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Synopsis of Chapters 1 - 8 Missing Lois - TOC ***
Where we left off in Part 3...Perry opened his office door. “Olsen!” He turned back to Clark. “She doesn’t have a choice in the matter. I’ve already explained that much to her.”
Clark’s jaw dropped. What in the hell was going on? Why hadn’t Lois warned him?
“Yes, Chief?” Jimmy said coming into the office.
Perry put his arm around his shoulders. “You feel really bad about the whole brainwashing incident and sabotaging Lois’s Bruce Wayne interview, right?”
Jimmy gulped with a glance at Clark. “Yes, Chief.”
“Good. To make up for it, you and Penny will be watching Lara all weekend. I’m sending Lois and Clark, here, to Memphis on the bullet train story.”
“Memphis?” Jimmy glanced at Clark and lowered his voice. “That’s where Elvis is from, Chief. Do you think that’s such a good idea?”
“Don’t worry, Olsen. Clark will be with her the whole time. Won’t you, Clark?”
There was more going on here than he had been told. “Of course. Won’t let her out of my sight.”
Perry patted Jimmy on the back. “Good. It’s all settled.”
“What’s all settled?” Jimmy asked.
“You and Penny will be watching Lara while Lois and Clark spend a romantic weekend in Memphis,” repeated Perry.
“Oh, no! Chief. CK. I can’t babysit a baby. I don’t know anything about babies. How about Penny and I go to Memphis and Lois and CK stay home?”
“Penny knows about babies, right?”
“Hopefully,” said Clark.
“So, what do you have to fear?” Perry asked.
“Besides having my girlfriend see me with a baby all weekend? Nothing.” Jimmy gulped and turned to Clark. “You owe me. Big.”
“I can see if Superman can fly you and Penny somewhere next weekend?” Clark suggested. “He owes me.”
“Oh, no! I don’t want him anywhere near my girlfriend,” Jimmy replied.
“You don’t trust Superman, Olsen?” Perry asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “No, I don’t trust Penny with him.”
Clark sighed. Superman suddenly had a bad reputation at the
Daily Planet. He wondered if Lois would trust Penny, either. He feared the Jimmy and Penny relationship was heading into rocky waters.
Clark wanted to fly home and ask Lois what was going on, but his mother-in-law still had one more night under his roof. He wanted his house back. His life back. His wife back. He sighed.
***
Part 4Before he could return home, Clark needed a little more sunshine. He flew up high into the sky, out into the atmosphere, closer to the sun. He felt the sun’s rays heal his black eye and hoped he wouldn’t even have a scar by the time he returned home. He didn’t want to worry Lois and he had a meeting as Superman this evening with Perry. The Chief was bound to suspect something if Superman had an identical scratch to Clark’s.
Clark landed in an alley a block away and walked home. He opened the front door. “Hi, Honey, I’m home.” He checked his cheek in the mirror. All healed. Thank you, yellow sun.
“In here, Clark,” called Lois from the kitchen. He kissed her cheek. His house felt homier since Lois learned to cook. Not that he would ever mention that to her.
“Where’s Lara?”
“Mom’s changing one last diaper. Personally, I think she’s going to be begging to watch her again when she comes back.” That was a pipe dream, Clark knew. Ellen had made it clear to him this was a one shot deal.
“You and Penny come to an arrangement?”
Lois sighed. “She swears she wasn’t trying to blackmail us into hiring her. She only thought it would give us peace of mind to have someone who knew your secret with Lara. It would be something we wouldn’t have to fear her discovering.”
Clark thought about that. Penny might have a point, there. “I’m not admitting anything to her.”
“Good idea. I told her no matter who she thought you were, we needed someone we could trust completely around our daughter.” Lois wiped her hands and returned to the dining room. She picked up a few papers from the table. “She brought these. Financial information. Family background. Full bio.”
Clark quickly glanced through them, before setting them back down. “Why does she want this job so badly?” It really was only a glorified babysitting position.
“I don’t know. The hours do work for her school schedule. Nights and weekends off. Big paycheck.” Lois placed a hand on his chest. “Or, maybe the thought of helping Superman or his child holds some appeal.”
Clark wrapped his arms around her. “Perry’s putting us on the bullet train story. We get to spend this weekend in Memphis. Just you and me.”
“Sounds nice.” Then she froze. “Who’s going to watch Lara? I guess we could fly her out to Kansas.”
Clark shook his head. “Do you think your Dad could watch her at night?”
“Why? Why can’t she go to Kansas?”
He explained what happened back at the office.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving her for a whole weekend,” Lois murmured, leaning against this chest.
“Me, either. But maybe the Chief’s right. We need some time alone, just the two of us. Of course, I don’t know why Memphis.”
“You know Perry.” She laughed. “Anything Elvis is more romantic.”
“At least it wasn’t Gotham City.”
Lois smiled. “It might be like a second honeymoon.”
“So it doesn’t matter where we go.” Clark grinned.
***
Superman landed quietly in the middle of the deserted newsroom. Had it really only been one day since Lois pinned him to the desk? He knocked on Perry’s office door. “You wanted to see me?”
Perry waved him in and offered him a seat. Superman preferred to stand, arms crossed.
“Thank you for coming.” Perry looked uncomfortable. Superman hoped knowing about the kiss wasn’t going to change their relationship. The editor cleared his throat. “What did Clark say to you?”
“He left me a message that you wanted to see me.” The more vague he could be, the more he might learn from Perry. Lois was pleading innocence yet again.
“OK. You know that Lois means the world to me.”
Superman nodded curtly. He wasn’t going to bring up the kiss, was he?
“She told me what happened, in confidence.”
He glanced down a moment. Then he looked Perry in the eye. “I don’t know what came over her. I know she loves Clark.”
Perry raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That’s not quite true, is it?”
Superman returned a stern, silent, and raised eyebrow back.
“I mean, of course Lois loves Clark. That’s not to what I was referring. I meant she told me about the other incident… I just didn’t know it was you until today.”
Other incident? What other incident? Superman stayed quiet. Sometimes, it was good to be known as the strong, silent type.
Perry swallowed. “At her townhouse. With the Elvis music and the ‘
Revenge’ sample.”
Superman shifted from foot to foot, but didn’t respond. How could he? He had no idea to what event Perry referred.
“Gosh darn it, man. Lois told me about spilling the ‘
Revenge’ perfume sample on herself just before you stopped by. And how the two of you came under the influence of the drug and things happened…”
This time Superman glanced away. What in the hell had Lois told Perry? He was embarrassed for his friend and boss.
“She didn’t tell me what, but I’m suspecting more than kissing was involved. I’m sure she would never have told me, but somehow, because the Elvis music was playing during the first incident, every time she hears his music she becomes distracted with thoughts of you.”
Superman had no idea what Perry was talking about. This event had never happened… not with
him. Had Elvis even been playing when she had kissed him last night? Yes, it had. Was that why she broke the stereo? Not out of anger, but because of this other reason? What man was Lois thinking of when she heard Elvis?
He thought back over the past few weeks. Had there been other episodes when Elvis music was playing? Perry played his music almost constantly in the office and Clark tuned it out most of the time… The kiss last week, when she loosened his tie and told him to leave. No, she had been referring to the National Bank of Gotham. Hadn’t she? Her first day back at the office after they got Lara. She had practically dragged him into the supply closet. He thought she was just being romantic. Was there another reason behind her behavior? There couldn’t be another man. But she had told Perry about another man. He swallowed, glancing at Perry, who was watching him closely. “She asked you to stop playing his music?”
Perry nodded.
Lois must be thinking of him, because it was always him she attacked. Thank God. He didn’t remember her playing Elvis at home recently. Why would she have a sample of ‘
Revenge’ at home? And ‘
Revenge’ didn’t have any effect on him, anyway, even though Perry thought it did.
Superman grabbed the back of the chair in front of him. He had pretended that ‘
Revenge’ had made him lose control, too. He had told Lois he loved her. Willingly accepted her kisses. He smiled. He had loved it when she kissed Superman back then. That was before he had become jealous of his alter ego. Had he ever told her that ‘
Revenge’ had no effect on him? That was old news by the time they had finally gotten together. What did it even matter? The incident she told Perry about had never happened. Then why this reaction to Elvis music?
“It’s obvious that you still care for her.”
“I will always care for Lois.” True statement.
“I also know you don’t want to come between her and Clark,” Perry continued.
“Never.” Again, true.
“You need to let her go.”
Superman looked at Perry. “What do you mean?” Never see her again as Superman? No, Lois wouldn’t allow that.
“I mean, if I hear that you’ve followed them to Memphis this weekend, I can no longer sit on this story. It means that this wasn’t a onetime thing and that you are having an affair with a married woman.”
He gulped. Perry was completely serious.
“She and Clark need some time alone to help her recover from this ‘
Revenge’ episode. So, even if Graceland itself catches fire, you are not to go to Memphis.”
Superman raised a skeptical brow at this statement.
Perry thought it over as well. “Okay, only if – God forbid – Graceland catches fire can you go to Memphis. Any other sighting and you and Lois are Monday morning’s headline. Do I make myself clear?”
Superman nodded. He would have to leave the blue suit behind. Go native. He could do that. He had done it before. For Lois, he could do anything.
“Another thing,” Perry paused.
There was more?
“I’m taking Lois and Clark off the Superman beat. They will no longer be covering you for the time being.”
He nodded again, already knowing about that. “I trust Lois and Clark, but I understand your decision.”
“Lois recommended one the other city beat reporters. Barry Balson.” Better him than Ralph. “This is only temporary, a few months, until Lois can get her head on straight again.” Perry shook his head. “I don’t know when this ‘
Revenge’ event between you two happened, but it sure would explain her odd emotional behavior over the last six weeks. The guilt from cheating on Clark must be eating her alive…”
Superman crushed Perry’s guest chair. They both looked down at the pieces. “I’m sorry, Mr. White. I’ll replace it.”
The editor waved off the suggestion. “Don’t worry about it, Superman.”
“If there isn’t anything else…”
“No. No. Thank you for meeting with me.”
Superman opened the office door.
“And remember, stay out of Memphis this weekend,” Perry called. Just like he was ordering around one of his reporters.
Superman looked back at him with an intense expression and then disappeared through one of the tall windows above the newsroom. He flew to the top of one of the tallest buildings in Metropolis; not the tallest, but one with gargoyles to keep him company as he thought. He needed to think. The idea of Lois cheating on him crushed him like he had crushed Perry’s chair.
Lois had been acting oddly. Perry and Jimmy had both noticed it. Even Sam Lane noticed it; it was why his father-in-law had volunteered to watch Lara the previous night. He thought the two of them hadn’t been spending enough quality adult alone time. And Clark himself had noticed it, in the little things, like how she was more casual about her clothing and appearance. About how she no longer was afraid of sugar and cream. He noticed it in the big things, her dark moods, how she no longer could spend time alone without crying. The spacing out on events in her life. And all those so-called dreams, which she treated as reality, until someone called her on it.
Clark had come to the conclusion that this was his missing Lois, mother of his daughter, almost one-hundred percent certain. If she was his missing Lois, maybe the incident with the ‘
Revenge’ she had told Perry about could be true. He wrapped his cape around himself. And if it was true… Oh, God! If it was true…
Something had happened between his wife and the other Superman, the other Clark.
Superman blasted off the building and landed in the middle of the Arctic, where he screamed, “No!” until a chunk of glacier dropped into the sea. Then he fell to his knees in the snow and buried his face in his hands.
He felt numb. Lois. The light of his life. His own personal sunshine. Had cheated on him. Clark knew it to be true. It explained everything. His missing Lois, mother of his child, the woman he loved more than his life itself, had been intimate with another man, while she was married to him. Or did it start before he returned from New Krypton? Before they were married? After they had promised to stay faithful to one another while he was away? While he wore her wedding ring around his neck?
No. The other Clark had been dating Mayson when he and the stand-in Lois had gotten married. But it most certainly had happened while Lois was pregnant with Lara. She had lived in the other dimension for almost a year, lived with that other man in his apartment, slept in his bed. How long did they share a bed? From her remark about sleeping under his cape, he knew it was more than once. Did the other Clark caress her pregnant belly? Images flashed in his mind and they were not pretty.
Had the other Clark begged for Lois to stay in the other dimension? He had wanted to be Lara’s father. The other Lois had stated that much in her ‘suicide’ note to his mother. Had his wife only returned to this dimension after they found the other Lois? Or because they knew they had to return the stand-in to her rightful place in history or she would disappear? The other Clark had been intimate with both Loises, he knew, because the other Lois had been pregnant as well. Clark knew what he had seen that day she had visited his parents’ farm. Had the other Clark still been intimate with …?
No! Clark rubbed his temples. Enough. No more speculating. He was torturing himself, corrupting his image of his wife, whom he still loved – although he could not fathom why. Lois needed to tell him the truth. Tell him everything. The truth couldn’t be worse than what his imagination was suggesting, could it?
He ached in every joint, in every muscle, in every fiber of his being. He wished there was another asteroid out there on its way to Earth, so he could erase these thoughts from his head with amnesia. Whoever said that ignorance was bliss had gotten it right. Knowledge was the root of all evil.
Clark did not want to go home. He did not want to see Lois. He did not want her to touch him or whisper sweet nothings to him, act like everything was all right, like nothing had happened, like she hadn’t ripped out his heart and stomped on it with Kryptonite heels.
Everything about these last six weeks was a lie. How could she lie to him after begging him to always be honest with her? She had betrayed him. Did she even still love him? Did he still love her? Could he ever love her again? Did he want to? He had no idea where to go from here.
Clark felt numb. Lois. The light of his life. His own personal sunshine. Had cheated on him.
***
Lois awoke covered in sweat, breathing heavily. Jason Trask had pushed her out of an airplane and she had fallen to the ground screaming. She had been alone in the airplane. No goodbye kiss for Clark Kent. No Superman coming to her rescue. She had almost hit the ground when she woke up.
“Clark!” She reached over for him, but he wasn’t there. She took his pillow in her arms and held tight to it. Where was he?
***
Lois sat down at a set of four seats with a table in the middle. “Which way will the train be heading? I don’t want to ride backwards.”
Clark shrugged and sat down. He had been quiet all day. Lois sat down next to him. He had seemed excited about the trip the evening before when he came home from work. But then he had flown off somewhere and came back after she had fallen asleep.
She had stayed home that morning to see her mother off. Then she walked Penny through Lara’s day. How to make her formula. When she took her naps. How to give her a bath. Which toys were her favorite. How to get through the gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. How to give Lara her bottle and how to burp her.
Lois didn’t want to go. She knew she would miss her daughter more than anything. But she also knew she and Clark needed this weekend. She needed to work through her Elvis issues. She never wanted to think of the other Clark ever again. Not in the way she thought of him when Elvis played.
She took hold of Clark’s hand and rested her head on his shoulder. “After flying with Superman, this bullet train will seem slow.”
Clark shrugged her off his shoulder. “Could we not talk about him this weekend, please?”
“Something bothering you, Clark? You’ve been quiet all afternoon,” Lois asked.
“Maybe I have nothing to say,” her husband murmured, reaching into his travel bag and taking out a magazine.
Lois looked at him. He was mad at her. He was acting like he had when she was named acting editor over him. She didn’t know what he was so angry about, but she would give him time to cool off.
An hour later, he closed the magazine. That was the slowest she had ever seen him read. She stirred herself from looking at the blur outside their window.
“I wonder where we are?” she asked.
He glanced out the window for a brief second. “It looks like Ohio.” Then he reached into his travel bag and pulled out a book, a thick book.
Lois raised a brow as he settled back into his seat to read.
“Clark.”
He glanced at her.
“Are you going to spend our entire trip reading?”
“I really don’t feel like talking, Lois. Perhaps you know what I mean.”
Yep. Most certainly angry at her. Probably more angry than he had ever been. “Are you implying that I have been less than forthcoming lately?”
Clark raised a brow. “Lois, a river that has been frozen solid would be more forth coming than you have been.”
OK.
His book was open again. Lois closed the book. “All right, Clark. What do you want to talk about?”
“For starters, why don’t you tell me why we’re going to Memphis?”
She swallowed. “To write an article on the bullet train for the paper.”
Clark sighed and reopened his book.
Lois pressed her lips together. Obviously he didn’t believe the official story. She closed his book, again. “Why do you think we’re going to Memphis?”
He looked straight at her. “Let me give you a hint. A good reporter knows the answer to a question before he asks it.”
Her hand slipped off his book as he opened it up again. “Clark,” she whispered. “What are you saying?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying. The question is when will you say it.”
Lois gulped. Did he know about the other Clark? Did Martha mention their conversation about the other Clark being in love with the pregnant woman? Or… her mind drew a blank. Could he be angry about something else? Lois thought and thought, but she could not think of another reason he would be so mad at her.
“What do you want me to say, Clark?”
Her husband lowered his book for a moment. “The truth, Lois.” He turned a page. “You always expect it from me.”
She sighed. “Where do you want me to start?”
“I told you the question I want the answer to.”
Lois clasped her hands together in her lap and focused her attention on them. “How did you find out?”
“I’m not going to lead you towards your next lie, Lois.” He turned another page.
The truth, then. “We are going to Memphis because Elvis’s music…”
“We love Elvis, too!” another woman said, sitting down across the table from them. “Are you going to Graceland? We’ve been dying to go. We actually wanted to have our wedding in Memphis, but we couldn’t afford it. Finally, after five years of marriage, we’ve saved up enough to go.”
This woman’s husband looked less than thrilled with the prospect of the trip to Graceland. Lois saw Clark give him a sympathetic nod.
“Allison and Gene Sekat,” the woman said, holding out her hand.
“Lois and Clark Kent,” Lois replied, shaking hands.
Clark shifted positions and reopened his book.
Lois didn’t want to be stuck conversing with Allison and Gene Sekat any more than Clark did, but she didn’t know how to escape. They still had four to five hours before their train stopped in Memphis. “Sweetie, are you hungry?” she asked Clark. “We should head down to the dining car?”
“Oh, we just came from there. It’s a total zoo. The line is out the door,” Allison told them.
Clark rolled his eyes. “I can wait.”
Lois closed her eyes. She hated that Clark was mad at her. The one thing she could always count on was Clark and his love for her. It was the one thing that had gotten her through the past year. Someday, when they were old and grey and could escape the chit-chatting Allison Sekat, she would tell him that.
Another hour passed by and then another. Allison Sekat broke out her deck of cards, while Gene pretended to sleep in the seat next to her. Clark slowly and steadily turned the pages of his book.
“Gin!” called Allison, laying down her cards.
“Again?” Lois shook her head. She didn’t want to be there, let alone with Allison Sekat, so her heart wasn’t in the game.
***
The book slipped from Clark’s fingers. “Lara!” he gasped.
“What about Lara?”
“She’s crying. She’s hurt. I’ve…” He grabbed his shirt, but then his hand stopped. He was wearing a t-shirt. He hadn’t brought his Superman suit.
“I knew we shouldn’t have left her with Penny,” Lois said, digging into her briefcase and pulling out the cell phone.
Clark grabbed it out of her hand and speed dialed home.
It rang four times before Penny picked up.
“Why is she crying?” Clark asked.
“Subtle,” murmured Lois.
“
It’s nothing, Clark. She got a paper cut, that’s all,” Penny replied. “
She’s fine now.”
The phone slipped out of Clark’s hand and landed on the floor next to his book. He turned to Lois. “She got a paper cut.”
“I heard,” she replied, picking up the phone off the floor. “Penny, it’s Lois. How is Lara?”
”
She’s fine. I told Clark. We were reading that new nursery rhymes book you got her and she got too excited about turning pages. It was just a little cut. So little… where did it go? She had a cut just a minute ago across her palm and now it’s gone. I mean, completely healed. And I don’t mean just stopped bleeding. I mean there’s no scab or opening or anything. Lois, I’m looking at both hands and I can’t tell which hand had the paper cut. How is that possible? She is adopted, right?”
“Yes, Penny.” She didn’t want to elaborate with Allison and Gene Sekat staring at them. “But she’s fine, now?”
“
Yes, totally fine. Stopped crying and everything. I’m going to have to show this to Jimmy. He’s not…”
“Penny,” Lois warned.
“
Going to hear a thing about it from me. Right, confidentiality clause in my contract. I won’t say a word to anyone. Wow!”
“Can I talk to her?” Lois asked.
“
Uh. Yeah. Sure. Let me switch hips.” Lois heard some shuffling around. “
Here’s your Mommy.”
“Hi, Lara. It’s Mommy. I miss you. I miss you so much. Daddy misses you, too. Are you having fun with Auntie Penny?” She turned to Clark and smiled. “She giggled.”
Clark nodded that he heard.
“I love you, my sweet baboo, so much. I’m so sorry you got an owie. I wish I was there to kiss it better… Be careful with those paper books. Paper cuts sting like the dickens, but they go away quickly.” She turned to Clark. “Do you want to say, ‘hello’?”
He took the phone out of her hand. “Hi, sweetie, it’s Daddy… Yes, I did hear that you got an owie… It’s all better now. I’m glad to hear that… Can you pass the phone back to Penny?... Penny, I don’t know if this is such a good idea. Maybe we should fly home from the next stop.”
“
She’s fine, Clark. Now, go have your romantic weekend. We’re fine. Lois’s Dad will be coming by at eight and I’ll have him check her hand, okay?”
Clark hemmed and hawed. “We’ll call when we get into Memphis. Take care of our girl. She’s special.” He hung up the phone and handed it to Lois. “I can’t believe it. We missed her first owie.”
Lois hugged him, glad his anger had subsided with his worry. Lara had bled. So, she wasn’t invulnerable. She looked at Clark.
“A paper cut, too. Do you know how old I was when I got my first paper cut?” he asked her.
“I remember, Clark.” Lois motioned her head towards the Sekats, who were still actively listening.
Clark turned and looked at the couple across from them. “New parents,” he explained with a weak smile.
“How did you know she got hurt?” Allison asked, her eyes focused on him.
Lois rolled her eyes and patted Clark on the arm. “He didn’t, really. That first hour of the train ride, he called our nanny – what was it? – five times?” She looked at Clark.
“I don’t think it was over four,” he corrected, feigning embarrassment.
“It’s the first time we’ve left her overnight,” Lois explained. “I’m starving. Clark, let’s see if the dining car has cleared out any, shall we?”
“I could stretch my legs,” he said, standing up.
Lois grabbed her briefcase and Clark his travel bag. “We’ll see you later,” said Lois with a wave. When they got to the end of the car, she glanced back over her shoulder at them. “Do you think they bought it?”
“Keep moving,” Clark murmured. “Before they decide to follow us.”
She laughed. Between cars, he took her in his arms and kissed her. She willingly, gladly accepted them.
“I love you, Clark Kent. And only you,” she whispered.
Clark looked up and around. “It’s that Superman fellow I’m worried about. Do you think he followed us? I hear he’s been having an illicit affair with my wife.” He let go of Lois and continued on to the next car.
Perry. Perry had told him what she had told her boss in confidence. That she had kissed Superman under the influence of ‘
Revenge.’ Lois closed her eyes and winced. It hurt that her husband knew. It was loud between cars and Lois could hardly hear Clark, enhanced hearing and all. So, she decided to take a chance and whispered, “It was only the one time, Clark.”
It felt so good to say those words, to finally get them off her chest. Lois felt like a huge boulder was taken off her back.
Clark turned around and looked at her with shock from inside the next car. He had heard her. The hurt in his eyes felt like a knife puncturing her lungs. He looked away and continued through the next car, leaving her standing there alone.
*** End of Part 4 *** Comments
