreams the entire night. “Lois!” He practically breathed her name. His mind had been so engrossed in thoughts of her, he had forgotten to listen for her heartbeat on the elevator ride up. Clark instantly knew where the blood had come from. “Are you…?”

“Clark!” Lois interrupted, turning at the sound of his voice with the largest, happiest grin he had ever seen her sport. That smile was for him? Because of him? His chest tightened as Lois ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, setting her full body against his. “I just wanted to thank you for last night. It was magical. We should do it again soon.”

He had stiffened at her first embrace as they had never had that much physical contact before, but he relaxed at her words. Had she felt the ‘magic’ too when he drove her home the night before – felt the chemistry between them? It hadn’t only been him? “Sure, Lois. That would…”

Lois licked her lips and Clark could no longer speak. His eyes could not focus anywhere except her lips and that tongue that caressed them.

What lucky lips, said his mind enviously.

Did she know what she was doing to him? Then her hands slid up his neck to his head in a move that would require him to step away from her within the next few moments or have her know exactly how much she had invaded his dreams the night before. He had thought the dampening of her lips would be his undoing until he felt her fingers in his hair as she pulled his face to hers.

Oh, God!

Clark realized a moment before that Lois was going to kiss him. On the lips!

Then as their lips met, Clark felt pain for the first time since becoming invulnerable as every one of his nerve endings exploded with joy. His arms slipped around her thin frame and drew her closer to him. Feeling her body against his sent a second wave of explosions throughout his body. This was how it was supposed to be. Clark and Lois. Lois and Clark. One.

All the sounds of the noisy city dropped away. The teacher clapping her hands to attract the attention of her boisterous students. The policeman blowing his whistle a block away. The murmuring crowds waiting to get an autographed book from Miranda. All Clark could hear was the thump-thump-de-thump of Lois’s heart. Beating almost as fast as his normally beat, when it wasn’t doing this new staccato rhythm she had taught it.

Then Clark felt her tongue brush against his lips and gravity suddenly failed him. As he felt them start to slowly ascend Claude’s voice hit them like a bucketful of liquid nitrogen. “So, Lois, I see you finally found that alien to probe you.”

They fell that one inch to the floor with a hard jarring thud as Clark went ramrod stiff and took a step back away from Lois. Anxiety enveloped him. Claude knew he was an alien? Claude?

Lois still had her arms around Clark’s neck and moved her mouth to his ear, murmuring a soft, “I owe you one, Clark.” Then she stepped away, causing all his molecules that had joined with hers to be torn in two. A fresh new wave of pain struck him. Pain of separation. Pain of discovery. Pain of humiliation. Pain of rejection.

Lois crossed the room to the blond example of poor contraception use and slapped him hard across the face. “Clark is more of a real man in one minute than you’ll ever be if you had a hundred years to practice.” She swung her fist back again and Clark caught it, suddenly by her side.

“No, Lois. That’s enough,” he said, caressing the fist in his hand with his thumb.

Lois turned and stared at Clark, her eyes wide. Was that disbelief he saw? Could she not believe that she had kissed an alien so passionately? Or that one had kissed her?

“I’d best be getting these books out to the signing,” Cat stammered with a glare at both Clark and Lois before pushing her cart of books out the door.

“Yeah,” Claude growled, rubbing his face. “Me too. Some moron has been coming in every day and messing up Travel. I better check it again.” He shook his head and stormed out the door.

Clark could hear Jimmy behind him cutting open a box. “Oh, Lois,” their friend called to her. “Don’t forget your new box of Band-Aids.”

Clark pulled the flying box out of mid-air and handed it to Lois because all she could do was stare at him.

That was it? Everyone knew he was an alien and that was all the shock he was going to receive? They just accepted it as if he had said he was part Cherokee Indian. Then a new realization hit Clark, his mind punching him in the nose.

Claude was being sarcastic. It was a joke. He never thought you were an alien.

That was why nobody reacted strangely. Clark chuckled in relief. Embarrassed that his trustfulness was almost his undoing.

Lois opened the fist still gripped in Clark’s hand and grabbed the box of Band-Aids from his other hand. “Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, leaving the room and leaving Clark in pieces on the floor behind her.

“Wow, man, you are one cool cucumber, CK. If Lois had just kissed me like that and cemented my reputation in this store as a ‘real man’ as opposed to a ‘worm’…” Jimmy snorted with laughter, wiggling his pinky finger. “I’d be a puddle of gratitude on the floor at her feet.”

Clark’s head snapped as he turned quickly to face his friend. “What?!”

“Um…” Jimmy swallowed, his face red as he found an invoice slip from his current box highly fascinating. “Lois overheard Claude and Cat call her an Ice-Queen and that she wouldn’t know a ‘real man’ if she tripped over one. So then you walked in and she kissed you as if to say that you and her…” Jimmy shook the invoice, raising it in front of his face, as his voice faded away and he cleared his throat. “Thus disproving that a) she was an Ice-Queen and b) she wouldn’t know a ‘real man’ if she met one.”

Clark felt a trickle of the remaining liquid nitrogen go down his spine. That kiss wasn’t real? She hadn’t meant it?

Of course it wasn’t real, Clark. Lois doesn’t like you like that. She never did and she never will. Especially if she knew the truth about you, his conscience belatedly reminded him.

Was that what Lois meant by she ‘owed him one’? Clark felt like taking the broom from the corner to sweep up the crumbs of his ego and throw them into the trash. There was no way to repair it.

He returned to his cart and dumped the boxes in a pile. Sulking, he headed back into the freight elevator. Clark needed a few minutes alone to organize his thoughts, figure out what he was feeling, and to re-analyze that kiss. He winced. The pain gripped him anew.

Lois used you. She hadn’t felt the magic between us. She hadn’t felt anything for you. It hadn’t been real.

“CK,” Jimmy called to him and Clark caught the elevator doors, glancing over at his friend. “She could have chosen me, man. But she didn’t. She kissed you.”

Clark dropped his hand and let the doors shut as Jimmy’s words washed over him. She kissed you. He smiled, concentrating on that glimmer of hope. Lois had done more than kiss him. She had changed his life.

***

A half-hour later down in the newsstand, Lois still pondered her kiss with Clark. What had she been thinking? That was Clark! Her one friend in Metropolis. Maybe if she pretended it had never happened, he would remain her friend.

Friend? Ha! Lois, that King of Kisses will never be just your friend.

She sighed. Only in the darkness of her room would she allow herself to think the truth. Lois would allow herself to remember how she had gone weak in the knees and completely forgot where she was and why she had decided to kiss Clark. For a moment there it had even felt like they had been floating on air. Kissing him had been a good decision.

Clark was definitely all man, she thought, pushing down deep inside her the desire to moan aloud that kept rising every time she thought of that kiss.

But she was at work, Lois reminded herself. And Clark was…

… absolutely delicious? her mind suggested.

Lois slapped her rebellious mind with the back of her hand. “A co-worker,” she amended. And she certainly did not date her co-workers any more. Look at the craziness that ensued since her one disastrous date with Claude.

If Clark made you feel like this from one simple kiss in Receiving, imagine how you would feel if he kissed you alone in the privacy of your apartment, her naughty mind put forward, conjuring up images to accompany her words. Imagine if you did more than kiss Clark.

Lois swallowed as she waved a magazine in front of her face. My, it sure was warm in the store today. She wondered if the air conditioner had broken down.

She pulled a pile of weekly magazines off the rack and replaced them with the new issue. She turned to put the old magazines on her v-cart, when suddenly a man in a beige suit and an electric blue tie knelt down in front of her. “Excuse me,” Lois told him, trying to pass by.

“Lois, don’t think I’m galactically stupid. But I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you and only you. Marry me!”

Lois stared with a raised brow at the man. “Pardon?”

“Please! This time can you fall for me? Just this once. Choose me instead of Superman,” the man continued.

Superman?

“Sir, you must have me confused with someone else. Excuse me,” Lois said as kindly as she could. “I don’t know you.”

“I am Tempus, your servant, your slave. I’m here to stop you from becoming known as galactically stupid yourself. Together we can rule the world. Well, this dimension, in any case.”

“No, thank you,” Lois said, forcing her way around him and dropping her pile of magazines on the v-cart. Her teeth ground together as she shook her head.

Galactically stupid, huh? There’s a marriage proposal for the record books.

The man was clearly insane.

“Aghhh!” Tempus groaned, following her. “It’s too late. I was sure you hadn’t met Superman yet. I’ve seen no record of him here.”

“I have no idea to whom you refer. I don’t know any ‘Superman.’”

Except Clark, her mind volunteered.

Lois pushed that thought down.

Tempus stood up. “Big, brawny, looks good in blue? No? Super fast, super strong, and can fly in the air without a plane? Has a deep-seated desire to constantly rescue you from harm?”

A flash of blue and a streak of red came to her mind. Superman?

But Lois wasn’t going to give this psycho the satisfaction of possibly being right. “Haven’t met him. Does he have another name?”

“Well, most dimensions know him as ‘Superman’ but you know him as…”

“Tempus!” a shorter distinguished man interrupted breathlessly as he approached them. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Lane. He escaped me.”

Lois raised a brow at a stranger knowing her last name. She glanced down at her name badge. Nope. It still just read Lois. Strange. “He’s lost his marbles.”

“Yes, Miss Lane. I’m afraid he has,” this older man said, taking hold of Tempus’s arm. “I’ll return him to the sanitarium now.”

“No, Herb. She doesn’t know about Superman. There’s still a chance for me.” Tempus knelt back down. “I love you, Lois Lane. Marry me! I have adored you since I was a child. Since my mom first told me of the love – the true love – Superman shared with his Lois. Since the first moment I saw that holographic image of you, I knew you were the one woman for me. I love your spunk, your drive, your determination, and your wonderful ability to drive Superman crazy. The way you torture him with your wiles, those eyes, your stubbornness, and your body. I just know that together we could foil Superman once and for all and rule the earth. For without you, he is nothing. Marry me!”

“She can’t marry you, Tempus. You’re already married,” the older bespectacled man reminded Tempus and then he turned to Lois. “Your sixth great grand-daughter Lois to be exact. A very bad match for her, I’m afraid.”

“I’m calling security,” Lois told them.

“Oh! Please do. I love meeting Clark Kent for the first time. It’s always so much fun,” replied Tempus with a roll of his eyes.

Was he being sarcastic? This nutso knew Clark?

Clark! Ooooh. Her inner voice snarled.

Lois’s eyes closed into slits. She would just bet these were friends of his that Clark sent to pay her back for using him that morning. For kissing him the way she had without meaning it. A dull ache throbbed in her chest. He hadn’t liked their kiss?

But you did, reminded her mind. And you had meant it.

Lois pushed those thoughts aside as she growled, her tongue gliding over her teeth. “You know Clark?”

“Duh!” Tempus glanced over at his friend. “See, I told you, Herb. I am too late. She has already fallen for…”

“Tempus!” Herb interrupted once more, grabbing his friend’s arm again. “No need to call security, Miss Lane. Tempus and I were just leaving. Come on, Tempus. You’ve had your fun. Back to the time machine with you.”

“Who are you people?” Lois asked incredulously.

“He’s Herbert George Wells, famed author with achingly dull dialogue,” Tempus replied. “And I’m from the future. A future that is so dull and dreary, because everyone believes in the ideals of Superman and his wife and their descendents. Not your future, per se, but the future from another dimension where you, a hard-nosed investigative reporter, married your colleague and friend, who also happened to be Superman.” He sighed almost despondently. “Is there no chance for us, Lois? None at all?”

Lois took a step away from him in disgust and pointed towards the exit. “I’m counting to five, then I’m calling security.”

‘H.G. Wells’ pulled on Tempus’s arm, dragging him towards the door. “Come on, Tempus, you don’t want to be stuck in a lunatic asylum here anymore than you did in 1866.”

Tempus stared at Lois with longing as his friend pulled him away. “He’ll lie to you, Lois. He’ll keep things from you. He’ll break your heart a thousand times over in the name of keeping you safe. Don’t fall for him, Lois. He’s an alien – an outer space alien. He’ll charm you with his smiles, his politeness and his manners. Don’t fall in love with Superman! It will be the world’s undoing!” At this point the older man was able to get Tempus to the door. “A world where you marry Superman is a boring world indeed!”

“Don’t believe him, Miss Lane,” suggested his friend ‘Mr. Wells.’ “Tempus got dosed by Miranda’s pheromone perfume ‘Revenge’ and isn’t himself. It was the only way I could subdue him to return him to the future. I would stay away from the third floor so you don’t become dosed yourself, Miss Lane.”

“Subdue me? But she has rejected me, Herb. What else do I have to live for?” whined Tempus, his fight gone for a half a second. “Wait a minute. How did you know this Miranda woman’s perfume was actually a mind-altering drug, Herb? You lied to me! Miranda wasn’t in the history books.”

“That’s because Lois asked that the event be removed. She didn’t want to be remembered for her Dance Of The Seven Veils she did for Clark.”

Lois gasped. She did what?! For whom?!

“You tricked me, Herb,” Tempus said, respect for his friend showing in his voice for the first time, as they went out the door. “Good for you. I never thought you had it in you, Herb. Seven veils, huh?”

Lois could still hear Tempus’s chuckles after the door closed. She plopped herself down on a bench and set her face in her hands. What a crazy day! Why did demented stuff like this always seem to happen to her?

“Yo, Lo, are you okay?” a voice asked her. “What did those bozos want?”

She looked up and saw a young man – more of a kid than Jimmy – from the music department standing in front of her. He definitely had a style of his own: dressed all in black, with an earring dangling from his left ear, and his hair cut in a rock-a-billy mullet. She glanced at his name-tag to refresh her memory. Jack. “Just another day at Daily Books. A marriage proposal, I think? And a warning against falling in love with some super… guy.” Lois shook her head and knocked the words out of the air. “What next? A bomb threat? A giant asteroid attack? A tsunami? Alien invasion?”

“Something’s definitely up,” Jack agreed with her. “I’ve had three different women try to kiss me.” He got a disgusted look on his face. “I think one of them was Perry’s wife. She chased me downstairs from the break room.”

Lois squeezed her lips together trying not to let the giggles escape. “Thanks, Jack. That puts things in perspective. At least ‘Nick Bottom’ wasn’t handsy.”

They heard a scream from upstairs and looked up. A scream of terror, not delight. They saw Cat Grant run next to the railing on the third floor, which was a difficult task in her three inch heels and painted-on dress.

Chasing after her was Claude, his hands outstretched. “Come back here, you little tart. You know you want me.” He roared like a psychotic madman. “Once I catch you, you’ll have the pleasure of having me again in our own little spot. Right over there in the dark corner between Medical Reference and the Human Body.” His words sailed down to them as the store had gone deathly quiet and the background music just happened to be between songs.

“What the…?” Jack gasped and ran up the escalator to the third floor.

Before he got there, three other men in the store – not only employees – had tackled Claude. Jack looked down at her from over the third floor landing and gave her a thumbs up.

Lois shook her head. Maybe it wasn’t just her for once.

***

Clark stood in the doorway of Lois’s magazine receiving room, watching her and wondering exactly how to broach the subject of their kiss. Or even if he should. He didn’t really feel like being rejected. A hint of a smile crossed his lips.

Who likes to be rejected? his mind reminded him. You have fantastic strength, Romeo, use it to make your legs work.

Clark cleared his throat and then ultra sped across the small room to catch Lois as she fell over in surprise again. “Sorry.” She was going to suggest he wear a bell if he kept doing that to her.

Lois looked at his arms surrounding her and took a step away, out of them, her lips pressed together as her eyes looked at him through slits.

Well, that answered your question, Clark. Jimmy was right. She used you. Lois has no feelings for you at all, except her usually animosity.

Clark swallowed and took a couple steps back towards the door.

“What do you want? Up for more jollies?”

His brows went together in confusion. She had kissed him. “Excuse me?”

“What? The guys ‘from the future’ that you sent to pay me back for that little incident in Receiving wasn’t enough for you?” she snarled at him.

“Guys from what? What are you talking about, Lois?” he stammered. Had something happened while he was out making deliveries this afternoon?

Lois stood up and stared him in his eyes. “Are you going to deny that you sent two of your friends to mess with my head? Harrumph.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lois.” Clark was completely baffled.

“So, it wasn’t all a practical joke cooked up between you and your buddies?” she asked suspiciously.

“What?” he inquired with a confused shrug.

Her face went white. “You really don’t know?”

Clark stood up taller. “Did someone hurt you? Are you all right? Who were these guys? What did they do to you?”

Lois stumbled backwards to the wall and slid down to the floor. “You didn’t have anything to do with them?”

Clark stepped forward and knelt down beside her, murmuring, “What happened?” He hadn’t been here to protect her and some crazies had… what, exactly? He wanted to comfort her, but she obviously didn’t want to be touched.

Lois waved the incident out of the air. “Just some wackos came to my newsstand and proposed to me. I thought it was a practical joke, but with everything else that happened here today…”

Proposed? To Lois? His Lois? His green-eyed monster growled.

Clark’s brow wrinkled as he tried to concentrate on everything that she had said. “What else happened?”

Lois’s eyes focused off in space, growing larger. “How did he know? How had that guy known about Miranda’s perfume? Even the police…” She shook her head and focused on Clark again. “Claude has been fired.”

“Thank God! Did Perry finally come to his senses about what that jerk was doing to you?” Clark asked, unable to keep the smile from coming to his lips.

“No, actually. Claude physically attacked Cat and threatened to rape her in Medical Reference.”

Clark’s jaw hung open. “What?” he stammered. “He attacked Cat?” A hole opened in his chest. It could have been Lois. Then he felt instantly guilty. Cat wasn’t a saint, but no woman deserved to be attacked. Still … if Claude had gone after Lois… physically hurt Lois… He pushed these thoughts from the forefront of his mind as he noticed his hands turning to fists. “Is she all right?”

“Some guys tackled him before he actually hurt her,” Lois replied, her face pale.

“I should have been here,” Clark told her, standing up and starting to pace.

“Clark…”

“If he had actually hurt Cat…”

“Clark…”

“Or if he had gone after you…”

“Clark!”

He stopped and looked at Lois.

“This really isn’t a great place to pace,” she told him, her hand over her chest.

Clark glanced around. Had he knocked over any of her precious piles of magazines? Nope. He turned to look at her and realized her heart was beating faster than normal. He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Lois took a deep breath and released it.

“So…” he started, going back to what she had said earlier. “You got a marriage proposal today, huh?”

Lois laughed. Clark liked that sound. “Just some escaped lunatic.” She waved the event out of the air. Like it happened on a daily basis.

An escaped mental patient had proposed to Lois? He felt that monster inside him growl again. “Why did you think I had something to do with it?”

“Oh, he said he knew you.”

“How?” Clark didn’t know anyone in a mental hospital.

Lois shrugged. “He said he always enjoyed meeting you…” Then her brow furrowed. “… for the first time.”

Clark raised a brow. “How can he enjoy meeting someone for the first time more than once?”

Lois glanced away. “Well, he did say he was from the future and from another dimension.”

Clark chuckled. “Right. Mental patient.” He felt much better. Laughing helped calm his green-eyed monster. Being with Lois helped.

She used you!

Clark returned to the doorway and leaned against it. He didn’t like that an escaped mental patient had fixed his fancy on Lois.

You should just leave. Lois doesn’t like you like that.

“Can I ask you a question that’s been nagging me?” he said, pushing his negative thoughts aside. He wasn’t quite ready or willing to leave Lois.

A hint of panic showed in her eyes as she swallowed. Then Lois gave a resigned sigh and waved for him to continue.

Lois didn’t want to talk about the kiss, so Clark decided to skirt the topic. “What did Claude mean earlier…” He swallowed. “… about you being ‘probed by an alien’?”

She blushed. Clearly Lois wasn’t expecting this question. “The other night – at the restaurant – when he said we should go back to my apartment for ‘dessert’…”

Clark felt his stomach turn – a part of him wishing he had punched Claude when he had had the chance.

“I told him I’d rather be probed by an alien…” she continued, definitely not looking at him as her face was still red. “I hadn’t meant…” Her words faded as she clearly didn’t want to finish the thought.

Of course, Lois had meant actually being probed by an alien. What Earth woman would want to make love to an alien? Clark’s mind inquired. Claude had made it sound like she had meant sex.

Clark had to agree with his thoughts on this one point. Lois would never like him that way, especially if she ever found out his folks had found him in some sort of spacecraft as a baby. He realized as her eyes searched his that he had left that statement of hers hanging out there. “Witty,” he finally said, not knowing what else to say.

Lois shook her head. “More like ‘tasteless’. I don’t know why I said it. I don’t usually say things like that.”

“I’m sure he knew you meant that even if he had been the last man on Earth – not that you actually preferred aliens…” Clark stopped himself.

Why are you even continuing this topic of conversation, Clark? Do you like torturing yourself?

Lois laughed, smiling at him. “You never know. I haven’t met any yet.”

Clark returned her smile. His heart starting to beat for the first time in hours.

She’s being sarcastic, you fool!

He pushed this thought aside. And promptly decided to see how his feet were tasting today. “You said something about ‘owing me,’ Lois? Would you like to clarify that statement?”

*** End of Part 5 ***

Part 6

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