ToC - for previous parts.
There was a small one page scene added to the beginning of part 9 about 18 hours after I posted it. I kinda forgot to paste it the first time
You will miss nothing plot-wise by not reading it if you don't feel like going back, but I just wanted to give a heads up if you missed my note in the FDK for part 9!
Thank you once again for all the great feedback!!! And of course a huge thank you to Sara and Gary for being wonderful BRs
Waking a Miracle (10/??)
After much awkward scenery transition, Clark sat quietly on Lois's designer couch, listening to her making noises in the kitchen that did not sound promising. There were crashes here and there. Well, they sounded more like avalanches, and he could hear the curses rushing softly over her lips.
When they had arrived and Lois had taken his coat, he had seen another young woman poke her head out of one of the doors to the back. Lois had grabbed the woman and dragged her towards the door. "Clark, this is my little sister, Lucy," Lois had said as she shoved Lucy outside.
Lois had grabbed a fuzzy pair of slippers that were resting by the door, and an unfamiliar looking, navy-colored leather purse, and had shoved them into Lucy's barely responsive hands. "Lucy was just leaving for her appointment," Lois had gritted, her voice rising as she spoke. "You know, in that *diner* down the *street,* you have to meet *that guy.*"
Never mind that Lucy had been in a bathrobe and looked quite sleepy-eyed. Her hair had been frizzing up in different places, and she hadn't been saying much other than "uhh," "huh?" and various other monosyllabic utterances.
"Nice to meet you," Clark had said as the door closed on Lucy's gaping face. He had turned to Lois, and her index finger, which was being drawn across her neck in a mock-decapitation motion, had quickly dropped to her side as she gave him the most innocent of innocent smiles.
Another crash ripped him back into the present.
He hoped Lucy was all right, but she hadn't asked to come back in yet, so he could only assume she had managed to find her sleepy way into the diner Lois had hinted at. Either that or she knew Lois would be out for her blood if she came back in. Whichever it was, there was little he could do about it.
"How do you like your coffee?" she finally called.
He swallowed and tried to find his voice. Things had gone too fast on the way back here for him to get nervous, but now, sitting alone in her living room while she made coffee, he had plenty of time to think about what an interesting predicament he was getting himself into.
I like Lois, he thought. Lois possibly likes me. Lois also wants to expose me and make me her Pulitzer. Despite the dire situation that revolved around the latter problem, he was having trouble weighing it up against the former. And why did the latter sound like some sort of journalistic sex fantasy?
He shook his head, scolding himself.
"Caffeinated, three creams, three sugars," he said, hoping his nervous voice had carried far enough.
His worries were unfounded.
She had definitely heard him.
There was a long, interminable pause, accented by another quiet curse that he doubted even someone standing right next to her would have been able to hear, and he wondered if, perhaps, he had offended her.
"How about decaf, black?" she called back.
"Lois," he tried to assure her, "Whatever you have is fine."
There was a tapping noise. He wondered briefly if it were Lucy knocking on the door to come back in, but as it filtered into his ears intermittently, he looked down and saw that it was the ball his own foot hitting the floor in time with his own nervous anticipation. He stilled it and took a deep, calming breath.
Just what exactly was he doing here?
Courting disaster, that was what.
There was another crash in the kitchen.
It was a small consolation to him that judging from her antics in the kitchen, Lois was as nervous as he was about this whole ordeal. Her heart was literally racing, and he could hear her footsteps in the kitchen as she made frantic pacing motions. He made a point to not stare at her in hopes of not making her even more uncomfortable, but the result of listening to her heart race along faster than a Kentucky
Derby winner was making him even more on edge than he should have been.
"I'm sorry," Lois was saying. "If I have caffeine at this hour it makes me hyper and I can't sleep, and I never keep sugar and cream in my pantry, because if it's there, I'll eat it, and if I eat it, I'll have to spend extra time in the gym, and that just won't work well, since I usually have very little time to go to the gym in the first place. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about, you must live in the gym off hours. God, did I really just say that?"
He couldn't help but smile as Lois came back out into the living room with two steaming cups. Her blue dress cascaded behind her and rustled in the intermediate silence. She was still stunning, even after so many hours and several rain showers later. Her eyes glowed in the dim light, more so than the small diamond studs she wore in her ears.
"Lois, really," he assured her again as she set the cups down on the coffee table with a clink. "I'll drink anything, so long as it's masquerading as edible."
She sat next to him -- close, but not intimately so -- and sighed, running her hands up along her arms as if she were cold. "See, even that may be in question, when it comes to me."
He grinned at her, and she met his eyes for the longest of moments before looking away, uncharacteristically shy. She kept shifting in her seat, as though she couldn't quite get settled. If this wasn't hyper, he wondered what she would have been like with the caffeine.
"You don't spend much time in the kitchen, I take it," he said.
"No, not really. Unless you count pressing microwave buttons as quality time."
From what he'd seen of her work ethics so far, that seemed to fit. He could just picture her dashing around to get ready for work while a hot pocket heated up in the microwave, or pouring over a story she was working on while sitting at the nearby counter, too engrossed to do more than just let the microwave do the cooking for her.
"Lack of time, or lack of talent?" he pressed onwards, taking a small sip of his coffee.
It was hot, not scalding, and a lot more bitter than he was used to, but considering it was black coffee, he doubted Lois had anything to do with the bite it had. Noticing that she was watching him with a keen interest, he hid a wince. It wasn't bad -- it just wasn't how he liked his coffee. She didn't need to know that, though.
"Equal helpings of both, I think," she replied with no small amount of rue. "You cook?" She took a sip from her mug.
She seemed to be relaxing, and her nervous energy was growing more and more focused. Instead of making her whole persona appear antsy with movement, she was now down to just tapping the side of her cup with her fingers. Her eyelids drooped ever so-slightly, as though she were sated, and her heart rate was slowing considerably.
No longer hearing her heartbeat skittering along in his ears did a lot to calm his own nerves.
"Well," he answered, "My culinary skills don't equate to disaster, no, but I don't cook a lot."
"You fall into the lack of time bracket then?"
He considered that a moment, taking another sip of his coffee.
He could remember way back, when he and his mother had stood in the kitchen for hours baking all sorts of things. She had taught him pancakes, apple pies, chocolate chip cookies, and basically everything that was unhealthy pretty much straight off, and he'd loved it. The warm, sweet smells of the farmhouse kitchen, and his mother's bell-like laughter, remained housed with the rest of his small collection of
good memories.
He didn't really spend much time in the kitchen anymore.
"Well, no. Lack of desire," he explained, unable to remember the last time he had even eaten at all before tonight, beyond what was necessary for appearance's sake. But as she looked at him, he felt ashamed, and a dull shaky feeling began to overtake him. "And at the moment my kitchen is in shambles, so I couldn't even if I wanted to," he added hastily.
I can be normal, for you, he wanted to whisper.
She didn't seem to notice his sudden switch to excuses. Her eyebrows raised. "Redecorating?"
"No, I just moved in this week. In fact, my major week night accomplishment thus far has been extremely complicated moves with a broom."
Somehow that had sounded funnier in his head, and it brought his thoughts back to the crumpled heap of uniform that was still lying in the corner of his closet.
It sat there, untouched, since he had tossed it there yesterday.
This was going downhill. He felt like he was failing an exam.
"Funny," she laughed, not seeming to notice his mental critique, "I pictured you more a college football jock than a professional sweeper."
"I did play ball in college," he confirmed, "But it was more a hobby than a calling -- I quit my Sophomore year. I was more interested in the academic side of things."
Very downhill.
Truthfully, football had been a short-lived outlet. Dan Westing, a fellow teammate and almost friend, had attempted to tackle him as a joke when he wasn't ready for it, and Dan had been knocked flat, his nose broken, and three ribs cracked, along with having the wind completely knocked out of him. Lost in thought about an exam earlier in the day, Clark had barely felt the impact, and recalled the astonished looks of his teammates as he turned and found Dan collapsed behind him in a heap. That unfortunate event had convinced Clark he had to commit to quieter activities. And so writing had become his vehicle for release, although he hadn't gone directly into the newspaper business. With no need to hold back, he found writing a more adept outlet anyways.
"You ended with a degree in Journalism?"
"Yeah."
"Me too." She leaned back against the sofa and stared at the ceiling, a grin spreading across her face as she dove into some memories. "I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life after I broke a huge school lunch ingredient scandal for my high school newspaper. You'd be surprised what they put in those things." She shuddered. "You?"
"I was an English major at first," Clark explained, "But I submitted some freelance articles that had the editor of the college paper coming after me with a stick to join the staff there. And then after that, things just sort of happened. I traveled after college, but I had a job at the Kansas City Star waiting for me the moment I got back."
"I interned at the Planet, so my roots were pretty much set there the moment I was out of college."
Her coffee was completely forgotten now. She was leaned back in her seat staring at the ceiling, relaxed, with a dull smile across her lips.
"You didn't do any traveling?" he asked.
She turned her head lazily to peer at him. "No, not really. At least, not without a story being involved. If you count that, I've been to just about every continent except Antarctica."
"Yeah, I've read a lot of those stories." He had particularly liked her story about the gunrunners in the Congo. From the looks of that article, though, she had barely gotten out alive, and had brought down one of the region's hugest crime syndicates. Scary, he thought, that if things had gone even a little differently he may have never met her. "Very good work, Lois."
Her smile was infectious, although she hid her elation underneath modest words. "Thanks," she replied. She dropped an unintended bomb with the next sentence. "So why did you end up leaving Kansas City?"
How was he supposed to answer that? He had had a wonderful job, an apartment, a few friends, and overall a good life there, except... After he had been forced--
Bullied, Clark. You were bullied!
--Bullied out of his rescuing career... Things had just seemed wrong. Off. Like he was drifting through life as a black-and-white painting when he could have been in color. He had considered moving back to the quiet of Smallville, but couldn't bring himself to make the final steps. There were so many bad memories there. Why, then, had Metropolis been a draw, especially given his last visit? He didn't know, but it had felt like he was destined to end up there from the moment he had stepped off his bus. A year later, there had been little evidence of the destruction he had caused, and it was easy to kid himself that things were cruising along at the pleasant altitude of 'okay.'
Until someone screamed for help, that was.
"I needed a fresh start," he began, hesitantly. "I tried staying around after I gave up--" his breath hitched. He hoped she didn't notice. "After one of my-- business ventures went bad. But I just started to feel like I was stagnating. I needed to get away, and Metropolis has always been a place I've wanted to live in."
She sat up straighter and gave him a practiced eye of inquiry. "Business ventures?"
He tried to shrug the creeping sensation of dread off and looked at the floor. "Just something I used to do in my spare time. I thought it would work. But it didn't."
Well that was oversimplifying things by about ten factors of magnification. A failed dog-walking endeavor and a position that had killed hundreds of people were suddenly equals with that outlook.
He began to feel as though he were sinking, and for all he tried to hide it, he could feel Lois's eyes boring into him. She probably knew he was lying, to her and to himself. Not necessarily by changing facts, but certainly by glossing them over and giving them some much needed paint touchups.
Her lazy, relaxed smile was gone, and she was leaning closer to him. He could suddenly smell her faint perfume, and could hear her breathing ever so close to him. He knew if he turned towards her he would meet with her eyes, mere inches away.
"You don't seem like the entrepreneur type to me," she said warily. He didn't need to see her to know her stare was unblinking, and he could feel her move in almost imperceptibly closer. The warmth of her skin hovered just away from his stock-still figure. He could feel her heat, radiating.
If these were the pressure tactics she used when she was trying to get info, he wasn't surprised she got so many exclusives. Suddenly, the scent of her perfume was cloying, and her closeness grew uncomfortable. A crawling sensation began, as though fingers were rifling through his brain.
"Why do I get the feeling you're interviewing me all of a sudden?" He chuckled nervously, trying to lighten the mood.
Lois pulled back. "I'm sorry. It's just what I do best and--" He dared to look at her, and sighed at her apologetic grin. "It figures I would interrogate the first date I've brought home in mon--"
Her eyes widened a bit, and her hands flew to her mouth. She didn't even try to correct herself, but the sudden rosey hue of her cheeks and nose revealed what she refused to say.
She called it a date! a tiny voice said. The prospect would have seemed exciting earlier, but now it just seemed to shore up even more pressure.
"It's all right, Lois," he assured her, although it did little to ease the tension that had been building steadily in his muscles. An ache was developing in the back of his neck, and he could just feel the knots forming. Why did this woman set him so out of sorts? "If it helps," he added, "I'm a nervous wreck as well."
She let out a huge breath, like a bursting balloon, and held her hands clutched around her stomach as though she were feeling nauseous. "Oh that *does* help. I've never--" She looked at him, her eyes glowing softly in the darkness. "I'm really not an ice queen. I'm sure you've heard it."
Clark was silent. He had heard it mentioned once or twice in the course of his annoying ability to hear everything from here to three blocks away without even having to focus much. But he doubted she was really looking for confirmation.
"I just haven't had the best of luck in this area. You know. And now you're staring at me like I've got three heads. Oh, God."
"Lois," he began, breaching the personal space barrier and grasping at her hand. "I'm staring at you like you're beautiful." Dizzyingly so, he added to himself. He had never felt so desirous and terrified all at once in his life.
"Oh." Her eyes widened as she stared at her hand in his, and her voice was so breathless it sounded as though someone had knocked the wind out of her.
Her dress rustled in the silence as she shifted in her seat, a bit more towards him. Her lips were parted slightly, and she seemed to be grasping for things to say, but was failing dismally.
I like Lois, he thought. Lois possibly likes me. But once she finds out I'm the news story she's always wanted, well what then?
And that was when he panicked.
"So, I think Lex Luthor is definitely dirty," he blurted. What!? Where had that come from? "We should investigate him."
Well that was sort of a given, Clark. Real observant. Your cowardice is spreading like a disease -- it's almost sad.
At first, she seemed jarred by the sudden subject change, and then she blinked, her eyes flooding with visible relief.
"Yeah," she confirmed, her voice burbling with excitement. He watched her expression change from nervous lack of surety to utterly anticipatory as the possibilities fleeted past her mind's eye.
But her gears kept changing, and then the gavel came down. He regretted ever changing the subject at all.
"After we're done with this whole Thompson Trask thing," she continued. "Speaking of which..."
He felt his stomach sink into his shoes and he looked at the floor. In the course of the evening, he had forgotten all about the impending doom. "Oh yeah," he mumbled, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
"Ah hah!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. Chasing a story truly was her element. There was not a single trace of her earlier anxiety. She seemed to know exactly where her footing was now. Her gaze seemed to be peeling layers of his skin off with each passing second. Bare didn't begin to describe how he felt.
"What?"
"I was beginning to wonder if you ever frowned or if your reaction earlier today was just my imagination." Her haughty tone bit into him, and for once he couldn't take her jabs with a shrug and a smile.
"Is that why you asked me back here today?" He jumped off the couch, his voice raising a bit. "To grill me?"
How had this conversation gone so bad, so quickly? First they had been discussing nerves and now everything had done an about face back onto Trask.
"Hey, you're the one who jumped subjects on me here, buster. Don't blame me!" She folded her arms across her chest.
He tilted his head, his heart beginning to pound. "What does Luthor have to do with Trask?"
"Well I--" she stopped, and for a moment he thought he had derailed her, but no such luck. "Well. Okay fine, maybe I changed subjects too, but this is driving me nuts! I have a mystery sitting in my lap and I have this hunch you can solve it, but you're not talking. How do you know Trask?"
Never do a verbal duel with someone who can connect apples to oranges without saying fruit, he thought wryly.
"Lois, I can't tell you that."
His shoes suddenly seemed very interesting. As much as he could say those words, he doubted he could deter her. Through his own stupidity, this relationship was going to implode before it even got past the starting line.
"Why? Do you think I'll use the information irresponsibly? I'm not that kind of journalist! I protect my sources!"
"Lois, that's not it at all I--"
How was this about her? She was making connections at dizzying speed, and he was left behind to gape. The sudden need to backpedal and apologize was enough to confuse even him.
"Oh, I get it. It's because I'm a woman. Or maybe you really *are* trying to steal this story. You know something that can one-up me and so you're just waiting to get away and use it while I'm stuck flailing around without a flight plan."
Huh?
"Of course not, Lois," he protested, "It's--"
"Then what, Clark. What!?" Her foot stamped down and she looked for all the world like a kid on the playground, demanding her way. It's *my* turn on the monkey bars, her expression seemed to scream.
"Because it's private," he finished lamely.
She sighed and began to pace, unmindful of her very-expensive dress. "There is no private, Clark. Just boring versus newsworthy."
His jaw dropped open. If she truly thought that, then he was in far, *far* more trouble than he had originally thought. "You can't possibly believe that."
"The public has a right to know," she countered.
"If it affects them, yes. But this is my problem."
She came to a full stop and did an about face. "The disappearance of Miracle Man is your problem?" Her eyebrows raised.
He felt her stare burning into him, and he glanced to his left and his right, fully expecting walls to be erected, preventing his escape. She was a good interviewer, all right. He was cornered, and she knew it. "That's not what I meant."
"Miracle Man, or whatever it was that did those rescues, was a godsend. He saved so many people, changed so many lives for the better. I know because I reported on a large portion of them. So yes, when Miracle Man disappeared it *did* affect the public, Clark. Don't you think they deserve to know the truth about where their hero went?"
"I--" His protest faded into silence. She thought Miracle Man was a godsend? The image of himself on a pedestal seemed so wrong to him, now, when all he could see of himself was the flames of burning buildings licking at his heels as he gave up and called it quits.
If you only knew, Lois, you wouldn't miss my creation. You would be cheering Trask on.
He couldn't even bring himself to look at her. She didn't seem to notice his sudden shortness of breath, or the fact that his voice seemed choked and constricted.
"If the information you have about Trask will lead to solving that mystery -- well... The more you dodge this, the more I think you know something critical to this investigation."
"All I can say is that Trask is a very dangerous man. And he *will* kill you if you go snooping around. Please, Lois, just back off."
Yes, his shoes were *very* interesting.
He was lying to her. Lying by omission, but lying all the same. To save her life, yes, but his second and far less admirable goal, to prevent the onset of the inevitable, tainted the gesture in his mind. Lois Lane would figure him out, and then she would look at him with even more disgust than she was now as she slapped him onto the front page and dissected him with glee for the world to see. He could feel her glare without even looking up.
"You obviously don't know me very well."
"No, I don't." He finally brought his head back up and was dismayed that his imagination had conjured the looks on her face quite aptly. "But I'd like you to live long enough for that to change."
"Really? I--" For a brief second, she looked like she had run up against a wall, and stood there stunned, blinking. And then she shook her head. "Oh no, don't you dare try to distract me from the issue."
"You think I'm trying to distract you?"
"Well aren't you!?" she gestured wildly, her eyes flashing. "Ever since you walked in on my life I've been nothing but a bundle of stomach churning nerves and self-consciousness. The whole time at the ball I thought I was dying of salmonella, but maybe it was you after all. And then of course there's the hallucinations."
The sinking feeling renewed. She was comparing him to food poisoning? And she didn't even know the half of it yet. "So I make you nauseous."
"No! I meant--" She began to pace again. "Well. I don't know what I meant."
"Lois, I think I should go." He turned and lost sight of her for only a moment when he felt her hands on his shoulders, turning him back to her as if he were a feather in her grasp. The hands roamed to his cheeks and held him captive. He was likely the strongest man on Earth. And he couldn't move a muscle.
"Please don't," she whispered.
He could hear her heartbeat sprint back into high gear. She was still for the barest of moments, like a caught spring. And then she launched into him and her lips crushed against his. His knees wobbled, and he felt his hands snake around her in a surreptitious attempt to keep his balance, but that only drew her closer. The world was spinning as a slow fire spread through him.
"Now who's doing the distracting?" he whispered, trying to catch his lost breath when she pulled back.
She grasped weakly at his biceps, eyes sparkling with amazement. "You're shaking."
"So are you."
They stood, staring. For a brief moment, they were connected.
"Please." Her eyes searched his face. She was very close. "Just tell me you're not an axe murderer."
The mood was killed instantly. She had suspected him a cold-blooded killer, and not only that, suspected it enough to ask him for confirmation? Well, he supposed he was a murderer, in a way, but feeling responsible for a death and coming right out and labeling it as butchery... Two very different sensations of guilt.
He felt a sudden need for air. The apartment couldn't have seemed more claustrophobic than right at that moment. The walls were living, breathing creatures, constricting around him. His fight or flight mechanism had picked flight, and it took a considerable effort to not just bolt right then.
"Nothing quite so macabre, I assure you," he replied, disheartened, as he disentangled himself from her grasp.
"And it's not a parking ticket."
"I don't even own a car, Lois."
Where was his coat?
She chased after him as he meandered towards the closet. "You won't give me even a little hint?"
There it was, on a hook right inside the door. "Sometimes a little mystery is good for the soul, Lois Lane."
"I'll figure it out!" she told him definitively, as he threw his coat over his shoulders and headed towards the door. He struggled briefly with the multiple deadbolts, and pulled it open. The hallway awaited, quiet, constant.
Free.
Keep moving, Clark Kent. Keep breathing.
He turned and grinned at her, though it was sure to be a sickly smile. He didn't feel happy in the slightest, possibly even a bit queasy. "I know you will."
And then he crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him.
*****
TBC...
(End Part 10/??)
