The next morning, bright and early, Clark rummaged through the closet in his bedroom, searching and sorting through the assorted shirts, pants, and suits Lois had saved for him until he found what he was looking for. He dressed swiftly, a sense of determination and a fire of purpose burning in his heart. He’d tossed and turned all night coming to this decision and now he was ready to execute it.
And yet, his two decades of imprisonment had left its mark, he realized with a frown. He couldn’t do this on his own. He needed Lois. But, then again, he thought to himself, when didn’t he need her? She was his world, his hope, his sense of direction. She was his guardian angel who’d nursed his broken body back to the picture of health. She was the guiding light who’d brought him back from the abyss of nothingness.
“Hey, Lois?” Clark called from his bedroom as he manipulated a crimson tie dotted with tiny white elephants around his neck. But his fingers had lost their skill in getting the knot exactly right, even if he could remember how to do it in his mind.
“Yeah?” she called from the hall, a laden basket of her laundry in her arms.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he called back, popping his head out the door just enough to see her pass by. “You want some help with that?”
“No, I’ve got it. Just give me a second, okay?” she replied, kicking the partially open door to her room fully open with her foot.
Clark shrugged and went back into his room to fiddle with his tie some more. While he was less than happy about his fingers’ inability to get the darn thing on right, he was pleased to find that he remembered when and where he’d bought it – at a little outdoor kiosk in New Delhi during a brief, two day stopover in between his job in London and his new assignment in South Africa. He’d loved the pattern and had felt bad for the old man selling them, so he’d bought it and three others of differing patterns. But the elephant design had been his favorite.
“Hey, sorry, what’s up?” Lois asked all in one breath as she stuck her head into the doorway. “Wow, you look great. That old suit looks incredible on you,” she said approvingly as she eyed the charcoal material. “Hot date this morning?” she joked.
Clark chuckled. “Only if you want tonight to be our first one,” he said without any trace of a joke in his voice. Then he sighed. “It would look better if this stupid thing would tie the right way.”
“Here, let me,” Lois offered, stepping up before him and lightly touching his frantic fingers. He let go, his skin aflame where she’d touched him. “Luckily for you, my father couldn’t tie a tie for the life of him when I was younger, so I’ve had lots of practice.” With quick, deft fingers, she got the silken garment in place. “There,” she proclaimed, checking her efforts, “perfect.”
“Thanks,” Clark said with a grin. “I really look okay? This isn’t…outdated, this suit?”
Lois shook her head. “A classy suit is never out of style,” she informed him, patting his chest gently. “And it really does look great. It’s…actually kind of…odd. You fit into that suit just as perfectly as you did twenty-one years ago. It’s almost like you never changed.” She stepped a half-step backward to admire the suit again.
“Thanks to you, bringing me back from the walking skeleton I was,” he told her, cupping her cheek with his hand.
He’d asked Dr. Klein on his last checkup if he could see the photographs he’d taken when Clark had first been liberated from the asylum. They’d been taken strictly for evidence and documentation, but Clark had been speechless nonetheless as he’d beheld his nearly nude and emaciated, half-dead form in the pictures.
Lois shrugged. “It was nothing, really. Now…um…you said you wanted to ask me something?” she prompted, blushing.
Clark nodded, relieved to be on a different topic. “I was wondering if you could…take me to see Jimmy.”
Lois hesitated before answering. “Judging from the suit, I’m guessing this isn’t for a social call.”
“No. I want to ask him for my job back,” Clark said resolutely, but he knew there was a twinkle in his eyes. He could feel the old fire within him, calling him to right the wrongs of the world through the power of his words and investigations. It felt amazing.
“Are you sure you’re up for that so soon?” she asked, studying his face with a look of concern on hers.
Again, he nodded. “I’m ready. I want to get back out there, Lois. I need to take Luthor down. But I can’t do that on my own from the house. I need my press pass and access to whatever resources are out there for people like you and me now.”
“A lot has changed in the last twenty years,” she gently reminded him. “It might take a little while for you…”
Clark gave her a soft smile as he cut her off. “I know. There are a lot of things I’m going to need to relearn,” he allowed with a shrug. “But I know I can learn them, with your help, of course.” He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her right in the eyes. “I have to do this, Lois. Remembering what Luthor did to me…” He shuddered. “I have to expose him for what he’s done. And the only way I can do that is by getting back to work and using the Planet’s resources to help me.” His voice was low, rushed, and intense but his heart was beating like the drums of war in his chest.
A slow, uncertain smile curled the corners of Lois’ lips, but didn’t explode into the wide grin Clark had been expecting. She nodded, almost reluctantly. “I…if you’re sure that this is what you want,” she began, letting it trail off into nothingness.
“It is,” he told her without so much as blinking.
Her smile broadened in the smallest of degrees. “Then I say…let’s go get you reinstated, partner.” Then, and only then, did Clark see the grin he’d been hoping for.
He smiled in turn. “Thank you, Lois. I can’t do this on my own.”
“You don’t have to,” she assured him. “I want to see you happy, Clark. And I want to see Lex made to answer for what he did to you.”
“We will,” he said with conviction.
“All the forces of Heaven and Hell won’t be able to stop us,” Lois said, her voice and smile going grim as Death itself.
***
“Um, Lois?” Clark asked, watching the Metropolis streets slide past the passenger window of Lois’ car. “I may not be completely familiar with all the new stores and coffee shops and businesses in the city but…isn’t the Daily Planet in the other direction?” he ventured cautiously, not wanting to seem like he was calling her knowledge of the city into question.
“It is,” she confirmed, never taking her eyes off the road. She honked at a pedestrian who nearly walked out into traffic while he was too busy looking at his phone. “Smart phones, dumb people,” she complained under her breath.
“So, is this a, uh…new route or something then?” he asked innocently.
“No. We’re not going to the office,” she told him, gunning the engine just enough to make it through a yellow light before it could change to red.
“We aren’t?” he asked, looking askance at her.
She shook her head ever so slightly as she maneuvered around a FedEx truck that was double-parked. “Jimmy’s a little different than Perry. He actually takes days off,” she half-joked, though Clark remembered well enough how rare it had been for Perry to not come into the office on any given day. “We’re going to his house.”
“House, not apartment,” Clark mused lightly. “Good for him.”
Lois nodded. “Yeah. He’s really grown up,” she joked. “We all have,” she added after a moment, more somberly than before. “I called ahead and said I needed to talk to him, alone.”
“Alone?” Clark asked, surprised.
Lois shrugged. “It wouldn’t do to have his wife and kids around while we talk,” she explained. “Especially given that he saw how badly off you were after you finally came home. I just think…it’ll be easier to talk if we don’t have an audience. Or the threat of one hanging around,” she amended with a smile.
“Makes sense,” Clark admitted. Then, mostly to himself, “I’m not sure how I’ll field any questions about my…recovery.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but his worry bled out into his words and muddled them a bit.
Lois bit her lower lip in worry. “We’ll figure something out.”
Clark gave her a reserved smile that she missed as she braked at a stop sign and checked both ways. “Lane and Kent,” he breathed reverently.
She smiled too. “Lane and Kent,” she echoed. “The hottest team in this or any other town.”
“I couldn’t believe my luck when Perry paired us up,” Clark said after a moment of contemplative silence. “Getting to learn from the great Lois Lane? And find out you were such an incredible person beneath all the journalism awards? It was like…I knew my life had changed as soon as I met you.”
Lois laughed in a self-depreciative way. “I wish I’d seen it that way.”
Clark shrugged. “I didn’t blame you. You’d worked too hard and made too much of a name for yourself to put it all on the line.” He shook his head. “Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge.”
Lois nodded. “Absolutely.” She slowed the car as they entered a one-way street. “This is Jimmy’s block,” she informed him.
Clark let out a low whistle at the picturesque, expensive-looking homes. “I had no idea being an editor paid so well,” he quipped dryly.
That made Lois laugh. “It doesn’t. But his wife’s making a killing as a lawyer.”
“Ahh,” Clark remarked, nodding sagely.
“There, at the end of the block,” Lois said, pointing, and ignoring his attempt at humor. “The one with the green trim.”
“Nice place,” Clark replied, looking at the house in question. “I’m proud of him.”
Lois grinned as she pulled the car into the first available spot, just two houses away from Jimmy’s. “Me too.” She gave Clark a discerning look as she shut off the engine. “Are you ready for this?”
“I was born ready,” Clark answered, though there was a twinge of nervousness inside of him. He grabbed the door handle as he unclipped his seatbelt. “Let’s do this.”
In mere minutes they were standing at Jimmy’s door. Lois went to ring the doorbell, but he must have been looking out the window, waiting for them. He opened the door before Lois could touch her fingertip to the small, lighted button. He blinked when he saw Clark standing there, his hands in his pockets, his stance casual and reserved, like a shy schoolboy.
“CK?” he asked cautiously, as if disbelieving his own eyes.
“My mother taught me never to show up at someone’s house empty-handed,” Lois said before Clark could reply. “So…I brought Clark with me.”
“Hey, Jimmy,” Clark said with a smile and a self-conscious wave.
Jimmy blinked even harder as he went completely pale. He looked, for all the world, like he was seeing a ghost. In a way, he was, Clark realized with a pang of guilt. His recent full recovery had been kept well under wraps as he and Lois had focused more on filling in the gaps in his memory that had still been there, as well as a healthy dose of worry about how they would explain his recovery to the people who’d seen how far gone he’d once been.
“CK?” Jimmy asked again, a tremor in his voice. “Is it really you, man?”
Clark nodded. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“But…how? I saw…” Jimmy stammered almost incoherently.
“Can we come in?” Lois asked, throwing a furtive glance over her shoulder to ensure no one was watching or listening. It gladdened Clark’s heart to see how protective Lois was toward him.
“Yeah, sure,” Jimmy said, bobbing his head up and down in a daze. He stepped aside and let them in. Clark let Lois take the lead.
“It’s good to see you, Jimmy,” Clark said once they were all inside Jimmy’s tastefully decorated living room. “I’ve really missed you.” He wrapped Jimmy in a quick, back-slapping hug that Jimmy only barely returned in his stunned state.
“I’ve missed you too, CK. But…I still…I can’t believe it’s really you,” Jimmy said, still gaping like a fish out of water. “This can’t be. Lois told me about the damage to your brain. Recovering from something like that…it just doesn’t happen,” he continued, shaking his head. Then, slowly, a smile unfurled as it appeared that he thought of something new. “Unless…damn it, the Chief was right about you!” To the amazement of Clark, he laughed as he let himself fall into his chair.
“Right about me?” Clark asked, bewildered, as Jimmy wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. He hesitantly sat on the couch with Lois.
It took Jimmy another minute before his fit of mirth subsided enough for him to explain. Then he became more somber and businesslike once more. “Well,” he said, scratching self-consciously behind his ear, “it’s like this. After you disappeared…I forget how long it was, but you’d been missing for a while and the official police investigations had gone cold and almost forgotten…the Chief and I were working late, even later than Lois, if you can imagine that.” He shot Lois a grin, then looked back to Clark. “We got to talking. Perry was starting to think about retiring by then and he was thinking of making me the new editor, mostly because he knew Lois would never go for it, the way she kept leaping after every fake lead and false rumor she heard about you.”
A far-off look appeared in Jimmy’s eyes as he wandered into the past through his memories and Clark marveled at how simple a thing it could be to do that, when it had been denied to him for so long.
“Somehow or another, the conversation angled its way to you. Perry confessed to me that he’d been a hundred percent sure you were Superman. And when you and Superman disappeared around the same time, it just…kind of confirmed it, I guess you could say. I wasn’t really sure. I mean, it seemed to make sense but also…” Jimmy shrugged helplessly, looking for the right words. “I guess I had a hard time believing it. If you were Superman, you could have rescued yourself, right? No, it had to be that Superman was still looking for you, even though no one had heard tell of the hero in years.”
Jimmy sighed, then looked questioningly at Clark. “He was right, wasn’t he? Because no mere human could ever recover from having his brains zapped as much as you did. I saw you, CK, not too long after you were rescued. You were…gone. Mentally gone.” He winced a little at his own description. “Uh, so to speak. Sorry,” he apologized.
Clark shot Lois a look and she ever so slightly shrugged. This was his call and she wasn’t going to influence his decision.
“I…” Clark started slowly, picking his words carefully. “I sometimes used to wonder, if Perry suspected,” he admitted sheepishly, looking down at the light gray carpeting of the floors and feeling the heat of a blush in his face and neck. Even his ears felt hot. “It’s true,” he confirmed with a sigh. He looked up sharply at his friend. “I’m sorry I lied to you, all those years ago. I was trying to protect myself and all the people I cared about.”
Jimmy shook his head. “it doesn’t matter. I’m just so happy you’ve recovered. When I saw you the way you were…that shell of a man…it broke my heart, CK. Seeing you now…” He shook his head again, looking overwhelmed by emotion. “It’s a miracle. I don’t care how or why you got better. It doesn’t matter if you’re Superman or Batman or Godzilla. I’m just thrilled to get my friend back.” By the end, Jimmy was beaming a smile so wide it was a wonder that his face didn’t crack right in two.
Clark chuckled a little, releasing some of the nervous tension he’d been holding inside. “You’ll have more than your friend back, if you’ll allow it.”
“Oh?” Jimmy asked, intrigued.
“You’ll have me back as a reporter,” Clark offered humbly. “If you’re willing to take a chance on me.”
“Take a chance?” Jimmy parroted.
“Well, I haven’t exactly practiced my craft in twenty-one years,” Clark only half-joked. “But I think I still have it in me.”
Jimmy nodded thoughtfully. “I never, in a million years, imagined this,” he said with a grin. “You didn’t even have to ask, CK. The job has always been yours. Come by the Planet tomorrow morning and we’ll get the ball rolling to get you back on staff. You know you don’t need an interview or anything, right? And that you have my secrecy on the Superman thing?”
Clark nodded, although he had expected a bit more hesitation on Jimmy’s behalf, if only because he had the paper’s reputation at stake. “Thanks, Jimmy, this means a lot to me.”
Jimmy made an off-hand gesture, as if to dismiss Clark’s humbleness. “We can start you off nice and slow, if you want, just so you can get your feet wet again, you understand.”
He sounds just like Perry, Clark mentally laughed to himself. If he starts spouting off Elvis yarns…
“That won’t be necessary, I hope,” Clark replied with a smile. “Just…one request, if possible?”
Jimmy motioned for him to ask. “If it’s something within reason, absolutely.”
“Can I have my old partner back?” Clark asked, his eyes twinkling with a renewed sense of purpose blazing in his chest. No longer would he be sitting idly by, watching the world slip from day to day while he contributed nothing, and, in fact, only leeched off Lois’ hospitality.
Jimmy roared a laugh. “You mean Lois? CK, there is literally no one else I would dare to partner you with.”
Clark grinned. “Good.” Then he blushed a little as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, assuming Lois even wants me as her partner.”
He meant it only jokingly, but a kernel of worry was still there in the back of his mind. Now, more than ever, Lois was an established and highly esteemed reporter. And he, unpracticed and rusty as he was, was a greater liability to her than ever before. He looked over to her, to gauge her reaction.
She looked stunned. “Why would you even ask that?” she wondered. “Of course I want Lane and Kent back. Besides, you are never leaving my sight again.” By the hard set of her lips, Clark knew she wasn’t kidding.
“It’s settled then,” Jimmy happily announced. “The reporting team of Lane and Kent is back in action.” He paused for a second or two before a huge grin overtook him. “Aw, man! CK, I gotta say…this is great. Seeing you back to your old self. You getting back to work at the Planet. It…wasn’t the same without you around, you know? I missed you. A lot. Everyone did.” He looked away and composed his features again, trying to look like the boss he was. “So, uh, any ideas for the kinds of stories you want to start off on? Op eds? Obits? Human interest?”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of where I want to begin,” Clark said with a grim frown.
“And that is?” Jimmy asked, his own frown matching Clark’s as he tried to figure out where his friend was going with this.
“Taking down the man responsible for my two-decade-long imprisonment. The President of the United States of America.”
To Be Continued…
