Chapter 2
Her latest story, Lois decided, was a washout. That seemed to be happening more often lately. In fact, she had to admit the last couple of months had been a bit of a dry spell. 'Try 6 months' a voice in the back of her head said 'ever since Clark left.'
It had nothing to do with Clark leaving, she told herself fiercely. She was better off without him. Besides, he couldn't possibly have cared about her, or he wouldn't have left.
No matter how many times she told herself that, it never rang true. The truth was, she missed Clark. She glanced at the vacant desk, across from hers. The only person that dared use it was Jimmy, and that was only occasionally. As far as she was concerned, it was still Clark's desk, and woe betide the person that tried to claim it as their own.
The sound of her name pulled her out of her reverie.
“Lois? Can I see you for a moment?” Perry was standing in the doorway of his office, looking at her.
Quickly she got up and joined her editor, closing the door behind her.
“How's the story going?”
“Not well,” she admitted. “It's not panning out.”
“Okay. Well, sometimes they don't. But now Lois, that's been a few in a row. Is uh, everything okay?”
“Everything's fine, Perry” she insisted.
“Okay then.” He let the subject drop. “I've got another assignment for you. It's overseas... in Paris.”
Her heart leapt in spite of herself. Paris. That's where Clark was.
“Now, I was going to send Friaz, but he can't go. His wife had an accident and broke her leg.”
Lois winced, but couldn't help feeling that Eduardo's wife's bad luck had been her good luck.
“Clark sent me an email yesterday about artworks going missing. The artworks that Superman found in that vault a couple of years ago. Clark thinks they're linked, and since you wrote the original story, well, it makes sense to send you along.” He leaned forward. “Is that, ah, going to be a problem? Cause when he left here, you weren't exactly getting along.”
Her heart skipped a beat and she fought to keep her voice level as she replied.
“It's fine Chief. That was a long time ago.”
He gave her a measuring look. “Well okay then. You fly out this afternoon.” Perry handed her the tickets. “You've got a week. I can't spare you longer than that.” He paused, giving her that measuring look again as she tried to keep an expression of professional interest on her face. For a moment, she thought she was about to be on the receiving end of one of Perry's Elvis stories, but then he dismissed her to go and pack.
She left the editor's office and headed for the elevators, trying to make a mental list of what she needed to pack, and failing.
Perry hadn't said outright that she'd be working with Clark, but surely he'd be there, right? Even if only to outline what he knew about the missing artworks before moving on to whatever he was doing? Try as she might, she couldn't entirely contain the excited, fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of seeing him again.
Jimmy Olsen accosted her before she made it to the elevator. Ever since Clark left, he'd been pretty much the only person at the Planet that still talked to her. Just about everyone else blamed her for Clark's leaving. Privately, she admitted that they might be right. Clark asking her out might have been the beginning of the end, but it hadn't had to finish in him leaving Metropolis.
“Hey Lois! Heading out on a story?”
“Kind of, Jimmy. Perry's sending me to Paris.”
Lois kept moving as she spoke, hoping to hide the nervous anticipation she felt. Fortuitously, the elevator was already on the newsroom floor, opening its doors as soon as she pushed the button.
“Paris! When? Are you going to go see Clark?”
“This afternoon, and I'm not sure.” She entered the elevator car and turned to face the doors and her wide eyed younger friend.
“Sorry Jimmy, but I have to go home and pack.”
His reply was cut off by the doors closing.
...
As the 7 hour flight neared its end, Lois became more and more jittery. It had been six months since Clark left. Superman had left two weeks later, citing the increasingly unstable relationship between Eastern and Western Europe as the reason. And Lois' relationship with Dan Scardino hadn't survived long past that.
Since then, her interactions with Clark had been a total of a handful of awkward emails ('How's Paris?' 'Fine. How's Metropolis?' 'Fine.') and another handful of equally stilted encounters with Superman.
Funny how things worked. After his precipitous departure from Metropolis, Lois had quickly figured out that Clark Kent and Superman were one and the same person. It wasn't one big thing that had tipped her off, either. No, it was a whole bunch of little things that she'd routinely dismissed about Clark Kent that had suddenly made sense. The constant disappearances, the bizarre excuses, the miraculous return from the 'dead'. She'd been furious at first, but then she'd remembered how she'd treated him, fawning over Superman and dismissing Clark and her fury had turned to embarrassment.
He had no idea that she knew, either. She sighed. It wasn't the only epiphany she'd had about Clark Kent since he'd left Metropolis. She'd cut him off at the knees when he'd asked her out- brutally, she realised now- out of fear and a desire to stop things from changing. She winced away from the memory of her ill considered words. ‘I’m sorry, Clark... I just don’t feel that way about you. You’re my best friend. It’d be like dating my brother.’
It was only after he'd gone that she'd put the pieces together and figured out that the reason she was so devastated by his leaving was because she, Lois Lane, was in love with Clark Kent.
Lois gave herself a little shake. She had to put those feelings aside. She'd as good as told him that she would never care about him in that way, and besides, he didn't love her. If he had, he wouldn't have left.
All of this was adding to up to one awkward reunion. As the plane drew closer to Charles de Gaulle airport, she was torn between alternately hoping she'd get to spend some time with Clark (even if was just business) and praying she wouldn't have to.
...
“Hey Kent!”
Clark looked around and saw Joe gesturing towards his office.
“Come in here a minute,will you?”
Putting down the folder he'd been looking at, Clark made his way across to the editor’s office.
Without preamble, Joe Patterson said “I've got a message from Perry White. He says that a reporter from the Metropolis office will be here this afternoon. I need you to go out to the airport and pick them up, fill them in on the way here. Here's the flight information.” He handed Clark a sheet of paper.
“Who's Perry sending?” Clark asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“An Eduardo Friaz. You know him?”
Clark nodded. “He's capable.”
Joe leaned back in his chair. “I'm surprised he didn't send your old partner. Didn't she write the original story?”
“Yes, she did.” He'd given her the credit in the end, too relieved to have his globe back before whoever had had it had found out the truth about him. “Knowing Lois, she's probably busy with something else.”
Joe waved a hand. It was Clark's cue to leave, that Joe had turned his attention to his next task. He exited the office, checking the flight information on the paper Joe had given him. He'd take the old runabout car the Planet office kept out to Charles de Gaulle. Checking the time, he headed for the elevator to the parking garage, detouring to pick up the folder he'd been reading on the way.
...
Clark shoehorned the battered little Fiat into the last legal park he could find close to Terminal 2, where the American Airlines flight from Metropolis was due to land.
With a judicious application of super breath, he gently nudged the car in front of him forward so it no longer overhung into his parking spot. Parking could be a little haphazard here, he'd noticed. He didn't drive much any more, finding the local drivers to be aggressive even by Metropolis standards. Snagging the folder he'd brought off the passenger seat, he headed inside to wait.
He hadn't worked with Eduardo much while he'd been in Metropolis and thus didn't know him very well. Any connection with his friends at the Planet was welcome however, no matter how tenuous.
Finding the correct gate took a few wrong turns. Charles de Gaulle Airport was one of the busiest in the world, and was also notoriously difficult to navigate. Finally arriving, he found a seat where he could see the exit from the Customs hall and settled down to read.
He'd read through the material sent to him by a contact in the American embassy in London at a normal human pace, knowing there were too many people to risk using his super speed. Even so, when he got to the end of the file there was still no sign of Eduardo. He frowned. Either Eduardo was taking a very long time to get through Customs, or he'd missed the flight.
Clark leafed through the material again, pausing every couple of minutes to check for his former co-worker.
On one such glance he saw a very familiar face in the crowd of people exiting Customs. He froze, his heart skipping a beat. Slowly he rose from his seat.
Lois spotted him and called out “Clark!,” waving happily as she rushed across the crowded area. Reaching him, she threw herself at him. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her, forgetting himself enough to crush her against him and bury his face in her silky dark hair. She felt so incredibly good, like the part of his soul that had been missing had suddenly returned. He relaxed his grip on her enough for her to lean back. Their gazes locked for a long, charged moment before he let her go abruptly and stepped back, coughing to hide his embarrassment.
“Lois, what are you doing here? I ah- I expected Eduardo.”
“His wife was in an accident” Lois explained. “And since I wrote the original story, Perry sent me instead.” She paused, then added quietly “It's good to see you, Clark.”
“It's good to see you too, Lois.” Clark replied automatically.
And it was, but it was also incredibly bittersweet. Leaving Metropolis had felt like someone had inserted a tiny sliver of Kryptonite into his heart, enough to cause a constant aching-but one he could deal with. It hurt, but he still functioned. With Lois here beside him again, it was if someone had twisted the sliver, ripping an ever larger hole in his heart. For a moment he almost hated Perry for sending her, of all people.
Covering the shaft of anger, he picked up Lois' suitcase and carry-on, gesturing for her to start walking. He guided her through the terminal and to the car. His lips twitched into a smile as he saw her survey the ill-treated vehicle, disbelief on her face. Finally she turned. “Nice car, Clark” she observed sarcastically.
“It's the Planet's” he informed her. Opening the hatchback, he stashed Lois' belongings inside before climbing back into the driver's seat. Realising how close he was to Lois in the confines of the tiny Panda, he surreptitiously tried to angle his shoulders away from her. Right now, the last thing he needed was any more physical contact with Lois Lane.
Getting onto the road he needed to get back to the city proper, he glanced at Lois. “Where to first? The Planet office or your hotel?”
“Hotel”, she decided.
“Okay.” The hotel Perry had booked her into was only a block or so from the Planet offices, not far from the American embassy. “I've got to fill you in on the story.”
“So why aren't you working this story? Why get me all the way here from Metropolis?” she asked curiously.
“This”- he gestured to the folder on the dashboard- “isn't what I do any more. I'm a foreign correspondent, Lois. I don't have time to chase this down between assignments. I have to be in Vienna tomorrow night. There's a summit, a meeting of European leaders that might actually have a chance at settling the tensions between Eastern and Western Europe. In the scheme of things, some stolen artworks just isn't as important.” He paused, organising his thoughts. “Anyway. Two of the artworks Superman found in the vault under the Metropolis Museum of Art have disappeared in the last week- Yellow Boy and the arms of the Venus de Milo. All the artworks are in Europe at the moment. They're on loan to various museums, all to the countries they came from.” He slid the folder off the dashboard and gave it to her. “I got this from a contact, a friend of mine in London. The thieves over there had genuine work orders to remove Yellow Boy from display and take it to an outside restorer that the museum has used many times. Because they'd been signed by the head of the restorations department, no one questioned the orders. The painting was loaded onto a truck and hasn’t been seen since.”
She leafed through the documents in the folder. “Any security cameras?”
“They were down that day. Some kind of glitch. They'd been having issues on and off for a week.”
They exchanged looks.
“Yeah I don't believe it either. The robbery here... Officially the arms are being restored. But Leo- my contact at the Louvre- says they're not in the restorations department and the head of that section suddenly took a vacation. I'll take you meet Leo later.”
“Where is the section chief now?”
“I'm not sure. He's gone to ground somewhere and I haven't been able to find out where.”
He indicated and pulled into the driveway of Lois' hotel. “Got your passport?”
She gave him an odd look.
“You'll need it to check in.”
...
After a brief stop at Lois' hotel to drop off her luggage, they made the short trip to the building that housed the European bureau of the Daily Planet. One of the premier English-language European newspapers, its outlook was a little more multinational than its American parent. It was also a smaller operation, Lois knew. But she wasn't expecting it to be this small.
It reminded her of the temporary offices they'd used after the destruction of the Metropolis office. Desks were crowded close together, there was barely enough room for people to move around and the noise level was cacophonous. Clark noticed the look on her face.
“It takes some getting used to.” Gesturing ahead towards the center of the conglomeration, he continued. “We'll just check in with Joe- Joe Patterson, he's my editor- and then try to find you a desk. It's not usually this crowded, but pretty much all of the correspondents are in at the moment, before we all head out to Vienna.”
“Can't I just use your desk?” Lois asked.
He shook his head. “I don't have one.”
That stopped Lois in her tracks. “You don't have a desk?”
“I'm not here often enough. Last month, I was only in Paris for six days between assignments.”
For some reason that brought Lois to a forceful realisation of how much he'd given up when he moved here. Paris was supposed to be his home now- and yet he'd spent less than a week here out of the past month? He didn't even have his own work space? She'd always known he'd travelled a lot before moving to Metropolis, but he'd seemed so settled, so happy there.
She watched him as they traced a path through the desks to the editor's office. The Clark she'd known would've exchanged greetings and smiles with just about everyone he came across in such close proximity. Here, he barely even looked at the occupants of the desks.
Lois gave herself a mental shake. Don't you dare feel sorry for him, she told herself. He chose this. No one made him leave.
...
Joe Patterson wasn't what Lois had expected. She'd pictured someone more like Perry, an unhurried bear of a man that commanded respect, not this tall, lanky man who bordered on the hyperactive. Clark, however, seemed to respect him, and so Lois took her cue from him-for now. After the initial introductions were performed, Joe settled back down behind his desk.
“We were expecting someone else” he noted.
“Eduardo's wife was in an accident” Lois explained.
Joe nodded. “Okay. Well, that actually makes things easier. To be honest, I was surprised that Perry wasn't sending you in the first place. Clark, fill her in and find her a desk.”
With that, he looked back at the layout he'd been working on.
Clark opened the door and ushered her back into the newsroom
“Well, he doesn't waste time on small talk, does he?” Lois observed.
“Not that I've noticed.” They wended their way through the desks again, this time heading for the one vacant desk that Lois could see in the place. It was in an awkward spot, wedged in between a doorway and a water cooler with not much room to spare for a chair. Only someone of Lois' slim build would be able to fit behind it- which, she guessed, was why it hadn't been claimed on a permanent basis. Clark surveyed it with disfavour. “I forgot how cramped this desk is. Do you think you can use it for now? Once we-” his gesture encompassed the rest of the crowded newsroom “head out tomorrow, I'm sure you'll be able to claim a better one.”
“It's fine, Clark. Really” she reassured him. “So. What's next?”
“I've arranged a meeting with Leo- he's my contact at the Louvre.” He glanced at his watch. “If we leave now, we'll just make it.”
...
The eatery in a side street near the Louvre seemed to cater to blue collar workers, Lois thought. At this time of day it wasn't particularly full, though the noise level was still high enough to make a conversation hard to overhear. In that respect, it was perfect for meeting with sources. Clark had always had a knack for finding out of the way places like this, she reflected. Beside her, he spotted the person he was looking for and gestured for her to precede him.
Leo was fortyish with dark sandy hair and a thin face. Dressed in a navy blue coverall, he'd obviously just come from work. Clark had explained that he and Leo were old friends, that they'd met when Clark had been travelling around the world before he came to Metropolis. Leo seemed nervous to Lois, not like someone who was meeting an old friend.
They sat down at the table he was occupying and ordered coffee before Clark introduced Lois. Lois was relieved to hear Leo's lightly accented English, doubting that her dimly remembered high school French would be sufficient to get by in Paris by herself. They made small talk for a few minutes, until their coffee arrived, but Leo was unable to hide his discomfiture. “Clark, can I see you over here for a moment?”
Clark looked at Lois. She waved for him to go ahead, but watched curiously as they got up and sat down at a table at the back of the cafe. The little cafe was filling up with people now, making it hard to see exactly what was going on.
...
“What's wrong, Leo?” Clark asked.
“I was expecting you to come alone.”
“Lois is the one working the story, Leo. You know I don't do this kind of reporting any more. And I have to be in Vienna tomorrow night. So what's the problem?”
“Can you trust her?”
Clark blinked at the blunt query. Leo had never questioned the trustworthiness of one of Clark's friends, at least not in his presence.
“Yes. I trust her with my life, Leo. What is going on?”
Leo sighed and gestured to a shadowy table at the back of the crowded cafe. “I brought Pascal with me. There is something else going on at the museum, and the restorations staff has been threatened. Pascal is very nervous. I had to talk him into meeting you. I don't know if he will talk to your friend.”
“Well, let's ask him.”
Leo hesitated for a moment before nodding and leading Clark to the table in the shadows.
Pascal shrunk back at their approach, turning to Leo with a desperate expression. “You said he would be alone!”
Leo shrugged. “I thought he would be.”
Fixing his stare on Clark, Pascal asked “Who is the woman?”
“Her name is Lois Lane. She's my friend- my old work partner from Metropolis. She's the best reporter I've ever worked with. She won't put you in danger.” Clark leaned forward over the table. “You can trust her, Pascal.”
Pascal looked to Leo for confirmation. “If Clark says you can trust her, you can believe him” Leo reassured him.
Pascal sat in indecision, looking between Clark and Leo, before nodding. “Okay. I will talk to this Lois.”
Clark turned and got Lois' attention, waving her over.
One she was settled at the table, Leo began.
“Okay Pascal, tell them what you told me.”
Pascal glanced from side to side before beginning in heavily accented English.
“I work in the restorations department... it's my job to transport the artworks to and from the gallery, you see? And to organise transport to outside restorers. Every piece that's moved... it all goes through me, you understand?”
Lois and Clark nodded.
“The arms...I did not organise that. But the workers, they had papers. Papers from my department.” He looked to Leo for help to find the words.
“Orders.”
“Yes, orders. They had orders from my department to take the arms. But I did not sign them. They were signed by Cesar Mathieu.”
“That's unusual?” Lois asked.
“Yes. He can order this, of course. But it usually goes through my office. All the time, it goes through my office. This time, it didn't go through my office.”
He leant forward. “There is more. Two days ago, the same men came and picked up another crate. I was on my lunch... I was outside when they carried it out. The crate was badly made, not from my department. It wasn't closed properly. I saw what was in it.”
“What was it?”
“La Complet Joconde” he said simply.
Lois looked at Clark for clarification
“The full length Mona Lisa” he murmured. “You mean, the one on display...”
“Is a fake.” Pascal stated baldly. “The men, they threatened my family. I sent them away and I went into hiding. La Complet Joconde has been lost for many years. I cannot let her be lost again.”
“So that's why Mathieu disappeared” Clark breathed.
“Yes. The fake... it is good, but someone will notice.”
“What were the men driving?” Lois asked.
“A van. Just an ordinary cargo van, a white one with Paris registration. Maybe a Renault or a Citroen” Pascal answered. “I'm not sure. I am not good with cars.” He paused. “The letters on the registration were GX, I remember that much.”
Pascal looked around once more, then stood. “Find her. Please.”
Then he was gone.
