Chapter 28:
Clark was too jovial to see Lois at all to notice the pictures Jimmy was pinning up. "Lois! You're back. Where were you yesterday?"
Cat Grant raised an eyebrow at him, one that he studiously ignored as he turned to face Lois more fully.
"I took a day off and treated myself to a night out. What's the harm in that?"
"Right. Tell Luthor I said hello."
"I wasn't with—" she stopped short as she realized just what she was saying. "I mean... I don't have to be with Lex twenty-four seven. I had myself a nice girl's night out, for your information. With just me."
Well, he was glad to hear that at least Luthor hadn't been with her. Jimmy chimed in with a comment about being more work than play, when Clark finally looked up and noticed the photographs. His stomach flipped briefly. "Is that—?"
"Congressman Ian Harrington. Chairman of the House Defense Committee."
He stepped closer to the pictures and examined them. Fortunately it didn't appear anyone who knew him personally was at play here. "And who are these two?"
"No matches so far," Jimmy shouted across the bullpen from behind a computer.
"The only thing we know so far is that building is leased to a company called Apocalypse Consulting. Fishy sounding, I know."
Clark mentally tried to place where that shell corporation was located, and the only other thing he could come up with in the vicinity was the Lexor Hotel. She'd stayed at the Lexor?
"Oh! Hey, Chief— I was wondering..."
Perry breezed past with his hands shading him like blinders. "I don't want to hear it, Lois."
"But it's a big story and—"
"Let me take a wild guess. You want the Daily Planet to put you up in the Honeymoon Suite until we figure out exactly what's going on at Apocalypse Consulting."
Lois smiled at her boss with an extra bat of the lashes. "Thanks, Perry. You're the best."
"I didn't say yes. We are seriously over budget this month already, thanks to some of the overtime I've gotten overzealous with." He glanced at Clark and made an aim to defend himself with his hands spread innocently. "To be fair, it's been a busy month."
Clark waved him off. "Don't sweat it. It's been doing wonders for our advertisers, and circulation is up." That was an understatement. He was making his money back in spades on this investment.
"Thanks, but we've still gotta tighten our belts around here. You want to stay in the Honeymoon Suite? Talk to Kent."
Clark's face lit up with excitement at that turn in phrasing, and he caught the pointed stare of Cat Grant from the other side of Lois' desk. He took a petty moment to stick his tongue out at the woman before turning to look for Lois' reaction... Which looked less than ideal. She seemed uncomfortable. He brushed her arm gently. "Hey, it's yours if you want it. No problem."
She smiled tightly at him, but there was a faraway look in her chocolate eyes, one he wished he could kiss away. Maybe she was worried about Lex. Maybe she missed him. Blech.
"Alright! You guys get three days then before I'm pulling you out and putting you on a new case. You missed all the action, Lois. Somebody tried to blow up our friend in blue two days ago." Perry seemed incredulous about this information, unaware that this wasn't news to either party present.
Lois' forehead crease came back when she furrowed her brow. "Wait, did you say you guys?"
Perry nodded. "Well, yeah. You and Kent."
"I'm sorry, Kent?"
"I heard him say Kent," Clark teased, almost bouncing on his toes with excitement.
Perry turned away, trying to escape the impending argument, but Lois weaved behind him on his path to his office. "Perry, I can't stay with Kent! How would that look?"
"In the Honeymoon Suite? Natural."
"But..."
"Lois, think it through. No hotel is going to sit still for us using it as a base for spy operations. You need a cover. What better than honeymooners in the honeymoon suite?"
Lois closed the door to Perry's office behind her, just before Clark could follow them in. He blinked, half-surprised that she hadn't hit him with it. He took a step back and decided patience was a virtue in this case.
Eavesdropping had to be okay though.
"Perry, that's not fair."
"Lois, darlin, you need back up, and a cover, and someone to help you manage round-the-clock surveillance. If the problem's with Kent, then you can take your beau if you want. Although I'd be a little concerned about someone recognizing him. Doesn't he own that hotel?"
"Perry, I don't want to bring Lex anyway."
His tone took on a note of concern. "Everything all right?"
She batted his question away curtly. "Doesn't matter. Can I take James? Or even Cat."
"Hah. Good luck. She'd never go along with that. Besides, I think that'd draw too much attention to you. And James would be fine... if he didn't look too young for you."
Lois practically growled and threw the door to Perry's office open rapidly. Clark took a guilty step back as she blazed past him angrily. "So am I packing a swimsuit or not?" he called after her. She flipped him the bird before storming into the elevator, presumably for a smoke break on the roof. Clark chuckled. This was going to be so much fun, and hopefully, just the distraction he needed.
*****LnC*****
Lois had nearly torn his ear off as he fumbled around lifting her over the threshold of the suite, mumbling darkly about the comments of the bellhop the entire time. She lunged for the guy as soon as he put her down, and he found himself banding an arm around her front and pulling her back into him for the sake of the poor man. Her squirming against him was quickly becoming a problem, so he let her go only to remark that she should give the man a tip so he'd be on his way.
She fumed at him before passing over several bills. The bellhop winked at him before he finally left and the two were alone at last.
"You couldn't have chipped in, Mister-richer-than-god?"
He mimed clutching at pearls. "And blow my cover? I don't know the appropriate amount of money to tip someone. I just hand over the first bill I find."
Lois' eye roll was quite satisfying, but before Clark could comment any more, the door had a knock on it and he went to let Jimmy in with his oversized bag of surveillance equipment. The man set up and was out of their hair quicker than he'd expected, leaving the two of them in this awkward bubble. The tension was thick, and Clark couldn't pinpoint exactly why. She stood across the room from him, investigating her cuticles with an intensity no one ever had before. Clark tried to break the ice.
"Hey, is this a smoking room? I forgot to ask."
Her ensuing glare made sure the room stayed frosty as ever, and Clark backed away with his hands up in surrender .
*****LnC*****
The air was crisp and clean, fresher than anything in the city. You could get a good lungful of oxygen out here. And the views... you didn't need to have x-ray vision to see for miles without anything blocking your way. It was glorious, sunny, clear.
And chock full of bad memories. Memories he couldn't believe he'd blocked up till this point.
"So this is Kansas," Nigel mused behind him, grating on his last nerve. The entire flight, the entire day before the flight, he'd been peppering him with questions, pushing him almost to the other side of madness. Lex was liable to shoot the man if he interrogated him anymore, but figured he'd eventually prove useful on this trip, so along came Nigel.
Lex looked out across the fields of yellow, painted with sunflowers for at least another week, and slid his sunglasses on his face. "Let's get this over with. I'll drive."
"Sir? I arranged for a car to take us wherever you needed to go—"
Lex spun the keys around on his fingers. "And I made other arrangements."
He barely waited for Nigel to duck into the passenger side rather uncomfortably before peeling out across the tarmac of the private airport.
Nigel's questions seemed to stop, though Lex could tell it wasn't because he didn't have any. The British spy's mind was working overdrive, he could sense it. He kept a quiet eye on the man the whole drive, carefully keeping track, just in case. The last thing he needed was another incident in Kansas.
The drive was a long one. Lex was fidgety, tapping the cracked leather of the steering wheel, taking corners on dirt roads too fast for comfort... Not that there were many corners, being the flat square land that Kansas was. It was a forty-five minute drive that he managed in thirty-two minutes, and yet somehow it seemed to stretch on like it was thirty-two hours.
When they pulled up, Lex's stomach flipped.
He didn't know exactly what he'd expected to find. A decrepit, barely standing farmhouse, maybe housing some pictures of a young Clark Kent for reference. A big for sale sign, perhaps even a new family living there that had never heard of the Kents. Definitely where the bodies were (nearly) buried.
Not this.
The gravel of the old, familiar dirt road crunched under his feet as Lex stepped out of the black car, memories striking him like a branding iron with every crunch. The humidity of the warm Kansas sun beat down on his brow with a vengeance, and between the two sensations he nearly broke out into a cold sweat.
Nothing but sunflowers.
What the hell was wrong with this state?
No fence line, no buildings or houses of any capacity. He would question his memory if it weren't for the one familiarity: that lone tree. The big one just on the edge of the property, the one his life flashed before his eyes underneath. It had grown quite a bit, although it seemed to have seen some damage of its own, charred carvings on one side of the oak beast, twisting in on itself.
"Sir? Are we looking for something?"
Lex pursed his lips, considering if there was any plausible way to phrase his response. Unable to come up with any, Lex just smiled and shook his head. "Nope. Let's head into town. See if there's anything good to eat."
