Lois caught up with her aunt, realizing that Allie must have done this before. The road was dangerous here, particularly in this type of freezing rain. After they had done what they could to help the shock victims, Lois turned to look for Clark whom she saw at the far end of the trail of mangled vehicles. He had been hard to spot in his dark clothes in the black night. She walked quickly over the loose gravel of the highway shoulder to reach him.
Just as she was about to call out to him, she noticed a jeep suddenly appear around the blind curve in the road, speeding toward the pileup, no possibility of not crashing into it. And then, in the dim light of the crescent moon, she saw something incredible. In a blur, Clark moved in front of the speeding jeep as if he intended to stop it. Lois felt a scream begin to rise in the back of her throat and then it was over. Clark was standing in front of the jeep, his hand on the hood. There had been no collision. How could that be? She watched as Clark, in a fast moving blur, disappeared back into the darkness.
Lois ran toward the jeep just as Matt Thomson got out. "Are you all right?"
He looked groggy and shook his head, as if to clear it. "Yeah. Did you see what happened? I should be dead. It was all so quick. I was half asleep and I skidded on the pavement coming around the bend. The next thing I know I'm racing toward this pileup and I can't brake the car fast enough. I thought I saw a man but that can't be possible." He shook his head again and repeated his question, "Did you see what happened?"
"I'm not sure; it all happened so fast." But she was sure; she was very sure about what she had seen. She put it temporarily to the back of her mind. "You must be exhausted," she said. "You can't get back into the car in this state. Come with me. There's tea over at the emergency van."
[...]
Clark came up toward them as she left. Lois noticed the way the rain had slicked his dark hair so that it clung damply to his skull and wondered why she had never noticed his resemblance to Superman before. <It had to be the glasses> she thought in disgust. <and they were *new* ones and I still didn't notice. . . > She wanted to yell at him, to run away from him, to turn herself in for stupidity. She did none of these things; instead she controlled her feelings and said hi.
They walked with Matt back toward his jeep. Clark offered to drive him home and Matt, still shaken from his experience, accepted. Lois agreed to follow them in Allie's car. <Why, Clark? You could just fly back,> she thought angrily.
