Missing Lois (aka Season 6)
Chapter 10: Full Circle - 12 Parts
Disclaimer: Inspired by the characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster and portrayed on the
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman television series, developed for TV by Deborah Joy-Levine. The character of Batman / Bruce Wayne was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Many thanks for the above-referenced writers for their inspiration. The plot of the story is entirely my own.
For a plot summary, please click here:
Synopsis of Chapters 1 - 9 Missing Lois - TOC ***
Part 1“Lois! Clark!” Perry shouted at them from his office door.
Lois glanced up at her husband from her desk and smiled. How could she not smile? He loved her again, in every imaginable way. Trusted her again. Desired her again. Clark glanced at her and caught her gaze, grinning because they were both thinking the same thing. Another early night at the Kent house. Yippy!
“Ms. Lane! Mr. Kent!” Perry called a second time. “Could you stop making googly eyes at each other and get your butts in my office?”
This time Lois jumped.
Clark wrapped his arm around her waist. “Googly eyes?”
She elbowed her husband. “Yes, Perry?”
“Shut the door.” Oh, no. This couldn’t be good.
Clark shut the door and stood behind Lois, who sat in the sole visitor’s chair.
“What’s this I hear about Multiworld Communications being the new owners of the
Daily Planet?”
Lois glanced at Clark and gulped.
“I can’t have Intergang as my boss,” Perry groaned.
“The
Daily Planet was owned by Lex Luthor, Jr.,” explained Clark. “When he died without a will, his assets were held until a living relative came forward to claim them.”
“The happiest four months of my life, working in publisher limbo. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“We discovered that Lex, Jr. had a twin and his sister Alexandra was his likely heir,” continued Lois. “When she never came forward, we started looking for her. Mindy Huckaby, aka Mindy Church – head of Intergang came out looking like a possibility. She fit the description we’d been given for Alexandra Luthor, but we haven’t had any proof until this moment that our guess was accurate.”
“Mindy Church – that dizzy blonde that Bill Church married – is our new boss?” Perry asked, plopping himself into his seat.
“If it’s any consolation, sir,” said Clark. “We think her lack of intelligence has been greatly exaggerated.”
“No, Clark. It isn’t a consolation.” Perry looked at him in disbelief. “Don’t you two think a little heads up would have been nice?”
“Yes, Chief,” Clark replied.
“We didn’t have any hard facts. All we had was conjecture…” began Lois.
“Next time that you get anything that’s even a whisper of a rumor about the
Daily Planet, conjecture or otherwise, I want to hear it.”
Clark patted Lois on the arm. “Yes, sir.”
She stood up.
“I just got this memo from upstairs,” Perry continued, sliding a piece of paper across his desk.
Lois sat back down. “What’s this?” she asked, picking it up.
“It’s a list of topics we’re no longer allowed to write about.”
“No!” Lois gasped, glancing back at Clark.
“And this,” Perry said, sliding another piece of paper across the desk. “Is about some of the minor changes that will take place.”
This time Clark leaned over her shoulder. She guessed he had finished reading it before she even had picked it up.
“Mandatory drug testing?” Clark gulped.
“Yep. Next week. I’m supposed to warn everyone to stay away from poppy seeds, because they often create a false positive.”
“I’ve heard that,” Lois murmured, glancing at Clark. He hated any type of testing.
“I can’t take a drug test. This is like Trask all over again. Violation of my rights.” He pretended to cough. “Our rights.”
“Trask?” Lois whispered; she felt an icy chill creep down her spine.
“I’m sorry, Honey,” said Clark, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her hand.
Perry looked at them with a raised brow. “I hate this, too, but you two certainly don’t have anything to worry about… do you?”
Focus on the problem at hand, she told herself. “Of course not, Perry. But Clark’s right, as long as we do our jobs and turn in our stories, I see no reason to violate our privacy.”
“Okay.” Perry put his hands on his desk and pushed himself to his feet. “Just wanted to give you a heads up. The less rocking the boat, the less waves that splash us and get us wet. We’ll weather this storm, until we can find a new owner on our own. I have fought too long and too hard for this paper to let it stay in the hands of Multiworld Communications. Keep writing on whatever you see fit. I’ll take care of the heat.” He sighed. “Now, I’ve got to tell everybody else about our new parent company.” This didn’t look like a job he relished.
As soon as Perry left his office, Clark wrapped his arms around her. “Lois, I can’t give them my urine.”
Lois lowered her voice. “Have Dr. Klein check it first and see if any anomalies show up. If they do, we’ll figure out a way to explain them to Multiworld Communications.”
“Why do they want to do drug testing?” her husband asked shaking his head.
“Blackmail opportunities, my guess,” she replied.
They walked out of Perry’s office as he finished his announcements.
Jimmy came and stood beside them. “Can you believe this?”
Lois wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “How are you holding up?”
That morning Jimmy had discovered a photo on page six society page of the
Gotham Gazette of Bruce Wayne and Penny Barnes on the town in Gotham City. Thank you, Ralph.
Jimmy grinned. Not the response she had expected. “How cool is that?! Bruce Wayne! Bruce Wayne stole my girlfriend.” He laughed.
Lois and Clark looked at him with startled expressions.
“You aren’t upset?” Clark asked, hesitantly.
“Are you kidding me? This gets me total street cred with the ladies.”
“What?” stammered Lois.
“Penny and I have nothing in common, except my desiring her hotness and her liking my super cool friends.” He shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to break up with her for a while now. But how do you dump a hot babe like Penny?” He wandered off back to his desk.
“He still must be in shock,” murmured Clark with a shake of his head, before kissing her cheek. “I’m off to see Dr. Klein.”
Lois watched him jog out of the newsroom with a sigh. Perry headed back to his office and nudged her. “It looks like you finally checked out the Heartbreak Hotel. Is that why you disappeared Friday without a word?”
She smiled secretly at him. “Family emergency.”
“Right,” he said, not buying it.
Lois shrugged, returning to her desk. In spite of Bruce’s actions, she had had a good weekend. And, now, she had a spy in the Bruce Wayne camp.
***
Superman stared at Dr. Klein. “Excuse me?”
“It’s pee, Superman. What else do you want me to say?” Dr. Klein looked down at his chart.
Superman crossed his arms and raised a brow.
“You aren’t sick, so no blood. You don’t drink or do drugs, so nothing artificial to show up. It’s simply pee.”
“So, my urine is exactly the same as human urine?” That couldn’t be right.
“Well, no. Of course not,” Dr. Klein clarified.
Superman hadn’t thought so.
“A normal human male’s testosterone level, let’s say is about here.” The scientist held a hand up about hip level. “Your testosterone level is closer to here.” He held his other hand about chest level.”
OK. Not so similar. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No. It seems to work for you. On a human male that level of testosterone, I’d worry about excessive anger, rage, violence, and horniness, but you aren’t human and we know you don’t have any of those traits. Your Kryptonian genes must balance it out.”
Superman thought about this for a minute. “But there isn’t anything non-human about the urine?”
Dr. Klein shrugged. “It’s pee.” He picked up his clipboard again, stopping. “Superman, why all this sudden interest in your…” The researcher slapped his forehead. “Those test results from last spring. You’re trying to find another explanation for the result. Still hoping…” He couldn’t complete that sentence.
Superman raised a brow, crossing his arms. “I’m still hopeful that a mistake was made and you were wrong.” He knew Dr. Klein was wrong. What other explanation for Lara and Peter – the other half-Kryptonian child he helped deliver in Smallville – could there be?
“I’m not infallible, Superman. I have made mistakes – from time to time,” Dr. Klein replied. “At least once that I can think of off the top of my head.”
Better make that twice, thought Superman.
“If you want, you can give me another sample of your swimmers and I can throw it into a Petri dish with a human egg and see what happens. I could be wrong.” Dr. Klein sounded like he was talking about making breakfast instead of making a baby.
Superman didn’t know quite how to respond to that blasé suggestion, except with his expression of disgust. “I’d rather not,” he finally replied.
“It’s up to you. If you and this woman you’re seeing become serious, you can always try the hope-and-pray method. In any case, always use precautions.” Dr. Klein paused in thought. “I’m betting that the same protection applied to your suit, your uniform, would apply to the condom, making it indestructible while so close to your skin. Hmmm.”
Superman had already come to this conclusion. Not wishing to continue this line of discourse with the good scientist, he said, “Thank you, Dr. Klein.” And departed quickly.
***
Lois picked up the phone. “Lois Lane,
Daily Planet.”
“
Hi, Lois. Is Clark there?” It was Penny. She sounded nervous.
“Is something wrong, Penny? Lara okay?” Lois asked, sitting up.
“
No. No. No. Nothing like that… I…” She paused.
Lois waited. Something was clearly upsetting her.
“
My brother Matthew called. Some men came into the lab today, questioned them about the computer explosion, about what they were researching… I really should talk to Clark about this.”
“Why?” Lois asked her, slowly.
“
They had search warrants and were about to take the back-up servers when… When will Clark be back, Lois?”
Lois started to be annoyed. “Clark and I are partners. Anything you want to tell him about these policemen that came to your brother’s lab, you can tell me.” Then she waited.
Finally, Penny spoke again. “
They weren’t policemen. They said they were government agents. I told Bruce I think they were the same men you and Clark wrote about after Superman showed up. He thinks I’m being paranoid.”
The phone dropped out of Lois’s hand. “Bureau 39.”
***
Clark was at her desk the next moment, picking up the phone. He had been downstairs at the coffee cart when he heard her whisper those two words. She hadn’t had a nightmare in the two weeks since the Bruce Wayne incident, since he had moved back into their bedroom. He thought that maybe she had worked through her fears with Dr. Friskin or because she felt safer with him sleeping next to her again.
“Hello?”
“
Clark!” Penny’s voice gushed with relief. “
We need to meet with you… all three of us.”
Clark glanced at his wife. She was still frozen in fear. “What are you talking about, Penny? Me, you, and Lois?”
She paused. “
Me, you, and Bruce.”
Clark growled. “I want nothing to do with him.”
“
I think we should meet at his house this time, since his dreadful mistake. He could have his chef make dinner…”
“Penny, I know you are dating the guy, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him or attend his dinner parties. We live in different cities and lead separate lives. Let’s keep it that way.”
“
I’m not… It’s not a dinner party, it’s dinner. It would just be you and us. Clark, I think those men were after…” She swallowed. “
… you-know-who.”
His brow came down. “What men?” He hadn’t heard the whole of Lois’s conversation, just her final analysis.
“
Lois will fill you in. I can’t talk on the phone any longer, Lara’s scooted off again. Tell me your answer when you come home tonight. Please, Clark. This is important.” Penny hung up.
Clark hung up the phone and cupped Lois’s jaw in his hands. “Lois, Honey. I’m right here. Are you okay?”
No response.
Clark took her hands in his, kissed her lips, gently, softly. “Lois?”
Her eyes blinked. Once. Twice. She looked at him and smiled. “Clark.” Then she jumped up and started throwing files into her briefcase. “I’ve got to go home. To Lara. Now.”
“Lois. Lara’s fine. She’s home with Penny…”
His wife shook her head adamantly. “No. Clark. I need to see her. Hold her. I need to know she’s okay.” She hugged him briefly. “Don’t do anything stupid.” Then she ran out of the newsroom.
Don’t do anything stupid? She had never said anything like that to him before in his life. When had he ever done anything stupid? Usually, it was her. He caught up with Lois at the elevators. “Can I come with you?” he asked, not wanting her to drive in her present agitated condition.
Lois smiled in agreement and held out her hand to him.
***
Clark handed Lois a cup of tea. She took it happily. Life had been so good these last two weeks.
Why, now? she thought. She had been so sure that Bruce had been the man Trask represented in her dreams. Now, she was no longer sure. Clark trusted him enough to let him go after that Kryptonite episode, or was it because he now knew their secret?
“So, your brother said government agents wanted to take the lab’s back-up servers. What were they looking for?” Clark asked Penny.
Penny glanced across the room at their daughter and then went to get her and bring her back to the living room. “Lara, we’ve talked about this. If you keep leaving the living room, I’m putting you back in the playpen.”
Did Lara just look at her with a scowl? Lois handed her tea back to Clark and then held out her arms to Lara. Her daughter gratefully came to her.
“I’m guessing they are looking for the reason the computer crashed,” Penny finally said.
“Didn’t Bruce say it was a clogged vent?” Lois responded, giving her daughter a silly smile.
“That’s the official story.” Penny pressed her lips together. “Clark, I’m sure Bruce would come, if you agreed to a meeting.”
Clark raised a brow. “So this whole meeting plan wasn’t his idea?”
Penny blushed, looking down. “No. It was mine. He thinks I’m still a little too obsessed with Superman.” She waved off that idea. “Just because I know everything about…
him… doesn’t mean I’m obsessed.”
Since that day with Bruce and the Kryptonite, Lois had noticed that Penny had been vigilant not to even suggest the hint of Clark being Superman, even to them. She was extra careful with Lara, since then, as well. Always calling them before taking her for a walk. Giving them a call when she returned to the house. Never letting anyone into the house, including refusing to sign for packages, telling the deliverymen to return after the owners were home or to leave the packages in the foyer. Then calling her bosses to inform them, if indeed packages were left.
“According to Matthew, the search warrants were bogus. They weren’t government men. That’s why I thought they might be the same men who came after you… looking for Superman, at the beginning.”
Lois hugged her daughter tighter. She saw Clark glance her direction. He was worried about her, Lois could tell. Apparently, Lois had blanked out again. Clark set his wife’s tea down on the dining room table and then returned to the couch to hold Lois’s hand. She smiled at him.
Clark had been ever so careful around Lara since she had started moving about the house, ever since he had learned she wasn’t invulnerable like him. No hot beverages or knives or tools or coins left out where she could knock them down. The house was cleaner than a doctor’s office. Everything locked up so tightly that Lois had to ask him to open the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
“Who did Bruce think they were?” Clark asked.
Penny rolled her eyes. “Rival company. Corporate espionage, he said.”
“That’s a gutsy move for corporate espionage. A little out in the open, don’t you think?” Lois said, turning to Clark.
“Corporate espionage is the logical answer or, maybe, I hate to say it, another news organization, but I can’t see anyone sending an entire team to get a news story. If it had been Bureau 39, or some group like that, they would have infiltrated S.T.A.R. Labs instead. Gotham Laboratories doesn’t have any connection to us.” He glanced at Penny. “Or Superman.”
Penny wasn’t looking at Clark, she was staring at Lara. “That’s what Bruce said.”
“He knows what he’s talking about. If you want, I can fly over to Gotham City and talk with your brother. Interview him for our story. Would he agree to that? Would Bruce?”
Penny looked down. “I don’t know. Bruce thinks I’m being paranoid, ever since I found out…” She swallowed, then glanced up quickly at Clark, then away again. Lois had noticed the fear in her eyes. She was definitely scared of something.
“Bruce doesn’t scare you, does he?” Lois asked, leaning forward and passing their daughter to Clark.
Penny shook her head with a slight smile. “Hardly.”
Clark chuckled, bouncing Lara on his knee. “I’d love to see his reaction to that statement,” he murmured under his breath.
Lois glanced at him and he pressed his lips together, innocently. Sometimes, he forgot that she had picked up extra keen hearing while over in the other dimension. She wondered what Clark had on Bruce. Every time she brought it up, he would change the subject or hear someone crying for help and sometimes the sneak just kissed her. She would worm it out of him one day.
“What’s scaring you?” Lois asked her.
Swallowing, Penny’s eyes went wide. “Jimmy said that these Bureau 39 guys tried to kill Clark, his parents, and his neighbor. That they were the ones who discovered Kryptonite.”
“They were disbanded after the attack in Smallville that killed their leader, Penny. They don’t exist anymore,” Clark spoke to Penny, but Lois could tell it was his wife he was trying to reassure.
Only Lois knew they still existed. She knew what that story Perry wrote the day of the funeral read. Well, her funeral in the future that didn’t happen. The future that didn’t occur because she went to the other dimension, so Clark and Superman could return to Earth. That other no-longer possible future, Bureau 39 had discovered that she had been pregnant with Superman’s child after she and the baby had both died in childbirth, even though Lois had claimed to be carrying Clark’s child until the end. She guessed she died of the same problem she had had in the other dimension, from excessive blood loss. Lara must have died from the fact that she couldn’t be separated from the placenta, because the doctors couldn’t cut the umbilical cord. That must be how Bureau 39 knew for sure that Lara was Superman’s child.
Lois shivered. She didn’t want to think about what else that article had said about what happened. She didn’t want to think about what Ultra Woman had to do so she could be sitting in her living room at that very moment. Lois pulled her daughter back into her arms and held her tightly again. She knew the men from Bureau 39 were still out there, waiting, lurking like vultures, searching for a way to steal her child.
***
A tall, golden-haired woman entered Perry’s office. She wore a skin tight black dress with a leopard skin jacket, which on almost any other woman would have looked trashy, but somehow she was able to pull it off, elegantly. She held a puffy white dog. The dog also wore a leopard skin jacket.
Perry glanced up and then jumped to his feet, stammering, “Mrs. Church!”
She smiled at him and batted her eyelashes, shutting the office door despite it being quite late and them being alone in the newsroom. “Hello, there, Mr. White.”
“What can I do for you?”
Mindy licked her lips and then pouted, speaking in her baby-doll voice. “Hunky said that you were a good friend to him, Mr. White. That you would do anything I asked you to do for me.” She batted her eyelashes again.
Perry cleared his throat. “Mrs. Church, that was before I knew he was the head of Intergang. But I understand you are owner of the
Daily Planet now and, therefore my boss. What do you want?”
The blonde thought about what he said. “Clark Kent.”
Perry snorted with laughter. “What do you want Clark for?”
“He’s a good writer, despite working with that woman. I want him to be my personal reporter.” Mindy widened her smile. “Plus, he’s one good looking man.”
“Mrs. Church, that woman is his wife and partner. And journalists don’t work as personal reporters. They find news stories and write about them.”
“I need someone to write what I want them to write about. And I want him.” Her expression made Perry think it wasn’t only for journalistic reasons she had chosen him.
“Then I recommend you buy the
National Whisperer, Mrs. Church. This is a serious newspaper, where we only print the hard facts and hard truth,” Perry reminded her.
Mindy opened her clutch purse and removed a golden paper, handing it to Perry. “Clark Kent’s drug test results.” She grinned wickedly. “Unless he has a reasonable explanation for this, he
will be my personal reporter, writing the news
I find important. Like how Superman is bad for Metropolis.” She waved to him on her way out the door. “Ta-Ta.”
***
Perry shut the door to his office. Clark sat in the chair uncomfortably as he watched his boss pace, before resting on the corner of his desk. Was he about to be fired? A message from above about his recent article on increased crime in Metropolis? Usually when Perry called him into his office, he called Lois as well.
“Is it the raid on Gotham Labs story?” Clark asked hopefully.
Perry waved off those concerns. “Son,” he started and then paused as if not knowing how to continue. He cleared his throat.
This almost reminded Clark of when Lois had been caught kissing Superman. He hoped it wasn’t anything like that. No. He glanced at his wife sitting at her desk with a smile. He could trust Lois.
“I’m worried about you.”
Worried about him? Clark was confused. Nobody, but Lois and his folks, worried about him. It was Lois they always worried about. “Sir?”
“I just don’t understand the need…” Perry shook his head.
“What need?”
“The need… to take performance enhancing drugs, Clark.”
*** End of Part 1 *** Comments
