Thanks to all of you who left feedback. I'm afraid, there won't be another installment for the next two weeks, because my husband and I are going to spend our honeymoon on a lovely German island in the baltic sea. He told me not to bring any other men, so poor Clark has to stay at home, safely hidden on the desktop of my computer
Usual disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters and I don't earn money with this story.
From Part 3:A shadow crossed his face. “I’m a freak, Lois,” Clark said, turning his back on her. He looked out of the window, gradually shrinking in on himself. Resting his forehead against the glass, he whispered. “Believe me, not everyone would be ‘amazed’ at what I can do.” He heaved a sigh. “People would be terrified.”
“But why…” Lois started.
Clark turned around, breaking her off. “Because I’m strong enough to smash you with a dab of my pinky finger.” He held up the finger as if to illustrate his point. “Because I’m so fast you wouldn’t even know it was me,” he said almost angrily. “I can burn things with my eyes or freeze them with my breath.” His voice gradually faded to a whisper. “I could do all those things and no one would be able to stop me, because I’m invulnerable.”
“If you were really capable of all those things, you would have let me die in the explosion,” Lois stated simply. “You didn’t need to save me. Letting the bomb explode publicly might have even helped you to prove Luthor’s involvement.” She adjusted her bathrobe and once again folded her arms in front of her chest. “That’s all you ever wanted, wasn’t it? You had Baines statement. It would have been a short way from there to linking the whole thing to Luthor. Yet, you saved my life.”
Clark looked appalled. “I couldn’t have let you die.”
“My point exactly,” Lois replied smugly. “So are you going to tell me a bit more about yourself?”
He stared at her, silently. For a moment, Lois wondered if maybe he had not heard her. But then, he shook his head, still not saying a word. Instead, he once more turned his back on her, this time opening her window.
“I can’t,” he said after what seemed like an eternity. “I’ve got to go.”
“Are you coming back?” Lois asked. “I could use your help with exposing Luthor. You still got what’s left of the bomb. Together, I’m sure we could prove that he planted it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t do it himself. He always hides his tracks well. Besides, we don’t have the detonator anymore. I’m not going to explain to the public where it went. Believe me, it wouldn’t do any good to tell anyone that we were inside the shuttle,” Clark replied sadly.
“But Clark, if we published that the Colonist Transport was sabotaged, then everybody would know that there was someone else pulling the strings,” Lois argued. “With your help and the bomb as evidence, we could…”
“I resigned, Lois,” Clark broke her off. He opened the window again and stepped onto the sill.
“Perry didn’t accept your resignation, yet,” Lois told him.
Clark looked over his shoulder, pondering that piece of information for a moment. Then he shook his head again, this time wistfully. “I can’t help you, Lois. Not anymore. It’s too late.”
The curtains billowed in a gust of wind and Clark was gone.
...I Knew The Truth
Part 4“Lois?” Lucy’s voice was muffled by the bedroom door.
The curtains were still moving with the soft breeze that came in through the open window. Lois sat on her bed, staring into the night. She found it difficult to merge her image of Clark Kent with what he had told her about himself, even so she had seen the evidence. The shy man she had first viewed as nothing more than a hick she could not care less about, had abilities that went far beyond her understanding. Lois had no idea how she had been able to talk to him at all, after she had seen him *floating* in front of her window. Maybe that had been her reporting instincts kicking in, because now that she thought about it, she felt utterly confused.
“Lois?” Lucy asked and opened the door without knocking. “What’s the matter with you? Dinner is…” she stopped in mid-sentence and approached Lois with a frown. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
It took Lois a moment to acknowledge her sister’s presence. “A ghost?” she echoed, blinking a few times trying to clear her head.
“Lois, the Pizza guy came like ten minutes ago. I must have called you a dozen times,” Lucy stated and her expression turned into one of concern as she added. “Did something happen at work?” The bed budged as Lucy sat down beside Lois, laying an arm around her shoulders to offer comfort. “Tough story?”
“Uh huh,” Lois muttered non-committally, not sure how to reply.
On the one hand she was dying to share this out-of-this-world experience with someone; on the other hand she knew that Lucy would think she had completely lost it. How could she ever explain something she was not sure she believed herself?
“This new guy at work…” Lois heard herself say and for the first time since her sister had entered the room, she really focused her attention on Lucy. “I… today I learned something about him…”
“Something bad?” Lucy asked sympathetically.
Lois pondered that for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said, remembering how Clark had told her he was dangerous. His eyes had belied that. “Not necessarily,” she added slowly.
A strange expression crossed Lucy’s face. “Did he tell you? Or did you find out?”
Taken aback, Lois stared at her sister, shocked by the fact that Lucy could read her like that. It was one of those moments that showed their special bond, something that Lois would rarely admit to even having existed. Lucy had named the thought that up until now had been nothing but a vague feeling of disturbance, something intangible.
“I guess you could say I found out,” Lois muttered. “He didn’t want me to know.”
She wrapped her bathrobe more firmly around herself, got up and closed the distance to the still open window. She ran her finger along the sill, where Clark had stood not so long ago. The curtain seemed to smell faintly of his aftershave. Or was that just an illusion, like perhaps the flying part had been nothing but an illusion?
“Is he angry with you?” Lucy prodded gently.
“I’m not sure, I don’t think so…” Lois replied, her voice drifting off as she continued to stare into the night. “It wasn’t my fault. It just happened.” She still had a hard time trying to make sense of Clark’s visit. Could he really be angry with her? Was that why he had quit? But why had he asked her to continue his work? Why was he giving up, suddenly refusing to give her the one piece of evidence they had? It did not make any sense at all. Did he act like that, because she now knew his secret? Or was there another reason? Did she even really know anything about him?
“You don’t want to talk about it?” Lucy asked, drawing her own conclusions of what little Lois had told her.
Lois turned back to her sister. “Not really, no. Telling you would mean betraying his trust. And I’m feeling that I might still need that. I believe Clark is on to something big.” Or so she hoped. For some unfathomable reason, Clark seemed scared and maybe that was all there was to it. But Lois was worried that there might be a more sinister explanation for his behavior.
“That sounds reasonable,” Lucy agreed with a small smile. “Dinner’s ready, if you still want some.”
“Yes, of course. I’m starving,” Lois replied. “Give me two minutes.”
* * *
Lois distractedly added cream and sugar to her coffee instead of her usual sweetener, while her eyes remained trained on the elevator’s doors. Every time they would open, her heart skipped a beat, her breath caught until she looked into the eyes of just another colleague she could not care less about. A sigh escaped her lips as she glanced down at her cup. If she took any longer to fix herself some coffee, it would start to look ridiculous. She took a sip of her coffee, covertly perusing the room.
Clark’s desk was still empty. At eleven o’clock that probably meant Clark was not going to come in. It should not have been a surprise; after all Lois had seen his resignation. Taking her cup back to her desk, Lois pondered why she did care.
During her years of working for the Daily Planet, she had seen people come and go. Most of them had lasted longer than Clark had. When she had first met him, he had struck her as one of those people who just were not cut out for life in the big city. Lois had a talent for recognizing this type. Her cheeks flushed as she remembered how she had put her foot into her mouth, telling him in no uncertain terms what she thought about the ‘Hack from Nowheresville’. It had been pretty embarrassing to learn that Clark had already won a Kerth Award. He was not just some greenhorn, he could well stand his ground.
She had barely known him for a month. By her usual standards, she would not even care whether he was coming in or not. There was a reason that some people called her ice queen. Lois did not make friends easily; she was slow to trust someone enough to let them within arm’s reach. But with Clark it was different. He was the contradiction to everything she believed in: working alone was better than working with a partner, men were unable to treat women as their equal and most importantly – men did not fly.
Sitting down on her chair, Lois took another sip of coffee and let out a sigh. Her gaze wandered back to Clark’s desk, involuntarily. It was still empty. She felt a sudden pang of regret that she did not quite understand. Was she actually missing *him* or just the chance to get to know someone so extraordinary? Lois decided to settle for the latter of the two options, though a tiny voice in the back of her mind insisted that she was not being honest with herself.
“Lois, there is a call for you on line one,” Jimmy yelled across the newsroom.
Startled, Lois almost jumped out of her chair and spilled some of her coffee.
She recovered quickly though, “Thank you, Jimmy,” Lois replied and indicated with a wave of her hand that she would take the call at her desk.
Hastily she sat down her cup, a nervous flutter filling her belly at the thought of getting another chance to talk to Clark. She picked up the phone with one hand, while she unconsciously started to dab at the stains on her blazer, muttering a curse under her breath.
“Lois Lane, Daily Planet,” she said, her voice just a tad unsteady.
“Good Morning, Lois,” a male voice said and it took a moment for Lois to register to whom it belonged.
“Lex,” Lois replied, her heart starting to flutter as she felt both excited and disappointed at hearing his voice.
“I feel a little guilty for leading you on the other night. After all I promised you an interview…” Luthor heaved a small sigh. “I wanted to make it up to you.”
“You’re offering me the interview now?” she asked incredulously.
“Always straight to the point, aren’t you?” Luthor let out a soft chuckle. “I was thinking more along the lines of an evening at the opera. Tonight? Six o’clock?”
Lois opened her lips, her first impulse being to decline his invitation. But she stopped herself in time before she said something she might regret later. Clark’s plea to keep on investigating Luthor was still fresh within her mind. What would be a better place to start than the lion’s den itself?
She put a fake smile upon her face, hoping it would seep into her words. “That sounds nice,” she said sweetly. “Will you come pick me up?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Luthor said. “What’s your address?”
“1058 Carter Avenue,” Lois prompted, sending a little prayer to Heaven that her plan wasn’t going to backfire.
“Then I’ll be waiting in front of your door at six,” Luthor replied contentedly.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Lois forced herself to add.
“Me too. See you tonight, Lois,” Luthor said affectionately, his warm voice sending a pleasant shiver down her spine.
“See you tonight,” Lois whispered.
She put the receiver down, but involuntarily stopped the motion, staring into space. Her ears registered the faint signal of a free line, indicating that Luthor had already ended the call. It irked Lois that she obviously wasn’t immune to Luthor’s charms. She still felt a little flutter in her belly, because he wanted to go out with her. Despite her best efforts to view him as the enemy, it actually felt kind of good to be wooed.
Blinking to clear her mind of the unwanted thoughts, Lois finally hung up and sat herself straight. Once more, her gaze wandered across the newsroom. Her partner’s desk was still painfully empty. She wondered if Clark would approve of her methods – dating Luthor to get closer to him. But it was no longer his call – and honestly, it had never been. Clark had been the one handing in his resignation, which reduced him to the status of a source. And she was not going to let a source tell her how she was supposed to do her job.
“Lois, my office!” Perry bellowed through the newsroom, stirring her from her thoughts.
Startled, Lois jumped up from her chair. Only by chance did she miss tipping over her cup of coffee. She quickly secured the cup with one hand, while she waved her acknowledgment at Perry with the other. He retreaded back into his office, an impatient expression on his face. His frown was all the encouragement Lois needed to get into the chief’s office as quickly as she possibly could.
Mere seconds later, she closed the door behind her.
“Any word of Kent?” Perry asked without further ado, gesturing towards the chair in front of his desk, inviting Lois to sit down. His eyes conveyed concern.
“I went to his hotel, yesterday,” Lois offered. “He had already checked out.” Briefly she thought about mentioning his visit at her apartment. But Lois felt that Clark had not said anything Perry might find important – unless she could prove to him that Clark’s powers actually existed.
The editor’s shoulders dropped in disappointment. “You don’t happen to have that box of evidence you mentioned a couple of days ago?” Perry enquired.
Lois shook her head no. “He kept that to himself. I had hoped that maybe he would come by to give it to me in order to continue his investigation after he has obviously given up on it. But I figure, if he wanted to do that, he would have brought it in by now.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Perry nodded thoughtfully, his intense gaze resting on Lois. He studied her for a moment, unconsciously shifting his pen from one side of his desk to the other. He harrumphed before he spoke again. “I watched you this morning. Your attention seemed to alternate between the elevator’s doors and Kent’s desk. I might be drawing the wrong conclusion here, but I haven’t seen you this distracted in ages. Was there more between the two of you than this brief partnership?”
“Perry!” Lois protested, completely taken aback. Was her boss actually insinuating that she might be in love with Clark Kent? That was ridiculous. “I hardly know him. We were working together and surprisingly, he proved to be a pretty good partner. I could use his help investigating Luthor, if there even is anything to investigate. That’s all this is about.”
“Good,” Perry seemed satisfied and leaned back in his chair. “In that case – I trust you to get me one hell of a story. If Luthor has any skeletons in his closet, I`m sure you will find them. But in the meantime, please don’t forget that we’ve got a newspaper to publish. While I’m willing to give you the time you need to investigate Luthor, I can’t have my best reporter spend all her time on a wild goose chase, if it might turn out to be just that.”
“Sounds fair,” Lois agreed and got up, anticipating that their talk was over. As if on cue, Perry dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “I will bring you something better than the article on the launch of the Colonist transport,” Lois promised on her way out.
“I sure hope so,” Perry muttered in reply. “I sure hope so.” He resumed editing an article that had been sent to him, his expression once more as impassive as the one of Elvis on the picture that hung on the wall above him.
to be continued...
