"Duality" - Smallville - Chlois/Clark - PG-13 - Part 1
Title: Duality
Author: Cassandra Mulder
Rating: PG-13
Classification: Chlark; Chlois (Chloe-as-Lois); AU; futurefic
Spoilers: Everything's fair game up through the season three finale, "Crusade". I've messed everything around from there.
Disclaimer: Al and Miles own everything but intelligence, Tollin/Robbins, DC Comics, and the WB also put up with those clowns. I'm just playing, and no fringement is intended.
Word count: 18,890
Written: April 2004 - August 31, 2005
Distribution: My site, Bound, AMO, anyone else, please ask.
Summary: Secrets long buried and secret identities come to the surface as two lives merge again in unexpected ways.
A/N: This thing is an epic, for me. I don't do long as an unwritten rule, but this is looong. However, I'm happy to have finally given birth to this brain child, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it. Because even when it was a struggle, it was an adventure.
Thank you: HUGE thanks and much love go out to Jen (ladybug218), my wonderful, thorough, patient beta. She kept this story coherent (or at least as coherent as anything I write), grammatically correct, and punctuation sound. With something this big you definitely need someone to catch all the things you don't, and I never could've pieced it together correctly without her.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Clark Kent walked the halls of the Daily Planet trying to quell his nerves. It's just first day jitters, he reminded himself. I've been through worse. He had had enough intern experience in college that he shouldn't be nervous at all. That thought didn't help ease his anxiety. He was working for Perry White now, and he was afraid his new boss was going to see him as the crazy farm boy he had thought him to be during their first encounter in Smallville.
A whole lot had changed in the years since, and that farm boy was no exception.
He adjusted the glasses he didn't really need, and finally found his cubicle among the many that framed the ever-buzzing newsroom. How anyone got any work done with all the noise, he would never know. It was definitely nothing like working at a small town paper, and neither compared to the solitude of the farm where he had grown up.
Not that he had been to the farm much lately. Since Jonathan Kent succumbed to heart failure at an all too early age, Clark's heart hadn't been in visiting his childhood home. The only reason he endured the visits were for his mother. She was devastated by the loss of her husband, but had insisted on keeping the farm going. With a couple of hired hands, plus her small pie business, she was doing fine.
Martha told Clark repeatedly that Jonathan's death was not his fault, but he still couldn't help feeling responsible. Too many of his thoughts started with, "If it wasn't for me..."
Clark brought himself back to the present when he heard a cough, and blinked at the woman standing before him, looking expectant. He realized his mouth was hanging open, and tried to apologize, only to find his voice wasn't working.
She looked just like her...
The petite brunette waved her hand in front of his face.
"Hello? Earth to..." She leaned sideways slightly to read the nameplate on his desk. "Clark Kent."
She didn't talk like her. Her voice was just slightly deeper and huskier.
"I'm... I'm sorry," Clark stammered. "You are?" he asked, a puzzled look crossing his features.
"Lois Lane," she said simply, holding out her hand for him to shake.
As he did, a realization dawned on him. "You're..." he stopped, not sure whether to broach the subject or not.
"I'm?"
Clark cleared his throat. "You're, uh, related to Chloe Sullivan, aren't you?"
A troubled look danced across her face. "Yeah. Yeah, I was her cousin. Am. Whatever." She seemed flustered now. "Come to think of it, you must be the Clark Kent from Smallville that she used to go on about all the time."
He blushed a bit, and readjusted his glasses. "I'm the only one as far as I know."
"That's good, because from the stories she used to tell, she couldn't have kept up with two of you."
Clark was at a loss for words, so he cleared his throat again. "You look a lot like her," he blurted out.
To his surprise, she only shrugged. "Some cousins do."
He nodded. "Right." Pause. "Well, Miss Lane, I better get to work. I'd hate to screw up my first day."
"You can call me Lois," she said, then turned and walked away.
***
This is not good, she thought to herself. He can't be here.
She watched him from across the bullpen. He seemed to be doing research. He was... still beautiful. She sighed. This wasn't going to work. He would discover her secret sooner or later, and that might put her in danger again. Not to mention what it would do to him.
She got up and made her way to the ladies' room. Leaning against the sink, she looked into the mirror, wondering how he wouldn't eventually just know.
Sure, her short, blonde hair had been replaced with longer, darker tresses, and her blue-gray eyes were now brown thanks to colored contacts. She'd changed everything about herself, from her hair and eyes to the way she walked, talked, and dressed. It hadn't been an easy process. If there was one thing Chloe Sullivan had prided herself on, it was being herself. Now she had to be somebody else.
She rarely thought of herself as Chloe anymore, she had become so immersed in her role. That had been the hardest part of her transformation. It had taken her a long time to automatically respond to a different name, but it had gotten easier over time. Slowly she had begun to dwell less on the life she could no longer have, and think more about the one she had to create for herself.
She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. Clark being here only complicated things more than they already were. She would have to play her role more thoroughly than ever. One tiny slip and he would know.
He couldn't know.
Clark had lost his best friend seven years ago, or so he thought. She couldn't admit to him that she had made him, and everyone else that had loved her, suffer just to save herself.
Her own father didn't know she was alive and well. She had hurt the two people she loved more than anything in the world, and she had to live with that guilt every single day. She didn't know what it would do to Clark to know that his best friend wasn't really dead, she had just run away.
She turned away from the mirror and took a deep breath. She could only hope now wasn't the time to start paying for the things she had done.
Clark was waiting at her desk when she returned, and she groaned inwardly.
"Can I help you, Kent?" she asked pointedly.
He only raised his eyebrows at first, until he found his voice. "Uh..."
God, he's still a dork, she thought.
"Well? I haven't got all day," she said, shooing him from his perch on the edge of her desk so she could reach her chair.
The girl he thought was Lois, for now, brushed by him and sat down, crossing her legs and folding her hands on top of her short skirt. She looked up at him expectantly, wondering what was taking him so long.
"I - I just had a couple of questions," he stammered.
She had only ever heard him struggle this much around Lana Lang, years ago. Please don't let me become his next brunette obsession, she silently begged anyone who might be listening. There was only so much she could take.
"Okay..."
"Well," he started, pushing at his glasses, "you're one of the big time writers around here... so I was wondering when we get our assignments."
"There's a staff meeting this afternoon at two. Mr. White usually takes care of that then, unless we're already working on something. And I would assume you're not yet."
Clark shook his head.
There was a brief moment of silence, so to cover her frustration, she asked, "You said you had a couple of questions?"
"Oh. Yeah. The second one was, will you go to lunch with me?"
Her face fell. Oh, great, she thought.
***
Clark watched the woman in front of him stab at her salad like she was trying to kill a wild animal.
"Is there something wrong, Lois?" Somehow he was concerned and amused at the same time.
Lois stopped abruptly, and looked up at him. "No," she shrugged. "I've just had sort of a rough morning."
"Anything I can do to help?"
"'Fraid not," she replied as her shoulders sagged.
He studied her as she picked at her food more calmly now. He never would have thought he would meet Chloe's cousin, much less be working with her, in a city the size of Metropolis. That old cliché about it being a small world was starting to ring true.
He wasn't sure whether he was disturbed or comforted by the resemblance. On one hand it was troubling to be looking at someone who was almost the mirror image of the best friend he had lost, and on the other it was good to see that face again, regardless of the weird circumstances.
Not that weirdness was new in his life.
Their conversation had gone from stalled to a dead stop and he was just about ready to throw in the towel and pay the bill. It was quite clear that Lois didn't like him, for whatever reason. He thought he would try, for the connection to Chloe, if nothing else, but it wasn't working.
Maybe she didn't want the connection; didn't want to remember anymore than he did.
"Um, are you ready to go?" he asked when he couldn't stand anymore tension.
"Sure," she said, letting her fork clink down on the plate, and reaching for her purse. "Just let me know what my half is."
"Don't worry about it, I'm paying," he told her.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand to stop her.
"Where I come from, when a man asks a lady to share a meal with him, he pays."
She looked too stressed to argue. He was sure she was perfectly capable of argument, but she simply said, "Good old small-town chivalry", and let him pay the bill.
He held the door open for her as they left and she didn't bother to act surprised.
They walked along in silence toward the Planet building.
"Are you single, Kent?" She suddenly spoke.
He was taken aback briefly, before nodding. "Yeah. Why?"
Lois shrugged. "With that routine, I figured some poor sap would've snapped you up already," she answered with the first smile he had seen from her.
Her smile was definitely different. It was more reserved, where Chloe's had always been so wide, so open.
I have to stop comparing them...
"Are you gay?"
"No!" he responded quickly.
A small laugh escaped her. "Just checking."
"How about you?" he asked back.
"Gay? No. Single? Happily."
"So there's such a thing as happily single?"
"As if there's such a thing as happily married?" she asked sarcastically.
"You might have a point there, but stranger things have happened."
***
Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, she thought darkly. What hurt her the most was that she had seen Jonathan's obituary, and couldn't say anything to Clark about it.
"Guess you've seen it happen then," she said a little too brightly.
"Yeah," was his only reply.
She looked at her watch. "Oh man, we better walk a little faster, our break's almost over."
He merely nodded as they picked up the pace, and she berated herself for broaching a subject she should have known would be touchy.
But that was just it. She wasn't supposed to know. Clark wouldn't blame her because he was a stranger, and she didn't know anything about him.
Or so he thought. It was getting too confusing to keep straight in her head.
They parted ways once they got to the office since they only had an hour to prepare for the staff meeting.
Lois couldn't concentrate to save her life. She still didn't know why she agreed to go to lunch with him. She couldn't afford to get too close. Not again, and for a million different reasons than before. Being with him made her want to tell him; made her want to break out her old Chloe smile and say, "Hey, Clark, it's me! Not the dead cousin whose identity I assumed, me."
She couldn't do that. Not now, and probably not ever. As long as Lex Luthor was alive and carrying his father's vendetta, she had to hide. Even then, if his research was thorough enough, she was afraid he might still find her.
That was a chance she was willing to take, considering she felt she covered her tracks well enough. Taking her life into her own hands was one thing, but she wouldn't endanger Clark. She saw the lengths he would go to for her, and she wasn't about to intrude on the life he was obviously trying to rebuild. He had his own problems.
So she would go on playing a stranger and hope he would stay out of her way and keep things strictly business.
Then again, she knew Clark Kent - or at least she used to - and staying out of people's way was not his strong suit.
"I am so screwed," she muttered, dropping her head in her hands.
***
The staff meeting could've gone better, Clark thought, letting himself into his new apartment.
He ended up with an assignment on Lex Corp, and Lois caught him staring at her at least half a dozen times. He knew he hadn't made a very good impression on her, but he turned into a basket-case when she was around. Her resemblance to his dead best friend was just too distracting.
It hadn't helped when Mr. White talked about pairing them up on investigative assignments. If there was one thing he couldn't afford, it was to get too close to her. Or anyone, for that matter.
He had a plan; a secret. No one could come between him and that, it was too important.
Clark tossed his single bag of groceries on the counter and hit the message button on his answering machine. There was nothing, as usual.
The evening spread out before him, as empty as they had all been since he left home. Short of a major crisis, it looked like it would be him and the TV for the night.
He moved through the apartment, turning lights on as he went. When he got to the bedroom, he threw his jacket on a chair and loosened his tie. Sometimes he regretted choosing a profession where he had to wear a suit every day. It was a far cry from the flannel and jeans he'd grown up in.
The one thing that Chloe had endlessly teased him about.
He told himself that he had to stop thinking about her, but the thing was, he had never stopped. He blamed himself for Chloe's death every day for the last seven years.
It was yet to be seen if he could work with her practically identical cousin every day without having a nervous breakdown.
Worse yet, he didn't know what she would do to him if she found out that he hadn't been there when Chloe needed him the most.
***
Lois felt like she had been running laps around the newsroom all afternoon. It had been almost a month since Clark had unexpectedly walked back into her life, and she had almost been too busy to notice ever since.
Almost.
She noticed that he wore his hair quite a bit shorter now, and always combed and parted on the side. She still had no idea what was up with the glasses. Clark always had ridiculously perfect vision.
Then again, there wasn't a whole lot that made sense in her world anymore. She had spent every minute of the last few weeks trying to concentrate on their Lex Corp story with Clark always trailing her like a shadow. She had wanted to say something to him about that, but didn't see any point in making things more awkward than they already were.
Besides the constant distraction of her past, there had been a hot story buzzing around the Planet offices for the last two weeks.
A flying man had been seen around Metropolis, which, while odd, wasn't exactly the weirdest thing she had ever heard. Supposedly, he was some sort of superhero - busting criminals, saving small children, plucking kittens out of trees...
They were calling him Superman, but she wasn't sure that was official.
The main reason the city was abuzz was because no one had ever gotten a good look at him. Lois pitied Jimmy Olsen, one of the Planet's young photographers, because Mr. White had the poor boy out almost all day every day, trying to get a good photo.
It hadn't happened yet, and Lois tried to reassure Jimmy he wasn't going to get fired because a hot subject was being elusive on purpose.
She hoped she was right. Perry White could be incredibly unpredictable and ruthless.
This new phenomenon in Metropolis had also been pushing her to beat her deadline on the Lex Corp story. She wasn't having much success with anything except her sources. Neither she nor Clark could get in to see Lex.
When she asked Clark why he couldn't get in to see him, he muttered something about having a past and tried to change the subject.
But of course, she knew their past. She knew the spectacular blowout that had led to the end of their precarious friendship.
She knew everything, and every day she had to go on like she wasn't the girl that had died for him and his secrets.
***
"That is an incredibly bad idea," Clark said as he paced up and down in front of Lois' desk. Her office was small, so he only had about six feet to do this, and she wondered if he was ever going to get as annoyed with it as she was.
"C'mon, Kent, it would be just like -" She stopped, and her breath caught as he halted his pacing to turn and look at her. "Just like all the other times I've done stupid stuff like this," she said quickly.
"Or like all the times Chloe and I did this?"
"Or that, too," she agreed, hoping he hadn't caught her. "She had some tales."
"And one finally got her killed," he said darkly.
"I -" Lois pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I know that," she said defensively.
Clark turned and walked out her door.
Lois almost slammed her chair against the wall, she got up so quickly. She followed him through the newsroom to his cubicle, where he stopped so suddenly she almost ran into him.
"Geez, Clark!"
He turned around and gave her an odd look. But then his expression turned to stone and he said, "What do you want?"
"We have to do this. You know we do. To finish the assignment, we have to, and I want it to be over. Mr. White wants an interview with Lex Luthor. Either we get one or we get fired."
"He wouldn't really..."
"Yes, he would. I've seen it happen countless times."
"He's never gonna see us."
"Yes, he is."
"He's never gonna talk to us."
"Then we'll make him."
The hard glint in her eyes told him it was true. Lois Lane was not a woman to be messed around with. He was finally beginning to see that.
***
"Do I need to tell you again that this is a bad idea?" Clark whispered to Lois as they sat outside Lex Luthor's office.
She glared at him, then continued staring at her hands in her lap. So showing up without an appointment hadn't been the smartest thing to do. Last resorts usually weren't. The point was, they had been announced, and security hadn't been up to retrieve them, so she was going to take what she could get.
They had already been waiting half an hour, which she thought was stretching it, even if they had barged in. But she'd known Lex wasn't going to make this easy for either of them.
She sighed and shifted in her chair just as Lex's secretary popped her head out the door.
"Mr. Kent? Ms. Lane? Mr. Luthor will see you now."
They both stood, and Lois straightened her suit.
Get in, get answers, get out, she thought. And hopefully no one gets hurt.
The moment she laid eyes on Lex, for the first time in person in seven years, she wasn't so sure about that last part.
He was still bald and well dressed, but the weight of his years spent battling against what he thought was the true nature of the Luthors had taken their toll. Not so much in the way he looked - at the age of thirty he still had boyish features - but in his demeanor.
He stood and walked toward them, greeting them like perfect strangers. She was, as far as he knew, but they all knew Clark wasn't.
As he reached out his right hand to shake hers, she noticed it was encased in a black leather glove.
"If you're here about the stock scandal, I've answered all the questions I'm going to answer," he said, gesturing to two chairs as he headed back behind his desk.
Clark made no move to speak, so Lois took the lead.
Just like old times, she mused to herself.
She took the seat in front of Lex's desk, and primly crossed her ankles.
"I'm afraid we're here about a scandal of another kind," she said, looking him straight in the eye.
"And what would that be, Ms. Lane?"
"Well, there have been... rumblings, shall we say, that Lex Corp is secretly carrying on illegal genetic and biological experiments. Much like the ones performed at Luthor Corp in Smallville in the late nineteen-nineties through the early part of the last decade.
"Considering the trouble those caused, I'm curious to know why they're still going on when the repercussions are so clear?"
"And how would you know about the experiments in Smallville?"
"Research," she replied evenly.
"And I grew up there," Clark chimed in, finally.
Good, Lois thought. I thought you were dead over there for a minute.
Lex's attention still seemed focused only on her.
"Well, then. If you've done your research thoroughly enough, Ms. Lane, you will know that once the danger of the meteor rocks - which all of my father's experiments were based on - was made public knowledge, they were eradicated."
"Oh, I know that," Lois countered. "But if all the meteor rocks were gathered by a Luthor-backed company, you'd be good to go for, oh, ever."
Lex smirked at her, clearly amused by her tenacity. "I can assure you we had nothing to do with the digs for the rocks, nor is there anymore experimentation involving them. I put a stop to that long ago."
"So that's it? That's your official statement?"
"That's the truth, Ms. Lane."
She had known she would never get the truth out of him, but she'd had to try.
Lois stood, followed by Clark, and smiled at Lex. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Luthor."
"I'm sorry to have wasted yours, Ms. Lane. Mr. Kent."
It was the first time he had openly acknowledged Clark, but he was still looking at her with that enigmatic smile. It reminded her of the way he used to look at Lana. Apparently, I should've been a brunette all along.
"We can show ourselves out," she said, and by the time she reached the door, Clark was already holding it open for her.
She only glanced at him as they made their way into the elevator, and down to the main lobby.
As they stepped out, she turned to look at him.
"That was a great performance, Kent. What the hell were you doing? Or not doing, I should say."
Clark looked positively defeated, but she couldn't feel all that sorry for him. After all, she had just faced the man whose father had tried to kill her. And it wasn't as if Lex had done anything to stop him.
Lois looked at him expectantly. "Well? Did you freeze, or was I just doing that good of a job?"
"It's complicated."
"Oh?"
"I haven't spoken to Lex Luthor since right after Chloe died."
"I guess that's why he paid such a great deal of attention to you," she said. Shaking her head, she started for the door.
Clark followed and gently grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry, Lois. I should've been more help. But it - It didn't end well."
She eyed her arm, and he removed his hand. "It doesn't matter, Smallville. Neither one of us was going to get a straight answer out of him. I doubt anyone ever has."
Lois turned and continued making her way out of the Lex Corp building. The further she got from any Luthor, the better. Right now she didn't even care if Clark followed, she just wanted out.
***
Nothing had been going well before, but in the week since their meeting with Lex things had been even worse between Clark and Lois, and he had no idea why she had taken that encounter so hard. There were the obvious reasons, but he still felt like there was something bothering her that he had no clue about.
That was usually his problem, but at least he'd come to realize it since he was a teenager. Now that he was picking up on things, he couldn't get her to tell him what was wrong. She went about her business, and that was that. The old Kent charm didn't seem to go far at all where Lois Lane was concerned. He had never met anyone that stubborn in his life. Not even the best friend he couldn't forget.
He finally cornered her in her office, which he had entered without knocking.
"Lois, we need to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about."
Clark gave her a frustrated look.
"Do you need help with something?"
He rolled his eyes. "No."
"Then there's nothing to talk about, is there?"
"You haven't been the same since -" He stopped at the glare she shot him. "Since the other day."
"Look, Kent, we haven't really known each other long enough for you to determine what the 'same' is for me. So don't you worry your pretty little head about it, and everything will be just fine."
"As much as I love being patronized," he said with an unfriendly smirk "maybe I should be worried about it."
Lois finally stepped out from behind her desk. "Clark, let's get one thing straight, okay? We are not friends. We are here to work together because the Chief made it so. It wasn't my choice and it wasn't yours. So let's keep it professional, all right? I don't need you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. That may be your job, but not when it comes to me. Got it?"
She was rather intimidating for such a little thing... But he backed down, knowing he'd gone too far. "Got it."
"Thank you," she said, retreating back to her chair. "Now, if there isn't anything else..."
"Nope," he said with a shake of his head.
As he left her office, his mind wasn't any more at ease. In fact, he was more muddled than ever if she had something to hide, and it appeared she did. She'd never been totally comfortable with him, and he only found that odd because that was usually his role with new people. He needed to find out if it was the ghost standing between them, or something more, that was making their partnership a total misfire.
***
Lois leaned her head back on the edge of the bathtub and took a deep breath. It had been a long day and Clark's questioning at every turn was taking its toll. She cursed him every day for not finding a position somewhere else. Another newspaper, another city, she wouldn't have cared. She did care that he was breathing down her neck all day every day.
Which wouldn't be an unpleasant prospect if only...
She smacked herself in the forehead with a wet palm. Things couldn't be that way, and she knew it. Unfortunately, the one thing that hadn't changed were the feelings he stirred inside of her, and it was like she had reverted to her teenage brain all over again. She couldn't figure out exactly why she had ever loved him to begin with, but it was something that had never let go. If he would just stay out of her life, she wouldn't have so many issues. She had lived like a nun for the last seven years, and she would be perfectly content to go on in the same fashion if he would just go away.
Nothing could ever be simple for her, that much she knew.
Her wallowing was interrupted by a dull thud that seemed to originate from her balcony. She thought about ignoring it considering her apartment was on the fourteenth floor, but it was weird enough that she felt the need to check it out.
Quickly emerging from her bath, she grabbed a towel and dried off as best she could, then grabbed her blue terrycloth robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. She carefully entered her bedroom, and drew her handgun from the drawer of the nightstand. She had never had to use it, but technically someone could still want her dead, so she never saw the harm in getting the permit and having it on hand.
As she entered the living room, she told herself she was being silly. The only thing that could possibly be on her balcony was a bird, or someone with serious skyscraper-scaling repelling equipment. If someone was that desperate to get to her, she would give them a surprise welcome.
The only lighting in the room was a lamp in the corner, but she could see the room was clear. She made sure the sliding door that opened to the balcony was latched, then pulled the curtain back completely. Something whooshed past so fast at that very moment that she couldn't tell what it was, but she definitely determined it was bigger than a bird. She stepped back behind the curtain and tried to catch her breath.
When had Metropolis become infested with pterodactyls?
That had definitely been weird. She hadn't missed Smallville that much.
Lois peeked out again and didn't see anything at first. Then a silhouette caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she gasped, clutching her pistol tighter.
She squinted through the darkness and saw what looked like a man perched on the concrete wall. If he was a jumper she needed to call the police, but how the hell had he gotten all the way up there? She could tell he was facing the window, so she had already been seen. She might as well check out what was going on.
Sliding the safety off the gun, she opened the door and slowly stepped out. The man made no move. The city lights surrounding them cast odd shadows, and didn't seem to illuminate any place she needed to see. She stopped and held the gun out in front of her. Maybe she should have called the police first...
"Who are you and what are you doing?" she said, sounding far steadier than she felt.
Silence.
"How did you get up here?" she asked firmly, but he still refused to answer. Groaning inwardly, she realized she would need to get closer if she were ever going to identify him for the police. She wasn't afraid to shoot him if he tried anything, but she didn't want to have to shoot anyone.
"I don't know who you are," she said, taking two steps, "but I am hardly amused." No one would be, trapped out on her balcony with a possible psycho, wearing nothing but a robe.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she cursed herself for never replacing the bulb in the outside light. That could have been helpful.
She could make out that he was wearing a cape, which she thought was weird until it registered fully.
Holy crap...
She put the gun down at her side, and the man stepped down off the edge almost effortlessly. Almost like he was... floating.
Her eyes widened, but she didn't dare say what she was thinking, because she saw his face and she knew.
Superman was on her balcony.
Superman was Clark Kent.
"I... I -" She really had to stop gaping and get a hold of herself. "I don't know why you're here, but I have a front door."
"I don't usually use them," he said with a raised eyebrow, in a voice more confident than she had ever heard from him.
He looked like Clark, but he didn't sound like Clark. At least not the one she had grown up with, and definitely not the hapless upstart reporter she had been working with the past couple of months. This was insane. Or she was dreaming. At that moment she couldn't decide between a sleeping delusion or a completely stressed out hallucination.
She was speechless. He was acting as if he didn't know her, so she pretended not to recognize him.
"You can put away the gun. I'm not going to hurt you."
Lois glanced down at the gun now dangling in her hand, and she put the safety back on. It wouldn't have done her any good if she had needed it. From what she had heard, he was indestructible.
The last twelve years were starting to make sense. It wasn't any less surreal, but it definitely made more sense.
"You're, um, Superman. I kinda got that not hurting people thing." She felt a little queasy, and she was starting to shiver in the cool night air. "You never told me why you were here."
"I just thought I'd pay a visit to Metropolis' most intrepid reporter. I'm not very easy to get in contact with, and I just wanted to put the city's fears to rest. It would seem there are some who don't trust me or my motives."
She didn't know what was going on, but she certainly intended to play along until she could get to the bottom of it. That is, if she hadn't fallen asleep in the bathtub after all and was having the strangest dream in history. The fact that she was freezing cold and all but naked in the early October chill made her doubt such a thing. "Oh, sure. A flying superhero, what's so odd about that?" Hard to reach. That's funny, seeing as you're ten feet outside my door every day, she thought. "And how do you know who I am?" she asked suspiciously for the sake of the charade.
"I know everybody, Lois. But I'm sorry if I scared you." He looked around, and raised his hands. "There really wasn't any other way."
"Mmm," she said absently, scanning him up and down. Clark was standing in front of her wearing what amounted to a leotard, a speedo, a cape, and tights of all things, and she had nothing. There was absolutely nothing she could say that would make the situation any more or less absurd.
She finally found her tongue, which she had figuratively reeled in from the floor. "One day, when I actually have, you know, clothes on, I want an exclusive."
"Done," he said far too easily.
"And you'll keep dodging the press and the photographers till then?"
"That won't be a problem."
"How's tomorrow night?" Normally she wouldn't have put it off for twenty-four hours, but there would be no interview if she didn't have time to gather herself. A late night intrusion wasn't the best scenario and this had to be good.
"Barring any emergencies, I'll be here," he said, and with a wave of his hand he rose in the air and flew away.
"Un-freakin'-believable," she muttered as she watched him get smaller and smaller.
There was no way that what just happened had happened. She re-entered her living room, somehow remembering to re-latch the door, and headed back to her bedroom to replace the handgun in her nightstand.
All of the things she had never been able to explain about her best friend came down to the fact that he had been a meteor freak all along, and he had never told her. He'd never trusted her with the one piece of information that could have brought them so much closer. She had never been one to harp on secrets and lies like a certain brunette bane of her existence, but he should have known he could trust her with that. If he'd wanted it to remain a secret, it would have.
Then again, considering she had made certain mistakes, she wouldn't have been able to blame him for thinking twice about revealing his secrets. That was just one more thing she had added to her ever-growing list of regrets.
***
It always amazed him that there used to be a house where he stood. Now there was nothing but ashes, and a small crater where the structure that was supposed to have been a safe house used to be.
Chloe was supposed be safe there, but now there was nothing left of her either.
Gabe was in the hospital, only slightly more stable than when he had first been brought in, badly burned with half a dozen broken bones. And they considered him lucky.
It had taken almost a week, but the doctors had finally deemed him conscious, coherent, and stable enough to be told that his only daughter hadn't been so "lucky". The Kents had insisted on the news not coming from a stranger, so they volunteered for the unthinkable duty of telling him that Chloe was gone.
Clark hadn't gone in with them, because despite all his superhuman powers, he was still struggling, and he couldn't bear the look on his face, or the blame that he was afraid he might see there. Even though he sat in the waiting room, the distance didn't muffle the strangled cry that came from all the way down the hall, as clear to him as if he had been in the room anyway.
In so many ways he felt like he had let them all down. Like he should have known something was going to happen, because no one ever crossed the Luthors and escaped unscathed. He had known that, and he'd still done nothing to ensure her safety. If he had been there... even if he had just checked and double checked the place without anyone's knowledge, he could have found the bomb, and none of this would be happening.
But he had been off chasing his sadistic father's information, and all else had gone unnoticed. He had been trapped for what felt like years in the phantom zone, but was only a matter of hours in reality. By the time he had come back, and Jor-El's reprogramming had been reversed, it had been too late. His parents had had to tell him the news, too.
The harsh realities that had hit him in the last week were worse than anything he could have ever imagined. Every time he turned around, he was dialing her cell number, or thinking he was going to drop by the Torch to bring her coffee, or get the latest scoop, or just chat. The fact that she was dead had hit him so many times already that he had almost become completely numb. It was a welcome change from the anger, guilt, and sadness he had felt every waking moment since his return.
Unfortunately, there had been far more waking moments in his life, since he had barely slept at all in four days. He had tried, but the things he saw when he did fall asleep weren't worth the supposed rest. There was nothing restful about the images of what must have happened to Chloe, or the thoughts she must have been having when she realized he wasn't going to save her this time.
He had failed her in the worst way possible, and he wasn't sure he could live with it. His parents were worried about him, but no one in his life could make it better.
As he stood on the spot where she had experienced the horror of her last moments, he heard a voice.
"I thought you would always be there to protect me," she said, and he swore she was standing right there in front of him.
He couldn't explain what was happening; whether it was real or just sleep deprivation, but the tears began to roll down his face again because he knew there was nothing he could say. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I should've been here."
She disappeared as suddenly as she had come.
It was then that he had come to the most painful realization of all. He had loved her all along, but he had been too afraid to tell her. To admit what he'd kept burying would have changed everything, and now that everything had changed for the worst, he hated himself for being such a coward.
He had hurt her repeatedly, and she had died before he took the chance to step up and explain.
Now that chance was gone forever, and he had no idea what his life was going to be like without her.
Clark woke up in a cold sweat. Everything had come rushing back to him, and the overwhelming sense of regret he had carried for the last seven years threatened to swallow him whole. He often wondered how things would have been if Chloe had lived. He was almost certain he wouldn't have taken the path he was on now, but he couldn't help thinking that if she was still with him she would have inspired him to be greater than he had ever dreamed.
That was where he had wanted her, all those years he had spent finding himself, when he went to college, and certainly now when every time he looked into her cousin's face he saw what he had lost.
It wasn't like he had never let anyone else in his life down, but there were just some failures he didn't know if he could live with any longer.
***
"Lane," Lois answered her phone distractedly. She was desperately searching for the copy she left on her desk the night before. It was Thursday but it was starting to feel a lot like a Monday. She would be glad when the work week was finally over.
"He WHAT?" She sat down. "I'll - Geez, I'll grab Kent and be there as soon as I can. Thanks, Seth." She slammed the phone down and took a deep breath. After she recovered, she shot out of her chair, through her office door, and straight to Clark's cubicle.
Sitting down on the edge of his desk, as if this was any one of their daily casual chats about work, she leaned forward so only he could hear her.
"Lex Luthor just called a press conference downtown."
Clark's face turned from quizzical to shocked. "But he doesn't -"
"Hold press conferences, I know," she finished for him. "This one is in twenty minutes, so I figure we can scoop the whole office if we head out right now."
"When did he decide to do this and how did you find out about it without everyone else finding out, too?"
"About an hour ago and I have a source. Inside Lex Corp," she whispered and grinned.
His face blanched and her grin turned to a frown. "What's the matter?"
"N - Nothing."
She didn't believe that for a second, but there wasn't time to explore it. They had somewhere to be.
"Come on, Kent, time's a-wastin'," she said lightly, and started down the hall to the elevator, not waiting for him to follow.
***
When Clark finally caught up with her, she had her guard back up in full force. He had a funny feeling, and all at once he wanted to investigate it and dismiss it. It would be crazy to ask her what he was thinking, but it was going to eat at him until he did.
He didn't know what it was, but when she had smiled at him - really smiled - and whispered about her source playfully, it was like Chloe was sitting right in front of him again.
Maybe he had been thinking way too much about her or maybe he still had a lot of digging to do. Either way, the eerie feeling wasn't going away. He kept stealing glances at her all the way down in the elevator and out into the street and she kept pretending not to notice.
They grabbed a taxi downtown to the main Lex Corp office and neither of them said a word the entire way.
A small group of reporters were gathered in the lobby near a podium. Lois grabbed Clark's sleeve when he tried to charge to the front.
"What?" he said, stopping in his tracks.
She dropped her hand and rolled her eyes. "Clark, did it ever occur to you that we're the reason this is happening? Our little story about Lex Corp's misdeeds was published two days ago, remember?"
"Yes."
"Then don't you think we ought to stay toward the back?"
"Maybe you're right."
"Yeah, maybe," she muttered, as they hung back in the crowd.
"He could still see us from up there."
"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Why be conspicuous?"
"Yeah..." There didn't seem to be many people present, and that seemed odd to him. "Lois?" he said in a low voice.
"Yeah?" She looked up at him as if he was being an annoyance.
"What's the point of a secret press conference?" he asked, thoroughly confused.
She held back a laugh. "The tabloids love Lex, right? So he tries to get the word out as discreetly as he can so only the 'legit' papers show up. Long gone are the days of 'any publicity is good publicity'."
Clark frowned. "That makes no sense at all."
"Yeah, well, that's Lex," she said, turning back to the front of the room.
Two minutes later, there was a rumbling through the gathered press, then silence.
Lex Luthor stood before them all, looking perfectly calm in an exquisitely tailored black suit.
"Thank you all for coming here today," he started cordially.
It was a well known fact that he didn't make many public appearances anymore, so Clark was all the more suspicious of why he would start now.
"I'm sure you are all aware that there were published reports this week about my company, that supposedly brought to light some... shady business, shall we say? I usually don't dignify such rumors with a response, but since this involves not only me, but my company, I thought I would come here today to say that the reports are not true. Lex Corp continues to associate only in upstanding company and above board deals."
Clark could have sworn he saw him glance their way.
"I have nothing more to comment on, there will be no questions, and again, thank you all for coming," he said, and gave the crowd a small wave before walking away.
Lois turned to Clark. "Well. That was totally worth the cab fare and an hour of our morning. If you don't see any assassins in the building gunning for us, I think we should go."
Clark looked around in an exaggerated fashion and narrowed his eyes with a smirk. "I think we're safe, Miss Lane. After you," he said, stepping out of her way and extending his arm with a flourish.
She rolled her eyes at him, and started to walk away. Only this time when he didn't follow, she stopped, turned around, and urged him to catch up.
All he could think as he did was that if his hunch was right, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do.
***
As soon as she got home from work, Lois set her single grocery bag on the counter and headed for the shower. Superman was supposed to drop by and, even though she had just seen Clark at work, she wanted to act like she didn't know what was going on. Which would only be half an act at this point.
When she was finished showering, she quickly dried her hair, and pinned it up, letting a few tendrils fall around her face. She went into her closet and pulled out a black suit skirt, a deep red sleeveless top, and a light, short black suit jacket. She wanted to look casual but professional, and jeans wouldn't hold up to her game.
She added hose and low heels, and glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out of the bedroom. Not bad at all, she thought to herself.
In the kitchen, she rummaged through her shopping bag until she found the package of light bulbs. She grabbed one out of the box and went to the balcony to change the light. When that was done, and she was satisfied it was bright enough, she went back inside to sort the rest of her purchases.
She had decided to make this a dinner meeting, given the time, and despite the fact that she was a bit nervous about Clark and his newfound schizophrenia. Her questions and the food might give her enough to focus on so she wouldn't slip up.
It wasn't as if she had never heard of a big city with a crime fighter watching its back. Gotham City had Batman, but that was so far removed from Metropolis she had never really thought about it happening in any real context. Gotham was far away, and no one had ever proven Batman was anything but human.
But this was Clark, and she wasn't so sure he was just a human anymore.
She had a small set of furniture out on the balcony, so she set up the table with a cloth and candles, thankful that the night was calm but comfortable. After laying out the dishes and silverware she went to heat up the takeout Italian she had picked up on the way home. She had learned to do a lot of things living on her own, but cooking wasn't something she had mastered.
When everything was ready, she heard a tap on the sliding glass door. Straightening her skirt and smoothing her hair, she checked herself one more time in the hall mirror, and answered the door.
"Good evening, Miss Lane," he said with a smile.
She was trying desperately not to roll her eyes as she smiled back. "Good evening." God, this is awkward, she thought. "You could come in, but I thought since it was such a nice night we could make this a dinner meeting, and dine out here." She gestured to the table.
"That sounds very nice, Miss -"
She held up her hand. "Lois. Please," she said. The formalities would annoy her to death if he kept it up.
"That sounds very nice, Lois," he corrected.
"You can have a seat and I'll get the food," she said, turning to go back inside.
"Is there anything I can help with?" he asked.
"Nope, I got it," she said with a smile. "Be right back."
In the kitchen she braced herself on the counter and took a deep breath. I can do this. I'm already an actress every day of my life. I can do this. She grabbed the salad and the shrimp alfredo, and headed out the door. She already had a small bottle of wine chilling outside, and she set the dishes in the middle of the table as Superman stood by her railing looking out over the city.
Lois turned to him. "I'm assuming you eat?" she asked with a frown.
"Often," he laughed.
She feigned relief. "Great. Do you drink?" she asked, indicating the wine. That was an honest question, she had never seen Clark drink before.
"No, actually."
"Oh," she said. "Can I get you anything else?"
"The water will be fine," he said, and she was glad she had remembered to add that at the last minute.
"Okay. Shall we get started then?" she asked, walking over to the table.
He was holding her chair for her before she knew what was happening, and she sat down, trying to comprehend his speed. "Thank you," was all she said as he took his seat opposite her.
They settled in with napkins and generous portions of the non-homemade meal, and Lois' patience had peaked.
"I have a few questions ready, if you don't mind."
"I thought you might," he said, and she could have sworn he was teasing her.
With a quirk of an eyebrow and a glance his way, she tried to compose herself while daintily cutting her pasta.
"What brings you to the Metropolis area?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head.
He shrugged. "I grew up... near here. I thought the city could use someone to look out for it. Crime has gotten worse since Lex Luthor essentially owns everything, and I figured if I could do anything to help, I would."
"Hmmm. So you're from around here?" She took a bite, followed by a sip of wine.
"Well, not originally. But I grew up in Kansas, yes."
He was being dodgy. So typical. She thought for a moment about telling him he could declare he was from another planet, and she wouldn't pass out, but she thought better of it. She could wait.
"So, where were you born?"
"I'm sure you've never heard of it," he said, casually taking a drink of water.
"Try me," she challenged, setting her fork down.
"Krypton," he said, studying the blank look on her face.
"Krypton." She blinked and grabbed her own glass of water. "And that's a...?"
"Another planet," he said simply.
"Another planet. Okay." She switched back to her wine, and took a rather large gulp. She really had to stop repeating everything he said. "Where is this planet located?" she asked, trying to get back on track.
"Nowhere anymore. It was destroyed almost twenty-one years ago. I was the only survivor."
He was telling her all of this with a straight face, so she couldn't do anything but believe him.
"Wow. That's terrible, I'm so sorry."
"It's all right," he said. "I've dealt with it."
She nodded. He had dealt with it right under her nose and she had never been the wiser. No one had. Suddenly every odd thing that he and the Kents had ever done made sense, and she couldn't blame them for it. She would still like certain explanations, but she couldn't blame them.
"About your superpowers - do you have anything but flying?"
"Super speed, heat vision, x-ray vision, cold breath, excellent hearing... I'm also bulletproof."
She nodded, making notes on a small pad beside her. "Any weaknesses?"
"Not any that would be a good idea to tell you about," he said.
"I guess that's understandable," she said, but she already had a good guess. Ever since the 'alien from another planet' reveal, the wheels in her mind had been spinning. Clark had always had a strange reaction to the meteor rocks strewn about Smallville, so she could only conclude that they were not only his weakness, but the leftover bits of his home planet. She didn't know why they affected him that way, but it was something she would never tell anyone. He would be too vulnerable then, especially to their mutual enemy.
They finished their dinner, and he helped her clear the dishes. She couldn't help but think they must make quite a picture with him wearing that getup.
They went back out on the balcony and made small talk as she leaned against the railing, looking out over the city.
"Do you ever miss where you're from?" she asked, turning to look at him.
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "Not really. I was just a baby when my parents saved me by sending me away. I really don't remember anything. But sometimes I look up at the stars and try to imagine what it must have been like."
"Does that ever work?"
"Not that effectively," he admitted, staring at her and making her blush.
She opened her mouth, not even knowing what she was going to say, when he held a hand up.
His face fell as she waited. "Sounds like someone needs help."
"Oh, of course. Go," she said, even though she didn't really want him to.
He stepped out on the ledge. "Thank you for dinner, Lois. I'll be seeing you around."
"You bet you will," she said with a smile and a wave as he took off into the night sky.
She watched him until he was gone and wrapped her arms around herself against the chill that was suddenly in the air. She sighed and turned to go back inside, feeling the loss of his company. She had forgotten what it was like to just be with someone else, she had been so involved with her work and her version of the witness protection program. Her apartment looked and felt emptier than ever.
She flopped down on her couch and went over the evening.
Lois didn't know who he thought he was fooling, but he hadn't broken the facade once. If she saw him like that again, she would break him down. She didn't think confronting him as himself would work. If she sprang that on him in a public place, everyone would think she was nuts. The hair and the glasses... How stupid did he think Metropolis was?
She couldn't think about it anymore. Yeah, right, she thought. She just wanted to take out her contacts, curl up with some X-Files re-runs, and go to sleep. Everything else could wait until morning.
***
To Be Continued in Part 2
Author: Cassandra Mulder
Rating: PG-13
Classification: Chlark; Chlois (Chloe-as-Lois); AU; futurefic
Spoilers: Everything's fair game up through the season three finale, "Crusade". I've messed everything around from there.
Disclaimer: Al and Miles own everything but intelligence, Tollin/Robbins, DC Comics, and the WB also put up with those clowns. I'm just playing, and no fringement is intended.
Word count: 18,890
Written: April 2004 - August 31, 2005
Distribution: My site, Bound, AMO, anyone else, please ask.
Summary: Secrets long buried and secret identities come to the surface as two lives merge again in unexpected ways.
A/N: This thing is an epic, for me. I don't do long as an unwritten rule, but this is looong. However, I'm happy to have finally given birth to this brain child, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it. Because even when it was a struggle, it was an adventure.
Thank you: HUGE thanks and much love go out to Jen (ladybug218), my wonderful, thorough, patient beta. She kept this story coherent (or at least as coherent as anything I write), grammatically correct, and punctuation sound. With something this big you definitely need someone to catch all the things you don't, and I never could've pieced it together correctly without her.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Clark Kent walked the halls of the Daily Planet trying to quell his nerves. It's just first day jitters, he reminded himself. I've been through worse. He had had enough intern experience in college that he shouldn't be nervous at all. That thought didn't help ease his anxiety. He was working for Perry White now, and he was afraid his new boss was going to see him as the crazy farm boy he had thought him to be during their first encounter in Smallville.
A whole lot had changed in the years since, and that farm boy was no exception.
He adjusted the glasses he didn't really need, and finally found his cubicle among the many that framed the ever-buzzing newsroom. How anyone got any work done with all the noise, he would never know. It was definitely nothing like working at a small town paper, and neither compared to the solitude of the farm where he had grown up.
Not that he had been to the farm much lately. Since Jonathan Kent succumbed to heart failure at an all too early age, Clark's heart hadn't been in visiting his childhood home. The only reason he endured the visits were for his mother. She was devastated by the loss of her husband, but had insisted on keeping the farm going. With a couple of hired hands, plus her small pie business, she was doing fine.
Martha told Clark repeatedly that Jonathan's death was not his fault, but he still couldn't help feeling responsible. Too many of his thoughts started with, "If it wasn't for me..."
Clark brought himself back to the present when he heard a cough, and blinked at the woman standing before him, looking expectant. He realized his mouth was hanging open, and tried to apologize, only to find his voice wasn't working.
She looked just like her...
The petite brunette waved her hand in front of his face.
"Hello? Earth to..." She leaned sideways slightly to read the nameplate on his desk. "Clark Kent."
She didn't talk like her. Her voice was just slightly deeper and huskier.
"I'm... I'm sorry," Clark stammered. "You are?" he asked, a puzzled look crossing his features.
"Lois Lane," she said simply, holding out her hand for him to shake.
As he did, a realization dawned on him. "You're..." he stopped, not sure whether to broach the subject or not.
"I'm?"
Clark cleared his throat. "You're, uh, related to Chloe Sullivan, aren't you?"
A troubled look danced across her face. "Yeah. Yeah, I was her cousin. Am. Whatever." She seemed flustered now. "Come to think of it, you must be the Clark Kent from Smallville that she used to go on about all the time."
He blushed a bit, and readjusted his glasses. "I'm the only one as far as I know."
"That's good, because from the stories she used to tell, she couldn't have kept up with two of you."
Clark was at a loss for words, so he cleared his throat again. "You look a lot like her," he blurted out.
To his surprise, she only shrugged. "Some cousins do."
He nodded. "Right." Pause. "Well, Miss Lane, I better get to work. I'd hate to screw up my first day."
"You can call me Lois," she said, then turned and walked away.
***
This is not good, she thought to herself. He can't be here.
She watched him from across the bullpen. He seemed to be doing research. He was... still beautiful. She sighed. This wasn't going to work. He would discover her secret sooner or later, and that might put her in danger again. Not to mention what it would do to him.
She got up and made her way to the ladies' room. Leaning against the sink, she looked into the mirror, wondering how he wouldn't eventually just know.
Sure, her short, blonde hair had been replaced with longer, darker tresses, and her blue-gray eyes were now brown thanks to colored contacts. She'd changed everything about herself, from her hair and eyes to the way she walked, talked, and dressed. It hadn't been an easy process. If there was one thing Chloe Sullivan had prided herself on, it was being herself. Now she had to be somebody else.
She rarely thought of herself as Chloe anymore, she had become so immersed in her role. That had been the hardest part of her transformation. It had taken her a long time to automatically respond to a different name, but it had gotten easier over time. Slowly she had begun to dwell less on the life she could no longer have, and think more about the one she had to create for herself.
She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. Clark being here only complicated things more than they already were. She would have to play her role more thoroughly than ever. One tiny slip and he would know.
He couldn't know.
Clark had lost his best friend seven years ago, or so he thought. She couldn't admit to him that she had made him, and everyone else that had loved her, suffer just to save herself.
Her own father didn't know she was alive and well. She had hurt the two people she loved more than anything in the world, and she had to live with that guilt every single day. She didn't know what it would do to Clark to know that his best friend wasn't really dead, she had just run away.
She turned away from the mirror and took a deep breath. She could only hope now wasn't the time to start paying for the things she had done.
Clark was waiting at her desk when she returned, and she groaned inwardly.
"Can I help you, Kent?" she asked pointedly.
He only raised his eyebrows at first, until he found his voice. "Uh..."
God, he's still a dork, she thought.
"Well? I haven't got all day," she said, shooing him from his perch on the edge of her desk so she could reach her chair.
The girl he thought was Lois, for now, brushed by him and sat down, crossing her legs and folding her hands on top of her short skirt. She looked up at him expectantly, wondering what was taking him so long.
"I - I just had a couple of questions," he stammered.
She had only ever heard him struggle this much around Lana Lang, years ago. Please don't let me become his next brunette obsession, she silently begged anyone who might be listening. There was only so much she could take.
"Okay..."
"Well," he started, pushing at his glasses, "you're one of the big time writers around here... so I was wondering when we get our assignments."
"There's a staff meeting this afternoon at two. Mr. White usually takes care of that then, unless we're already working on something. And I would assume you're not yet."
Clark shook his head.
There was a brief moment of silence, so to cover her frustration, she asked, "You said you had a couple of questions?"
"Oh. Yeah. The second one was, will you go to lunch with me?"
Her face fell. Oh, great, she thought.
***
Clark watched the woman in front of him stab at her salad like she was trying to kill a wild animal.
"Is there something wrong, Lois?" Somehow he was concerned and amused at the same time.
Lois stopped abruptly, and looked up at him. "No," she shrugged. "I've just had sort of a rough morning."
"Anything I can do to help?"
"'Fraid not," she replied as her shoulders sagged.
He studied her as she picked at her food more calmly now. He never would have thought he would meet Chloe's cousin, much less be working with her, in a city the size of Metropolis. That old cliché about it being a small world was starting to ring true.
He wasn't sure whether he was disturbed or comforted by the resemblance. On one hand it was troubling to be looking at someone who was almost the mirror image of the best friend he had lost, and on the other it was good to see that face again, regardless of the weird circumstances.
Not that weirdness was new in his life.
Their conversation had gone from stalled to a dead stop and he was just about ready to throw in the towel and pay the bill. It was quite clear that Lois didn't like him, for whatever reason. He thought he would try, for the connection to Chloe, if nothing else, but it wasn't working.
Maybe she didn't want the connection; didn't want to remember anymore than he did.
"Um, are you ready to go?" he asked when he couldn't stand anymore tension.
"Sure," she said, letting her fork clink down on the plate, and reaching for her purse. "Just let me know what my half is."
"Don't worry about it, I'm paying," he told her.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand to stop her.
"Where I come from, when a man asks a lady to share a meal with him, he pays."
She looked too stressed to argue. He was sure she was perfectly capable of argument, but she simply said, "Good old small-town chivalry", and let him pay the bill.
He held the door open for her as they left and she didn't bother to act surprised.
They walked along in silence toward the Planet building.
"Are you single, Kent?" She suddenly spoke.
He was taken aback briefly, before nodding. "Yeah. Why?"
Lois shrugged. "With that routine, I figured some poor sap would've snapped you up already," she answered with the first smile he had seen from her.
Her smile was definitely different. It was more reserved, where Chloe's had always been so wide, so open.
I have to stop comparing them...
"Are you gay?"
"No!" he responded quickly.
A small laugh escaped her. "Just checking."
"How about you?" he asked back.
"Gay? No. Single? Happily."
"So there's such a thing as happily single?"
"As if there's such a thing as happily married?" she asked sarcastically.
"You might have a point there, but stranger things have happened."
***
Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, she thought darkly. What hurt her the most was that she had seen Jonathan's obituary, and couldn't say anything to Clark about it.
"Guess you've seen it happen then," she said a little too brightly.
"Yeah," was his only reply.
She looked at her watch. "Oh man, we better walk a little faster, our break's almost over."
He merely nodded as they picked up the pace, and she berated herself for broaching a subject she should have known would be touchy.
But that was just it. She wasn't supposed to know. Clark wouldn't blame her because he was a stranger, and she didn't know anything about him.
Or so he thought. It was getting too confusing to keep straight in her head.
They parted ways once they got to the office since they only had an hour to prepare for the staff meeting.
Lois couldn't concentrate to save her life. She still didn't know why she agreed to go to lunch with him. She couldn't afford to get too close. Not again, and for a million different reasons than before. Being with him made her want to tell him; made her want to break out her old Chloe smile and say, "Hey, Clark, it's me! Not the dead cousin whose identity I assumed, me."
She couldn't do that. Not now, and probably not ever. As long as Lex Luthor was alive and carrying his father's vendetta, she had to hide. Even then, if his research was thorough enough, she was afraid he might still find her.
That was a chance she was willing to take, considering she felt she covered her tracks well enough. Taking her life into her own hands was one thing, but she wouldn't endanger Clark. She saw the lengths he would go to for her, and she wasn't about to intrude on the life he was obviously trying to rebuild. He had his own problems.
So she would go on playing a stranger and hope he would stay out of her way and keep things strictly business.
Then again, she knew Clark Kent - or at least she used to - and staying out of people's way was not his strong suit.
"I am so screwed," she muttered, dropping her head in her hands.
***
The staff meeting could've gone better, Clark thought, letting himself into his new apartment.
He ended up with an assignment on Lex Corp, and Lois caught him staring at her at least half a dozen times. He knew he hadn't made a very good impression on her, but he turned into a basket-case when she was around. Her resemblance to his dead best friend was just too distracting.
It hadn't helped when Mr. White talked about pairing them up on investigative assignments. If there was one thing he couldn't afford, it was to get too close to her. Or anyone, for that matter.
He had a plan; a secret. No one could come between him and that, it was too important.
Clark tossed his single bag of groceries on the counter and hit the message button on his answering machine. There was nothing, as usual.
The evening spread out before him, as empty as they had all been since he left home. Short of a major crisis, it looked like it would be him and the TV for the night.
He moved through the apartment, turning lights on as he went. When he got to the bedroom, he threw his jacket on a chair and loosened his tie. Sometimes he regretted choosing a profession where he had to wear a suit every day. It was a far cry from the flannel and jeans he'd grown up in.
The one thing that Chloe had endlessly teased him about.
He told himself that he had to stop thinking about her, but the thing was, he had never stopped. He blamed himself for Chloe's death every day for the last seven years.
It was yet to be seen if he could work with her practically identical cousin every day without having a nervous breakdown.
Worse yet, he didn't know what she would do to him if she found out that he hadn't been there when Chloe needed him the most.
***
Lois felt like she had been running laps around the newsroom all afternoon. It had been almost a month since Clark had unexpectedly walked back into her life, and she had almost been too busy to notice ever since.
Almost.
She noticed that he wore his hair quite a bit shorter now, and always combed and parted on the side. She still had no idea what was up with the glasses. Clark always had ridiculously perfect vision.
Then again, there wasn't a whole lot that made sense in her world anymore. She had spent every minute of the last few weeks trying to concentrate on their Lex Corp story with Clark always trailing her like a shadow. She had wanted to say something to him about that, but didn't see any point in making things more awkward than they already were.
Besides the constant distraction of her past, there had been a hot story buzzing around the Planet offices for the last two weeks.
A flying man had been seen around Metropolis, which, while odd, wasn't exactly the weirdest thing she had ever heard. Supposedly, he was some sort of superhero - busting criminals, saving small children, plucking kittens out of trees...
They were calling him Superman, but she wasn't sure that was official.
The main reason the city was abuzz was because no one had ever gotten a good look at him. Lois pitied Jimmy Olsen, one of the Planet's young photographers, because Mr. White had the poor boy out almost all day every day, trying to get a good photo.
It hadn't happened yet, and Lois tried to reassure Jimmy he wasn't going to get fired because a hot subject was being elusive on purpose.
She hoped she was right. Perry White could be incredibly unpredictable and ruthless.
This new phenomenon in Metropolis had also been pushing her to beat her deadline on the Lex Corp story. She wasn't having much success with anything except her sources. Neither she nor Clark could get in to see Lex.
When she asked Clark why he couldn't get in to see him, he muttered something about having a past and tried to change the subject.
But of course, she knew their past. She knew the spectacular blowout that had led to the end of their precarious friendship.
She knew everything, and every day she had to go on like she wasn't the girl that had died for him and his secrets.
***
"That is an incredibly bad idea," Clark said as he paced up and down in front of Lois' desk. Her office was small, so he only had about six feet to do this, and she wondered if he was ever going to get as annoyed with it as she was.
"C'mon, Kent, it would be just like -" She stopped, and her breath caught as he halted his pacing to turn and look at her. "Just like all the other times I've done stupid stuff like this," she said quickly.
"Or like all the times Chloe and I did this?"
"Or that, too," she agreed, hoping he hadn't caught her. "She had some tales."
"And one finally got her killed," he said darkly.
"I -" Lois pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I know that," she said defensively.
Clark turned and walked out her door.
Lois almost slammed her chair against the wall, she got up so quickly. She followed him through the newsroom to his cubicle, where he stopped so suddenly she almost ran into him.
"Geez, Clark!"
He turned around and gave her an odd look. But then his expression turned to stone and he said, "What do you want?"
"We have to do this. You know we do. To finish the assignment, we have to, and I want it to be over. Mr. White wants an interview with Lex Luthor. Either we get one or we get fired."
"He wouldn't really..."
"Yes, he would. I've seen it happen countless times."
"He's never gonna see us."
"Yes, he is."
"He's never gonna talk to us."
"Then we'll make him."
The hard glint in her eyes told him it was true. Lois Lane was not a woman to be messed around with. He was finally beginning to see that.
***
"Do I need to tell you again that this is a bad idea?" Clark whispered to Lois as they sat outside Lex Luthor's office.
She glared at him, then continued staring at her hands in her lap. So showing up without an appointment hadn't been the smartest thing to do. Last resorts usually weren't. The point was, they had been announced, and security hadn't been up to retrieve them, so she was going to take what she could get.
They had already been waiting half an hour, which she thought was stretching it, even if they had barged in. But she'd known Lex wasn't going to make this easy for either of them.
She sighed and shifted in her chair just as Lex's secretary popped her head out the door.
"Mr. Kent? Ms. Lane? Mr. Luthor will see you now."
They both stood, and Lois straightened her suit.
Get in, get answers, get out, she thought. And hopefully no one gets hurt.
The moment she laid eyes on Lex, for the first time in person in seven years, she wasn't so sure about that last part.
He was still bald and well dressed, but the weight of his years spent battling against what he thought was the true nature of the Luthors had taken their toll. Not so much in the way he looked - at the age of thirty he still had boyish features - but in his demeanor.
He stood and walked toward them, greeting them like perfect strangers. She was, as far as he knew, but they all knew Clark wasn't.
As he reached out his right hand to shake hers, she noticed it was encased in a black leather glove.
"If you're here about the stock scandal, I've answered all the questions I'm going to answer," he said, gesturing to two chairs as he headed back behind his desk.
Clark made no move to speak, so Lois took the lead.
Just like old times, she mused to herself.
She took the seat in front of Lex's desk, and primly crossed her ankles.
"I'm afraid we're here about a scandal of another kind," she said, looking him straight in the eye.
"And what would that be, Ms. Lane?"
"Well, there have been... rumblings, shall we say, that Lex Corp is secretly carrying on illegal genetic and biological experiments. Much like the ones performed at Luthor Corp in Smallville in the late nineteen-nineties through the early part of the last decade.
"Considering the trouble those caused, I'm curious to know why they're still going on when the repercussions are so clear?"
"And how would you know about the experiments in Smallville?"
"Research," she replied evenly.
"And I grew up there," Clark chimed in, finally.
Good, Lois thought. I thought you were dead over there for a minute.
Lex's attention still seemed focused only on her.
"Well, then. If you've done your research thoroughly enough, Ms. Lane, you will know that once the danger of the meteor rocks - which all of my father's experiments were based on - was made public knowledge, they were eradicated."
"Oh, I know that," Lois countered. "But if all the meteor rocks were gathered by a Luthor-backed company, you'd be good to go for, oh, ever."
Lex smirked at her, clearly amused by her tenacity. "I can assure you we had nothing to do with the digs for the rocks, nor is there anymore experimentation involving them. I put a stop to that long ago."
"So that's it? That's your official statement?"
"That's the truth, Ms. Lane."
She had known she would never get the truth out of him, but she'd had to try.
Lois stood, followed by Clark, and smiled at Lex. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Luthor."
"I'm sorry to have wasted yours, Ms. Lane. Mr. Kent."
It was the first time he had openly acknowledged Clark, but he was still looking at her with that enigmatic smile. It reminded her of the way he used to look at Lana. Apparently, I should've been a brunette all along.
"We can show ourselves out," she said, and by the time she reached the door, Clark was already holding it open for her.
She only glanced at him as they made their way into the elevator, and down to the main lobby.
As they stepped out, she turned to look at him.
"That was a great performance, Kent. What the hell were you doing? Or not doing, I should say."
Clark looked positively defeated, but she couldn't feel all that sorry for him. After all, she had just faced the man whose father had tried to kill her. And it wasn't as if Lex had done anything to stop him.
Lois looked at him expectantly. "Well? Did you freeze, or was I just doing that good of a job?"
"It's complicated."
"Oh?"
"I haven't spoken to Lex Luthor since right after Chloe died."
"I guess that's why he paid such a great deal of attention to you," she said. Shaking her head, she started for the door.
Clark followed and gently grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry, Lois. I should've been more help. But it - It didn't end well."
She eyed her arm, and he removed his hand. "It doesn't matter, Smallville. Neither one of us was going to get a straight answer out of him. I doubt anyone ever has."
Lois turned and continued making her way out of the Lex Corp building. The further she got from any Luthor, the better. Right now she didn't even care if Clark followed, she just wanted out.
***
Nothing had been going well before, but in the week since their meeting with Lex things had been even worse between Clark and Lois, and he had no idea why she had taken that encounter so hard. There were the obvious reasons, but he still felt like there was something bothering her that he had no clue about.
That was usually his problem, but at least he'd come to realize it since he was a teenager. Now that he was picking up on things, he couldn't get her to tell him what was wrong. She went about her business, and that was that. The old Kent charm didn't seem to go far at all where Lois Lane was concerned. He had never met anyone that stubborn in his life. Not even the best friend he couldn't forget.
He finally cornered her in her office, which he had entered without knocking.
"Lois, we need to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about."
Clark gave her a frustrated look.
"Do you need help with something?"
He rolled his eyes. "No."
"Then there's nothing to talk about, is there?"
"You haven't been the same since -" He stopped at the glare she shot him. "Since the other day."
"Look, Kent, we haven't really known each other long enough for you to determine what the 'same' is for me. So don't you worry your pretty little head about it, and everything will be just fine."
"As much as I love being patronized," he said with an unfriendly smirk "maybe I should be worried about it."
Lois finally stepped out from behind her desk. "Clark, let's get one thing straight, okay? We are not friends. We are here to work together because the Chief made it so. It wasn't my choice and it wasn't yours. So let's keep it professional, all right? I don't need you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. That may be your job, but not when it comes to me. Got it?"
She was rather intimidating for such a little thing... But he backed down, knowing he'd gone too far. "Got it."
"Thank you," she said, retreating back to her chair. "Now, if there isn't anything else..."
"Nope," he said with a shake of his head.
As he left her office, his mind wasn't any more at ease. In fact, he was more muddled than ever if she had something to hide, and it appeared she did. She'd never been totally comfortable with him, and he only found that odd because that was usually his role with new people. He needed to find out if it was the ghost standing between them, or something more, that was making their partnership a total misfire.
***
Lois leaned her head back on the edge of the bathtub and took a deep breath. It had been a long day and Clark's questioning at every turn was taking its toll. She cursed him every day for not finding a position somewhere else. Another newspaper, another city, she wouldn't have cared. She did care that he was breathing down her neck all day every day.
Which wouldn't be an unpleasant prospect if only...
She smacked herself in the forehead with a wet palm. Things couldn't be that way, and she knew it. Unfortunately, the one thing that hadn't changed were the feelings he stirred inside of her, and it was like she had reverted to her teenage brain all over again. She couldn't figure out exactly why she had ever loved him to begin with, but it was something that had never let go. If he would just stay out of her life, she wouldn't have so many issues. She had lived like a nun for the last seven years, and she would be perfectly content to go on in the same fashion if he would just go away.
Nothing could ever be simple for her, that much she knew.
Her wallowing was interrupted by a dull thud that seemed to originate from her balcony. She thought about ignoring it considering her apartment was on the fourteenth floor, but it was weird enough that she felt the need to check it out.
Quickly emerging from her bath, she grabbed a towel and dried off as best she could, then grabbed her blue terrycloth robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. She carefully entered her bedroom, and drew her handgun from the drawer of the nightstand. She had never had to use it, but technically someone could still want her dead, so she never saw the harm in getting the permit and having it on hand.
As she entered the living room, she told herself she was being silly. The only thing that could possibly be on her balcony was a bird, or someone with serious skyscraper-scaling repelling equipment. If someone was that desperate to get to her, she would give them a surprise welcome.
The only lighting in the room was a lamp in the corner, but she could see the room was clear. She made sure the sliding door that opened to the balcony was latched, then pulled the curtain back completely. Something whooshed past so fast at that very moment that she couldn't tell what it was, but she definitely determined it was bigger than a bird. She stepped back behind the curtain and tried to catch her breath.
When had Metropolis become infested with pterodactyls?
That had definitely been weird. She hadn't missed Smallville that much.
Lois peeked out again and didn't see anything at first. Then a silhouette caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she gasped, clutching her pistol tighter.
She squinted through the darkness and saw what looked like a man perched on the concrete wall. If he was a jumper she needed to call the police, but how the hell had he gotten all the way up there? She could tell he was facing the window, so she had already been seen. She might as well check out what was going on.
Sliding the safety off the gun, she opened the door and slowly stepped out. The man made no move. The city lights surrounding them cast odd shadows, and didn't seem to illuminate any place she needed to see. She stopped and held the gun out in front of her. Maybe she should have called the police first...
"Who are you and what are you doing?" she said, sounding far steadier than she felt.
Silence.
"How did you get up here?" she asked firmly, but he still refused to answer. Groaning inwardly, she realized she would need to get closer if she were ever going to identify him for the police. She wasn't afraid to shoot him if he tried anything, but she didn't want to have to shoot anyone.
"I don't know who you are," she said, taking two steps, "but I am hardly amused." No one would be, trapped out on her balcony with a possible psycho, wearing nothing but a robe.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she cursed herself for never replacing the bulb in the outside light. That could have been helpful.
She could make out that he was wearing a cape, which she thought was weird until it registered fully.
Holy crap...
She put the gun down at her side, and the man stepped down off the edge almost effortlessly. Almost like he was... floating.
Her eyes widened, but she didn't dare say what she was thinking, because she saw his face and she knew.
Superman was on her balcony.
Superman was Clark Kent.
"I... I -" She really had to stop gaping and get a hold of herself. "I don't know why you're here, but I have a front door."
"I don't usually use them," he said with a raised eyebrow, in a voice more confident than she had ever heard from him.
He looked like Clark, but he didn't sound like Clark. At least not the one she had grown up with, and definitely not the hapless upstart reporter she had been working with the past couple of months. This was insane. Or she was dreaming. At that moment she couldn't decide between a sleeping delusion or a completely stressed out hallucination.
She was speechless. He was acting as if he didn't know her, so she pretended not to recognize him.
"You can put away the gun. I'm not going to hurt you."
Lois glanced down at the gun now dangling in her hand, and she put the safety back on. It wouldn't have done her any good if she had needed it. From what she had heard, he was indestructible.
The last twelve years were starting to make sense. It wasn't any less surreal, but it definitely made more sense.
"You're, um, Superman. I kinda got that not hurting people thing." She felt a little queasy, and she was starting to shiver in the cool night air. "You never told me why you were here."
"I just thought I'd pay a visit to Metropolis' most intrepid reporter. I'm not very easy to get in contact with, and I just wanted to put the city's fears to rest. It would seem there are some who don't trust me or my motives."
She didn't know what was going on, but she certainly intended to play along until she could get to the bottom of it. That is, if she hadn't fallen asleep in the bathtub after all and was having the strangest dream in history. The fact that she was freezing cold and all but naked in the early October chill made her doubt such a thing. "Oh, sure. A flying superhero, what's so odd about that?" Hard to reach. That's funny, seeing as you're ten feet outside my door every day, she thought. "And how do you know who I am?" she asked suspiciously for the sake of the charade.
"I know everybody, Lois. But I'm sorry if I scared you." He looked around, and raised his hands. "There really wasn't any other way."
"Mmm," she said absently, scanning him up and down. Clark was standing in front of her wearing what amounted to a leotard, a speedo, a cape, and tights of all things, and she had nothing. There was absolutely nothing she could say that would make the situation any more or less absurd.
She finally found her tongue, which she had figuratively reeled in from the floor. "One day, when I actually have, you know, clothes on, I want an exclusive."
"Done," he said far too easily.
"And you'll keep dodging the press and the photographers till then?"
"That won't be a problem."
"How's tomorrow night?" Normally she wouldn't have put it off for twenty-four hours, but there would be no interview if she didn't have time to gather herself. A late night intrusion wasn't the best scenario and this had to be good.
"Barring any emergencies, I'll be here," he said, and with a wave of his hand he rose in the air and flew away.
"Un-freakin'-believable," she muttered as she watched him get smaller and smaller.
There was no way that what just happened had happened. She re-entered her living room, somehow remembering to re-latch the door, and headed back to her bedroom to replace the handgun in her nightstand.
All of the things she had never been able to explain about her best friend came down to the fact that he had been a meteor freak all along, and he had never told her. He'd never trusted her with the one piece of information that could have brought them so much closer. She had never been one to harp on secrets and lies like a certain brunette bane of her existence, but he should have known he could trust her with that. If he'd wanted it to remain a secret, it would have.
Then again, considering she had made certain mistakes, she wouldn't have been able to blame him for thinking twice about revealing his secrets. That was just one more thing she had added to her ever-growing list of regrets.
***
It always amazed him that there used to be a house where he stood. Now there was nothing but ashes, and a small crater where the structure that was supposed to have been a safe house used to be.
Chloe was supposed be safe there, but now there was nothing left of her either.
Gabe was in the hospital, only slightly more stable than when he had first been brought in, badly burned with half a dozen broken bones. And they considered him lucky.
It had taken almost a week, but the doctors had finally deemed him conscious, coherent, and stable enough to be told that his only daughter hadn't been so "lucky". The Kents had insisted on the news not coming from a stranger, so they volunteered for the unthinkable duty of telling him that Chloe was gone.
Clark hadn't gone in with them, because despite all his superhuman powers, he was still struggling, and he couldn't bear the look on his face, or the blame that he was afraid he might see there. Even though he sat in the waiting room, the distance didn't muffle the strangled cry that came from all the way down the hall, as clear to him as if he had been in the room anyway.
In so many ways he felt like he had let them all down. Like he should have known something was going to happen, because no one ever crossed the Luthors and escaped unscathed. He had known that, and he'd still done nothing to ensure her safety. If he had been there... even if he had just checked and double checked the place without anyone's knowledge, he could have found the bomb, and none of this would be happening.
But he had been off chasing his sadistic father's information, and all else had gone unnoticed. He had been trapped for what felt like years in the phantom zone, but was only a matter of hours in reality. By the time he had come back, and Jor-El's reprogramming had been reversed, it had been too late. His parents had had to tell him the news, too.
The harsh realities that had hit him in the last week were worse than anything he could have ever imagined. Every time he turned around, he was dialing her cell number, or thinking he was going to drop by the Torch to bring her coffee, or get the latest scoop, or just chat. The fact that she was dead had hit him so many times already that he had almost become completely numb. It was a welcome change from the anger, guilt, and sadness he had felt every waking moment since his return.
Unfortunately, there had been far more waking moments in his life, since he had barely slept at all in four days. He had tried, but the things he saw when he did fall asleep weren't worth the supposed rest. There was nothing restful about the images of what must have happened to Chloe, or the thoughts she must have been having when she realized he wasn't going to save her this time.
He had failed her in the worst way possible, and he wasn't sure he could live with it. His parents were worried about him, but no one in his life could make it better.
As he stood on the spot where she had experienced the horror of her last moments, he heard a voice.
"I thought you would always be there to protect me," she said, and he swore she was standing right there in front of him.
He couldn't explain what was happening; whether it was real or just sleep deprivation, but the tears began to roll down his face again because he knew there was nothing he could say. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I should've been here."
She disappeared as suddenly as she had come.
It was then that he had come to the most painful realization of all. He had loved her all along, but he had been too afraid to tell her. To admit what he'd kept burying would have changed everything, and now that everything had changed for the worst, he hated himself for being such a coward.
He had hurt her repeatedly, and she had died before he took the chance to step up and explain.
Now that chance was gone forever, and he had no idea what his life was going to be like without her.
Clark woke up in a cold sweat. Everything had come rushing back to him, and the overwhelming sense of regret he had carried for the last seven years threatened to swallow him whole. He often wondered how things would have been if Chloe had lived. He was almost certain he wouldn't have taken the path he was on now, but he couldn't help thinking that if she was still with him she would have inspired him to be greater than he had ever dreamed.
That was where he had wanted her, all those years he had spent finding himself, when he went to college, and certainly now when every time he looked into her cousin's face he saw what he had lost.
It wasn't like he had never let anyone else in his life down, but there were just some failures he didn't know if he could live with any longer.
***
"Lane," Lois answered her phone distractedly. She was desperately searching for the copy she left on her desk the night before. It was Thursday but it was starting to feel a lot like a Monday. She would be glad when the work week was finally over.
"He WHAT?" She sat down. "I'll - Geez, I'll grab Kent and be there as soon as I can. Thanks, Seth." She slammed the phone down and took a deep breath. After she recovered, she shot out of her chair, through her office door, and straight to Clark's cubicle.
Sitting down on the edge of his desk, as if this was any one of their daily casual chats about work, she leaned forward so only he could hear her.
"Lex Luthor just called a press conference downtown."
Clark's face turned from quizzical to shocked. "But he doesn't -"
"Hold press conferences, I know," she finished for him. "This one is in twenty minutes, so I figure we can scoop the whole office if we head out right now."
"When did he decide to do this and how did you find out about it without everyone else finding out, too?"
"About an hour ago and I have a source. Inside Lex Corp," she whispered and grinned.
His face blanched and her grin turned to a frown. "What's the matter?"
"N - Nothing."
She didn't believe that for a second, but there wasn't time to explore it. They had somewhere to be.
"Come on, Kent, time's a-wastin'," she said lightly, and started down the hall to the elevator, not waiting for him to follow.
***
When Clark finally caught up with her, she had her guard back up in full force. He had a funny feeling, and all at once he wanted to investigate it and dismiss it. It would be crazy to ask her what he was thinking, but it was going to eat at him until he did.
He didn't know what it was, but when she had smiled at him - really smiled - and whispered about her source playfully, it was like Chloe was sitting right in front of him again.
Maybe he had been thinking way too much about her or maybe he still had a lot of digging to do. Either way, the eerie feeling wasn't going away. He kept stealing glances at her all the way down in the elevator and out into the street and she kept pretending not to notice.
They grabbed a taxi downtown to the main Lex Corp office and neither of them said a word the entire way.
A small group of reporters were gathered in the lobby near a podium. Lois grabbed Clark's sleeve when he tried to charge to the front.
"What?" he said, stopping in his tracks.
She dropped her hand and rolled her eyes. "Clark, did it ever occur to you that we're the reason this is happening? Our little story about Lex Corp's misdeeds was published two days ago, remember?"
"Yes."
"Then don't you think we ought to stay toward the back?"
"Maybe you're right."
"Yeah, maybe," she muttered, as they hung back in the crowd.
"He could still see us from up there."
"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Why be conspicuous?"
"Yeah..." There didn't seem to be many people present, and that seemed odd to him. "Lois?" he said in a low voice.
"Yeah?" She looked up at him as if he was being an annoyance.
"What's the point of a secret press conference?" he asked, thoroughly confused.
She held back a laugh. "The tabloids love Lex, right? So he tries to get the word out as discreetly as he can so only the 'legit' papers show up. Long gone are the days of 'any publicity is good publicity'."
Clark frowned. "That makes no sense at all."
"Yeah, well, that's Lex," she said, turning back to the front of the room.
Two minutes later, there was a rumbling through the gathered press, then silence.
Lex Luthor stood before them all, looking perfectly calm in an exquisitely tailored black suit.
"Thank you all for coming here today," he started cordially.
It was a well known fact that he didn't make many public appearances anymore, so Clark was all the more suspicious of why he would start now.
"I'm sure you are all aware that there were published reports this week about my company, that supposedly brought to light some... shady business, shall we say? I usually don't dignify such rumors with a response, but since this involves not only me, but my company, I thought I would come here today to say that the reports are not true. Lex Corp continues to associate only in upstanding company and above board deals."
Clark could have sworn he saw him glance their way.
"I have nothing more to comment on, there will be no questions, and again, thank you all for coming," he said, and gave the crowd a small wave before walking away.
Lois turned to Clark. "Well. That was totally worth the cab fare and an hour of our morning. If you don't see any assassins in the building gunning for us, I think we should go."
Clark looked around in an exaggerated fashion and narrowed his eyes with a smirk. "I think we're safe, Miss Lane. After you," he said, stepping out of her way and extending his arm with a flourish.
She rolled her eyes at him, and started to walk away. Only this time when he didn't follow, she stopped, turned around, and urged him to catch up.
All he could think as he did was that if his hunch was right, she was going to have a lot of explaining to do.
***
As soon as she got home from work, Lois set her single grocery bag on the counter and headed for the shower. Superman was supposed to drop by and, even though she had just seen Clark at work, she wanted to act like she didn't know what was going on. Which would only be half an act at this point.
When she was finished showering, she quickly dried her hair, and pinned it up, letting a few tendrils fall around her face. She went into her closet and pulled out a black suit skirt, a deep red sleeveless top, and a light, short black suit jacket. She wanted to look casual but professional, and jeans wouldn't hold up to her game.
She added hose and low heels, and glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out of the bedroom. Not bad at all, she thought to herself.
In the kitchen, she rummaged through her shopping bag until she found the package of light bulbs. She grabbed one out of the box and went to the balcony to change the light. When that was done, and she was satisfied it was bright enough, she went back inside to sort the rest of her purchases.
She had decided to make this a dinner meeting, given the time, and despite the fact that she was a bit nervous about Clark and his newfound schizophrenia. Her questions and the food might give her enough to focus on so she wouldn't slip up.
It wasn't as if she had never heard of a big city with a crime fighter watching its back. Gotham City had Batman, but that was so far removed from Metropolis she had never really thought about it happening in any real context. Gotham was far away, and no one had ever proven Batman was anything but human.
But this was Clark, and she wasn't so sure he was just a human anymore.
She had a small set of furniture out on the balcony, so she set up the table with a cloth and candles, thankful that the night was calm but comfortable. After laying out the dishes and silverware she went to heat up the takeout Italian she had picked up on the way home. She had learned to do a lot of things living on her own, but cooking wasn't something she had mastered.
When everything was ready, she heard a tap on the sliding glass door. Straightening her skirt and smoothing her hair, she checked herself one more time in the hall mirror, and answered the door.
"Good evening, Miss Lane," he said with a smile.
She was trying desperately not to roll her eyes as she smiled back. "Good evening." God, this is awkward, she thought. "You could come in, but I thought since it was such a nice night we could make this a dinner meeting, and dine out here." She gestured to the table.
"That sounds very nice, Miss -"
She held up her hand. "Lois. Please," she said. The formalities would annoy her to death if he kept it up.
"That sounds very nice, Lois," he corrected.
"You can have a seat and I'll get the food," she said, turning to go back inside.
"Is there anything I can help with?" he asked.
"Nope, I got it," she said with a smile. "Be right back."
In the kitchen she braced herself on the counter and took a deep breath. I can do this. I'm already an actress every day of my life. I can do this. She grabbed the salad and the shrimp alfredo, and headed out the door. She already had a small bottle of wine chilling outside, and she set the dishes in the middle of the table as Superman stood by her railing looking out over the city.
Lois turned to him. "I'm assuming you eat?" she asked with a frown.
"Often," he laughed.
She feigned relief. "Great. Do you drink?" she asked, indicating the wine. That was an honest question, she had never seen Clark drink before.
"No, actually."
"Oh," she said. "Can I get you anything else?"
"The water will be fine," he said, and she was glad she had remembered to add that at the last minute.
"Okay. Shall we get started then?" she asked, walking over to the table.
He was holding her chair for her before she knew what was happening, and she sat down, trying to comprehend his speed. "Thank you," was all she said as he took his seat opposite her.
They settled in with napkins and generous portions of the non-homemade meal, and Lois' patience had peaked.
"I have a few questions ready, if you don't mind."
"I thought you might," he said, and she could have sworn he was teasing her.
With a quirk of an eyebrow and a glance his way, she tried to compose herself while daintily cutting her pasta.
"What brings you to the Metropolis area?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head.
He shrugged. "I grew up... near here. I thought the city could use someone to look out for it. Crime has gotten worse since Lex Luthor essentially owns everything, and I figured if I could do anything to help, I would."
"Hmmm. So you're from around here?" She took a bite, followed by a sip of wine.
"Well, not originally. But I grew up in Kansas, yes."
He was being dodgy. So typical. She thought for a moment about telling him he could declare he was from another planet, and she wouldn't pass out, but she thought better of it. She could wait.
"So, where were you born?"
"I'm sure you've never heard of it," he said, casually taking a drink of water.
"Try me," she challenged, setting her fork down.
"Krypton," he said, studying the blank look on her face.
"Krypton." She blinked and grabbed her own glass of water. "And that's a...?"
"Another planet," he said simply.
"Another planet. Okay." She switched back to her wine, and took a rather large gulp. She really had to stop repeating everything he said. "Where is this planet located?" she asked, trying to get back on track.
"Nowhere anymore. It was destroyed almost twenty-one years ago. I was the only survivor."
He was telling her all of this with a straight face, so she couldn't do anything but believe him.
"Wow. That's terrible, I'm so sorry."
"It's all right," he said. "I've dealt with it."
She nodded. He had dealt with it right under her nose and she had never been the wiser. No one had. Suddenly every odd thing that he and the Kents had ever done made sense, and she couldn't blame them for it. She would still like certain explanations, but she couldn't blame them.
"About your superpowers - do you have anything but flying?"
"Super speed, heat vision, x-ray vision, cold breath, excellent hearing... I'm also bulletproof."
She nodded, making notes on a small pad beside her. "Any weaknesses?"
"Not any that would be a good idea to tell you about," he said.
"I guess that's understandable," she said, but she already had a good guess. Ever since the 'alien from another planet' reveal, the wheels in her mind had been spinning. Clark had always had a strange reaction to the meteor rocks strewn about Smallville, so she could only conclude that they were not only his weakness, but the leftover bits of his home planet. She didn't know why they affected him that way, but it was something she would never tell anyone. He would be too vulnerable then, especially to their mutual enemy.
They finished their dinner, and he helped her clear the dishes. She couldn't help but think they must make quite a picture with him wearing that getup.
They went back out on the balcony and made small talk as she leaned against the railing, looking out over the city.
"Do you ever miss where you're from?" she asked, turning to look at him.
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "Not really. I was just a baby when my parents saved me by sending me away. I really don't remember anything. But sometimes I look up at the stars and try to imagine what it must have been like."
"Does that ever work?"
"Not that effectively," he admitted, staring at her and making her blush.
She opened her mouth, not even knowing what she was going to say, when he held a hand up.
His face fell as she waited. "Sounds like someone needs help."
"Oh, of course. Go," she said, even though she didn't really want him to.
He stepped out on the ledge. "Thank you for dinner, Lois. I'll be seeing you around."
"You bet you will," she said with a smile and a wave as he took off into the night sky.
She watched him until he was gone and wrapped her arms around herself against the chill that was suddenly in the air. She sighed and turned to go back inside, feeling the loss of his company. She had forgotten what it was like to just be with someone else, she had been so involved with her work and her version of the witness protection program. Her apartment looked and felt emptier than ever.
She flopped down on her couch and went over the evening.
Lois didn't know who he thought he was fooling, but he hadn't broken the facade once. If she saw him like that again, she would break him down. She didn't think confronting him as himself would work. If she sprang that on him in a public place, everyone would think she was nuts. The hair and the glasses... How stupid did he think Metropolis was?
She couldn't think about it anymore. Yeah, right, she thought. She just wanted to take out her contacts, curl up with some X-Files re-runs, and go to sleep. Everything else could wait until morning.
***
To Be Continued in Part 2