Hey, I'm a L&C fan who has never signed onto the message boards. Just noticed the request for a certain story. Since I have no way to contact PK, I hoped you would pass it on.
The story she is looking for is
Just One Bad Day Away by Michael Haney. The scene she describes with Lois and Ben Thomas, the MFD fireman, is a good ways into the story, since there is a long back story about Clark prior to his arrival in Metropolis. So she will be reading several pages before she gets to that part.
--A Silent Fan in Lurkdom