Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Another Lois (12/25)

You can find the Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.

A/N: I moved “Witness” to its rightful spot after “Man of Steel Bars”.

Where we left off in Part 11...

He set down the bunch of bananas and reached over the edge of the pool to help her out. With a jerk of her hand, Jimmy plopped into water next to her.

“Refreshing.” He gave her a nasty glare and her expression sweetened.

“I thought so too,” Lois replied with a bat of innocent eyelashes before she splashed him. She climbed out of the pool and reached down to help Jimmy.

“No, thanks, Mad Dog. I’ll help myself,” he told her, moving down the pond.

“Sorry, Jimmy. I just hate being laughed at,” she confessed, still holding out her hand. She would have been dead meat, literally, if it hadn’t have been for Jimmy and his goo. At least the dip in the pool had rinsed off some of the sticky substance. It never had rubbed in properly.

This time, Jimmy accepted her help and she pulled him from the pool. “Thanks, Lois.”

“You go find those cocoanuts and see if you can crack them while I get changed again, and try to start a fire.”

“You? A fire?” Jimmy seemed genuinely surprised. “You got some matches in one of those suitcases, Houdini?”

“No, but I did happen to take one year of girl scouting before my parents broke up.” She patted her head with a finger. “Let’s hope some of it stuck.”

“My apologies, boss,” he said with an elaborate bow.

Lois raised a brow. “Partner.”

Jimmy smiled. “Partner.”

***

Part 12

Lois started the fire using the old string on a stick trick, even though Jimmy had volunteered the use of his camera lens to intensify the light. Her partner heated up a cocoanut and banana soup for dinner. They leaned back against a large rock and passed their one cocoanut “bowl” between the two of them.

“Do you want to hear something funny?” Jimmy asked after they had been quiet for some minutes.

“Oh, please!” Lois pleaded. She could use some humor after the day they had undergone.

“Me, too. Whatcha got?”

She slugged him on the arm.

Jimmy coughed. “I’ll go first then.” He exhaled and rubbed his bicep. “I got another postcard from my dad. He’s been in Vegas, blowing up some old casino. Before I got your call, I had been thinking, more like daydreaming, that maybe he’d visit me this weekend.”

Lois glanced at Jimmy, an unfamiliar ache of guilt tugging at her chest. She knew that Jimmy and his father had never had a terrific relationship. He idolized his dad, and his dad kept letting him down time after time. Jimmy had eventually transferred some of his paternal worship onto Perry, who had been more than happy to accept it, being that his own sons had given up on him years ago. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. You didn’t have to come,” she said softly.

“What? A weekend with a beautiful woman on a tropical island or one spent at home waiting for my dad not to show…” Jimmy shrugged. “That’s a no-brainer, Lois.” He smiled at her.

She kindly returned it.

“He didn’t say he was coming… My dad hasn’t been to Metropolis in four years. And he isn’t one for using the phone. I just get the postcards every once in a while. Anyway, it was nice to have my job to fall back on. I’m kind of hoping he does show, and I’m not there to welcome him with open arms this time.” Jimmy sighed. “Well, a handshake at least.”

“‘Little boy blue and the man in the moon’,” Lois replied.

“Huh?”

She shook her head. “An old Harry Chapin song,” she explained.

“Oh.” Obviously not catching the reference.

“My turn,” Lois said, slapping her knee. “I’m glad you’re here with me instead of Dan.”

“Really?” Jimmy replied with a hopeful eyebrow.

“It was getting too serious, too fast between us, and, well…” She looked away. “I don’t love him.”

“Oh?” He seemed more interested.

Lois sighed, putting a hand to her head. “I tried… but someone…” She winced at her gaff. “Something keeps getting in the way.”

“Someone?” he inquired softly, again with too much hope.

She pinched her lips together, not wanting to tell him of the man from her dreams. Telling her pseudo-therapist Sarah was one thing. Telling Jimmy was quite another. The note she had written to herself had said that Clark was real, but that he had died. His voice kept whispering to her, inside her head, where only she could hear him. Not only did Clark talk to her, but he answered when she responded. So, either she was tiptoeing down the road to Nutsville or somehow she had this otherworldly connection with Clark. She hoped, rather than knew, that it was the latter. It was the uncertainty that scared her.

Lois didn’t believe she wasn’t crazy; so, Clark must somehow be reaching out to her from beyond the grave. Acknowledging Clark’s existence out loud would be the quickest route to a padded room, she knew, but if she kept all these shaky feelings bottled up much longer they were going to explode. Maybe there was a way to talk about Clark without revealing that he wasn’t real.

“I met someone,” she reluctantly admitted. Well, not technically met.

[i]I’ll accept that answer, Clark whispered.

“Then why aren’t you with him?”

Lois took a sip from their cocoanut, still not looking at Jimmy. “He’s... gone.” Talking about Clark out loud hurt, like she was experiencing his death again for the first time all over again. She took a couple of deep breaths to control her emotions. The last thing she wanted to do was cry on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Gone?” Jimmy said weakly. “Oh, Luthor.”

She coughed, almost spilling their bowl. “No! Ugh. God, no! Do you really think I could have feelings for that… that…?” She shivered. Finally she found a phrase to describe her deceased boyfriend. “Sorry waste of a human being?”

“Human waste of a human being,” Jimmy mumbled and then cleared his throat. “Sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love for. Love is love, Lois.” He tossed her an apologetic smile. "I’m glad it isn’t him."

“Cl… He’s a reporter…” Lois knew she couldn’t say more about her working relationship with Clark without giving away the fact that he didn’t exist… not outside her dreams in any case. She laughed. “He’s a bespectacled farmboy from Smallville, Kansas.”

Jimmy gazed down at their soup warily as if the cocoanut soup had psychedelic effects. “A farmboy? From Kansas? You?”

Lois shrugged. “He’s sweet. Kind. Considerate. Selfless. Genuine. Smart. Honest. Trustworthy. He treats me better than any man…” Ever. “I’ve never met another man like him… he’s unique.” I love him. She sighed.

“I bet he wouldn’t have followed you home after being sprayed by Revenge,” Jimmy grumbled.

She thought about the dream she had lived the night before. She had woken up that morning in tears. Clark had been such a gentleman when she had been dosed with Revenge. She couldn’t believe she had showed up at his apartment in a harem costume and practically begged him to make love to her. Clark had too much respect for her to take advantage, even when Lois knew he had been dosed as well. Not too much respect to bruise her ego, because he had finally caved by the next morning. Unfortunately, her dream self had gotten to her senses back by then.

Unfortunately?

~My dreams,~ she reminded Clark. ~If I want to make out with you in my dreams, I don’t see why you should get a say so.~

Thanks. But I don’t have the power to change your memories or your dreams. I’m just an echo. A figment of your wishful thinking.

Lois sighed. She knew that. That dream had been so much different than the experience she had lived in reality.

“Oh, Lois, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Jimmy was instantly apologizing, misreading her reaction.

She held up her hand. “It’s okay, Jimmy.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, thinking of Clark. For some reason, Clark always made her feel better. She thought, with a wry smile, of how she had believed he had looked like Superman. Ha! Wouldn’t that be a lark?! If Clark was Superman? She rested her head on her knees. Oh, to have her ideal man and her fantasy man rolled up together into once nice delicious package. Now, that would be a fantasy.

“Lois?” Jimmy said gently, almost a whisper. “I’ve been thinking.”

She glanced over at him as he awkwardly paused.

“After what Toni Taylor said about Luthor… and what you found out about him and Menken and some of the other people he dealt with…” Jimmy paused again as if he didn’t want to voice the words.

“Uh-huh,” Lois encouraged him to continue.

Her partner cleared his throat. “Do you think Luthor might have been the one behind Ralph’s murder?”

Lois sucked in a breath and grimaced as gristly images filled her head. First, what Ralph had tried to do to her while he had been laced with pheromones. Secondly, what had happened to him several weeks later – just days after she had mentioned the event to Lex to explain why she couldn’t move their relationship forward just yet. She pushed these two thoughts immediately back out of her mind. Reaching over, she took Jimmy’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Jimmy.”

“Hey,” he said with embarrassment. “I tried to kill you myself. Let’s just call it even.”

“Some things are worse than death…” She gulped, leaning against his shoulder. “But nobody should have to die like that, not even Ralph.”

Without Lois wanting them to, the crime scene photos her police source had shown her flashed through her mind again. Ralph had been beaten up, stripped naked, tortured with things… forced where they shouldn’t, mutilated, and then left hanging upside-down to bleed out. He had been covered by rats when police finally discovered him.

She pushed the image away again and replaced it with another one from her dreams that always made her feel better: Clark holding her tightly in his arms and rocking her back and forth. Mr. Make-up had just attacked her and Clark had saved her. She could still hear her echoing voice, ‘Please. Don’t leave me.’ She could almost feel Clark’s arms holding her once more.

I won’t. I’m here. I’m right here. Even though she knew Clark wasn’t really there, she could feel the memory of his lips brush the top of her head. He can’t hurt you anymore.

For some reason, these words combined with Clark’s embrace always seemed to calm her. Even if they were as far from the truth as truth could get.

“I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Lois,” Jimmy interrupted this memory. “Ralph got what he had coming to him. Not that I would have…”

Lois patted his cheek. “I know you wouldn’t have, Jimmy.”

Luckily, she and Jimmy had been in the middle of the stake-out at the Lexor at the time and had airtight alibis for Ralph’s murder. Not that either of them had reported the incident at her apartment to the authorities… just to Perry, who had promptly fired Ralph. Not that Perry had acted with decorum himself during the whole pheromone outbreak at the Planet, but there were certain lines that should never be crossed, under the influence or not.

“Of course, I don’t know how Luthor would have found out about it, unless…” Jimmy looked down at her.

“Yes, I told him,” Lois confessed.

“Would he have…? I mean, we both know what the Boss was capable of, but do you think Luthor liked…?” She heard more than saw Jimmy suck his lips inside his mouth to stop himself from saying anything further.

Lois swallowed. “I’ve never told anyone this, Jimmy, but Lex had what he described as an ‘ark’ built underground. Basically, it was a bunker that had supplies and room to hold three hundred people in case Nightfall had actually struck.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “He invited me to move into it with him. He had actually replicated my apartment in it. He asked me informally, mind you, to be his ‘companion’ if the rest of the world was destroyed. So, yes, he liked me enough.”

Jimmy’s jaw fell open.

“I turned him down!” Lois said in her defense. “If the world was going out with a bang, no way in hell was I going to miss it.”

He hugged her with the arm around her shoulders. “Of course, you would. You’re not one to hide from life’s problems.”

“Awwww. Aren’t they adorable?” said a strange voice as two men appeared out of nowhere, pointing guns at them.

“Okay. Now, I’m wishing I didn’t accept your invitation, Lois,” Jimmy mumbled, holding up his hands.

***

Lois and Jimmy found themselves chained up in some kind of underground dungeon. She had been swearing under her breath at Perry, Dan, herself – for not having stood up to either of the two aforementioned men – and Clark for not being here with her.

Hey! What did I do? Clark asked.

~You went and died on me,~ she reminded the voice inside her head silently.

I’ll be more careful next time, he retorted in a teasing tone. I hate to have inconvenienced you any by dying.

Tears pooled in her eyes as she admitted to herself – reluctantly – that yes, Clark did have it worse than her.

“Lois,” Jimmy’s voice said from the next cell over, interrupting her moment alone with Clark. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you…”

“Jimmy,” she said quietly, having an inkling of where he was headed.

“No, Lois, please let me finish,” he said, plowing ahead. “I have admired you for a long time… years actually.”

“Jimmy,” she interrupted again, louder this time, really not wanting this information to be more than an unspoken theory.

“I love you, Lois.”

The words now hung between them. “You don’t want to fall for me, kid. I can’t take hurting another decent man right now. I’m a mess. I can’t be intimate, because I freak out if someone holds me wrong. I don’t know if my head’s screwed on tight or if my brains are falling out. I’m hearing things. I don’t know if the man I love exists anymore.” Lois exhaled as those pesky tears dripped down her cheeks. “I can’t lose you too; you’re the only friend I have left.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Jimmy responded in that optimistic tone of his that always made her smile. “And it needed to be said, since I know we’ll be dying in the next few minutes…” his voice wavered.

“Why? Have you heard something?” she replied wryly, trying to bring levity to their situation while changing the subject.

Jimmy took her change of topic and ran with it. “That big muscley jerk took my watch. The watch my dad gave me for my birthday a couple years back.” He sighed. “Do you know it automatically changes the time to whatever time zone you’re in? It was like the coolest thing my dad ever gave me and that thug stole it!” Jimmy rattled his chains, trying to get free. Neither of them liked this medieval torture chamber. “They wouldn’t have stolen it if we were going to survive.”

“Right. Because thieves always kill those they steal from,” she mumbled.

“Huh?” Jimmy stammered.

Lois turned and faced her friend, telling him in no uncertain terms, “I’m not dying today.”

“What?”

“I’m not dying because some psycho rich man has got it in for me,” she repeated. “Clark needs me,” she whispered to herself, speaking his name aloud for the first time since mentioning him to Sarah.

Always.

She harrumphed. ~Of course, you could have showed me a little more affection while we were both under the influence of pheromones.~

Like that wouldn’t have blown up in my face, Lois.

“Who’s Clark?”

Dammit, she grimaced. Jimmy had heard her speak Clark’s name. “The man I love,” she admitted reluctantly.

“I thought you said he left you,” Jimmy said with confusion. “And since you don’t love Dan, I thought…”

“I’m naturally going to fall for you?” Lois said with a roll of her eyes. “I love you, Jimmy, I do, but like a brother – a little brother.”

I’ve heard that one before.

~Not helping matters, Clark!~

“Can you at least tell me where on your list I rank?” Jimmy asked with hope.

Lois groaned. “I don’t rank the men in my life, Jimmy.”

He looked at her with a puppy dog expression.

“No!”

“I’m tied up in chains here, Lois. Give me something to live for.”

She snorted. “Fine!”

This should be enlightening.

~You really don’t know how to be quiet, do you, Kent?~

I had a good teacher, he retorted.

~Smart aleck.~

“Mel Gibson,” Lois started, knocking Clark down a peg for being an obnoxious know-it-all. “Clark… CK, for short… um…” She wasn’t ready to say the full name of her dream man out loud to anyone yet; she would just tell him old Jimmy’s nickname for Clark. She didn’t really want to include this Jimmy on the list at all, but having saved her life once again on the previous day, she felt like she should throw him some kind of bone. “Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, James Olsen, and Dan Scardino.” Dan only got last place because he wouldn’t have bought horrible tiger-repelling suntan lotion at the airport, he had failed to treat her as an equal, and, oh yeah, stood her up… AGAIN. At least Jimmy knew who was driving their relationship. Her.

Jimmy exhaled with relief. “I can live with that. So basically if we removed the three old guys who wouldn’t be caught dead with an investigative reporter.” He grimaced. “Bad choice of words. Anyway, if any of them were found dead in Metropolis, I bet you would find them first.”

“Flattery will not move you up the list,” she warned. “And those actors aren’t much older than I am.”

“If this CK guy doesn’t want you, would you settle for me?” Jimmy suggested. “If we survive this dungeon and make it back to Metropolis and everything, would you give me a chance?”

Lois tugged on her chains, hoping to break her way free. She concentrated at the lock on the cell door of bar, wishing again that she had heat-vision. But since she had never been able to get the Force to work either, it was doubtful she would instantly become Superwoman…

You don’t need heat-vision to be a super woman, Lois.

She ignored Clark and tried to think of another way to get herself out of this conversation. Finally, having tried everything else, she took a deep breath and screamed, “Help! Superman!”

Lois, Clark groaned in agony. Please stop.

Jimmy raised a brow at her odd request for help. “Uh… Lois?... Whatcha doing?”

“Well, what if there was a superhero out there with super-hearing, and he was looking for us, but couldn’t find us because we were locked in this lead-lined bunker?” she explained, not making a dent in his skepticism.

Oooh! She had forgotten to add Superman to her fantasy list of men vying for her. ~Let’s see, if I bump Mel Gibson down to third and put Clark back in his rightful first place spot, I could slide Superman into second…~

Superman would come in second to me? Clark replied, his voice cracking in awe.

~Well, he may look hot in skintight spandex and be a fantastic kisser, but he still lives in my daydream castle in the sky. In other words, while he does show up amazingly well in my dreams, I haven’t yet gotten him to manifest himself in reality,~ she justified her crazy logic. ~You, on the other hand, Clark, keep me company both in my dreams and out and also happen to be a fantastic kisser. Therefore, you have beat him out for the top slot.~

Lois felt a sense of calm come over her as a warm relaxing feeling radiated throughout her body.

“Superman?” Jimmy scoffed. “Wonderful, Lois, you really have finally dropped off the deep end.”

“I’m not insane. I’m just hypothesizing that since Batman exists, why not a Superman?” she retorted.

~Want to back me up here, Clark? Got any great factoids to support my theory?~

I really don’t think anything I could give you would help your sanity defense any.

“What?” she growled at Clark.

“Huh?” Jimmy replied.

“I thought I heard something,” she said as an excuse on why she had answered Clark out loud.

They were silent for a few minutes again, listening to hear if anyone was coming. When it was clear that no one was coming, Jimmy went back to Lois’ least favorite topic of conversation. “So, there’s no way I’d even get a chance?”

“Look,” Lois snapped, hoping to find a way to shut him up. “Would it make you happy if I told you that if neither of us find anyone by your thirtieth birthday, I’ll go on one date with you? Until then, can we just drop the whole subject?” she said, pleading to have one man in her life not treat her as a sex object.

Hate it that you’re so loveable, Lois? Clark chuckled. That was some bone you threw him.

“Oh, you want me to be your fall-back husband?” Jimmy gushed. “I can live with that. “

“One date,” Lois snarled.

“So, can I tell people we’re engaged?” he continued as if she hadn’t said anything.

“No! It’s one date. One date! Eight years from now. If you don’t have someone and I don’t have someone. And we’re both alive,” Lois corrected him, her voice rising with each word.

Jimmy grinned. “I can wait.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Lois grumbled. “I plan on being happily married to Clark by then.”

If that’s a proposal, I accept.

She could feel Jimmy’s gaze on her, so she turned and raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“Uh… Lois, just yesterday you were planning on coming on a romantic weekend with Dan,” Jimmy reminded her. “And now you’re saying you want to marry this CK fellow. Isn’t that kind of quick? Especially for you.”

She would have shrugged, but her arms were tired from being suspended above her head for so long. Jimmy was completely correct. What if after she found Clark, he wasn’t the man of her dreams?

It wasn’t like that hadn’t happened before.

It had.

Often.

Actually every time.

“You’re right, Jimmy. You’re absolutely right. I haven’t even met…” She coughed. “Seen him in…” She searched for the correct word. “Forever. I don’t know if things will work out between us. I don’t know. All that I know is that I think about him all the time. I can’t get him off my mind. I dream about him every night and wonder what my life would be like with him in it. And, yes, I tried to forget him by getting into a relationship with Dan. That clearly was a mistake.” She rolled her eyes up to the chained hands above her head. “I know that now. Look at me, I’m out of control, I’m babbling. I never babble.”

You’re kidding, right? You’re a brook.

“I heard that!”

“What?! I didn’t say anything,” complained Jimmy, staring at her with wide eyes.

“You were thinking it,” she grumbled, daring him to say differently.

Jimmy shrugged.

“Okay, so maybe I babble a little, but never about men. Ever! But Clark’s different,” Lois said, still defending him. “He’s not like other men.”

You can say that again, Clark mumbled in agreement.

“So, if Mr. Wonderful is the one, why aren’t you together now?”

“I didn’t know he was ‘the one’ at the time. He was just my best friend and then when I saw him kissing T… another woman…”

“He kissed another woman?”

~Yeah, Toni Taylor,~ she scoffed inside her head. ~How was it, Clark?~

Not as nice as kissing you.

“It was just a distraction, so I could get away…”

“Right,” Jimmy said with a heavy dose of disbelief.

“It was!” Lois defended Clark again. “He loves me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He does!” she roared.

I do.

“Sounds like it. So, he kissed this other woman and…”

“I stormed off. He accused me of being jealous. I claimed to be angry at him butting into my story, but the real reason was because of that kiss. Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was angry because I wanted him to be kissing me, not her.”

“I know that feeling,” Jimmy mumbled.

“I was jealous; I just refused to acknowledge it at that time,” she admitted.

“So what happened to CK?” Jimmy asked.

“He left town. Disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” he questioned doubtfully.

“Yeah. Well, I’m not sure what happened. That’s why when I… we get out of here I’m going to spend my vacation – the next couple of weeks – hunting him down. And when I find his butt, I’m going to drag it back to Metropolis with me, where he belongs.”

“Sounds like he has commitment issues,” her partner replied.

Lois heard something that sounded like a key in the lock and her eyes flashed in that direction. “Clark’s not like that!”

“Uh-huh.”

The door opened and in walked the henchmen who had captured them out by the pond.

“Finally! I thought I’d ended up in hell,” Lois mumbled, more to herself than to her captors.

“I want my watch back,” Jimmy demanded, either ignoring Lois’ comment or he hadn’t heard it.

“Pipe down,” the bearded thug responded, opening the door to Lois’ cell. “Your host requests the honor of your company upstairs.” He unfastened her hands from the manacles and dragged her from the cell.

“I think I’ll have to pass. As much as I’d like to leave this torture chamber, I forgot my party clothes,” Lois said, rubbing her wrists.

“Spencer Spencer said it was a come as you are,” the man retorted.

“Not Spencer Spencer!” Jimmy said with dismay. “He’s my man.”

“I told you he was scum,” Lois called to her partner as she tried to break free from the strong man with the gun. “Maybe you’ll think twice about whose dating advice you’ll take from now on.”

“Let us go!” Jimmy yelled, pulling on his chains. “Or I’ll cancel my subscription to Love Fortress International!”

The henchmen both looked at Jimmy as if they couldn’t care less, but the distraction was long enough for Lois to use her elbow to jab the strong one’s gut.

“Hey, hold it,” said the bearded man, jabbing a syringe into her thigh. “Nap time, honey.”

Lois lost all will to fight and to keep her eyes open and suddenly felt extremely relaxed and tired.

The last thing she could remember was hearing Clark’s voice echoing through her head, Fight it, Lois! Fight it.

*** End of Part 12 ***

Part 13

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Cat’s in the Cradle is a song written and performed by Harry Chapin.