ToC - for previous parts.
Waking a Miracle (17/??)
Lois really pitied the cleaning staff of this hotel. The little black jumpers the women were forced to wear as their uniform cut into her in all the wrong places. Her armpits felt like they were going to sever at the joint, her waist felt like she had a belt strapped around it too tightly, and she couldn't move her arms all that well when she tried.
The little white clog tennis shoe things? They looked like they would be comfortable in a euphoric sense. No heels, flat, wide and roomy... But they definitely were not euphoric. They were material embodiments of pain and suffering, that's what. A sadistic minion of Satan had designed them. She raised her foot and clawed at the heel, trying to dig it out of her slowly inflaming skin, but without much luck.
Okay, well, it probably would have helped somewhat if she'd managed to steal a uniform that had been the right size. She'd snuck through the staff locker rooms and grabbed the first one she'd seen hanging out on a hook. A woman, possibly smaller than Tinkerbell, must have been the owner of this particular ensemble.
She growled and dropped to her knees, peering at the doorknob to George Thompson's suite. At least this hotel hadn't caught up with the rest of the world and started using those annoying little keycard systems to lock all the doors. Nope, this was a standard, pickable tumbler lock. She yanked out a pair of paperclips from her small utility purse and started working, trying to get the tumblers to behave. Jimmy was so much better at this sort of thing! She jammed the clips around, trying to make it work, but her progress was slowed to a crawl. There was a series of odd-sounding clicks and with a suppressed growl, she pulled the clips out and started again. She just couldn't quite get the tumblers in the right spot--
Finally the lock gave way.
With a grin of satisfaction, she turned the handle and peered inside the suite. The lights were all out, despite the darkness hovering outside the windows. Good. With luck, that meant that there was nobody there. She pulled the clips out of the doorknob and moved inside, slipping along the wall in the darkness like a panther.
Panther Lois, that's what she was.
After moving through the small foyer, she found herself in expansive, very luxurious living room. The darkness was almost cloying, and she cursed as she collided with a small table with a lamp on it. Her knee had banged into the rounded brass knob of the drawer below the table and throbbed with pain.
That was going to bruise for sure.
"Oh, give me a break," she whispered, finally giving in and pulling her flashlight out of her small purse. She flipped it on and raised the light in front of her, wincing as her uniform threatened to cut off what little was left of the circulation to her arms. The haze of the flashlight fanned out in a dim, wavering cone, making things seem eerie and sort of grayed out. She moved the light in a weaving pattern, examining every surface and cranny of the room.
Nothing appeared out of place or unusual... except...
She went over to the couch when she noticed the rumpled sleeping bag lying there. Interesting. There was also a medium-sized duffle bag between the coffee table and the sofa. She bent down and unzipped it, shining her flashlight into the depths within. Quickly rifling through the contents, she immediately struck something flexible, cold and smooth like vinyl, and square-shaped. She curled her fingers around it and pulled it back out of the bag.
'United States of America,' in faintly shining gold print stared back at her from the top of the navy-blue object. A passport. She flipped open the front page and tilted it sideways. A passport which revealed the owner of this bag to be none other than Jason Trask. Her muscles slackened as she almost dropped it, but managed to keep it clutched in her grip.
She stared at his passport photo. Even there, in the luminous glow of her flashlight, he looked positively dangerous. Pale, weary, and dangerous. Anger clipped the skin around his eyes, and his mouth was set in a firm, melancholy line, as though he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders with every passing second. Some sort of moral responsibility that he could no longer fill, or wanted to fill, but was being held back.
Well, at least this solved the puzzle of Trask being nowhere to be found, and yet somehow central to this entire investigation. So Trask, 100 percent for sure, was in Metropolis with George Thompson.
She rooted her hands around in the bag some more. Fatigues. Fatigues. Sweats. A toiletry bag. Fatigues. A gun. Was this man a poster child for the military? She gave up on finding anything else useful, returned the passport to its home, and zipped the bag up tight like she'd found it.
What other treasures were here to be found?
She seemed to have two options. There was a hallway that went, presumably to the bedroom and bathroom. Or she could go back in to foyer and take that doorway into... some other room?
People kept most of their secrets in the bedroom, she decided, and tiptoed that way. The door was open already, so she just slipped right on past the threshold, sweeping her light around. The bed was made and overall the room didn't even look like somebody was living in it, save for the suitcases on the floor and a collection of papers at the small writing desk.
She rolled her eyes. Even *she* didn't have a writing desk in her bedroom in her apartment. The hotel suite's living room was probably a little bit bigger than her apartment as a whole. Ridiculous. Shouldn't this man's money be going towards... buying little children ice cream and kissing some babies? Or something? Maybe hiring a campaign director that could actually coach him on having actual campaign values?
But still, at least the writing desk meant Thompson had had a surface to write upon, thereby leaving products such as information lying in wait just for her to discover!
Unfortunately the paper on the writing desk looked like all it had for her to discover was doodles that looked like they had been drawn by a child. Wait a minute. Doodles that were actually a speech gone bad? There was actual writing, much of it scratched out in what seemed to be frustration, almost to the point that the paper was near to ripping at some points where the pen had pressed too hard into it. Little gnarled stick figures were drawn in the margins, sure, but there *was* writing. She brought her flashlight down as close to the piece of paper as possible without blocking her own view and squinted, trying to discern what she was seeing.
It is with great regret... service in the FBI... marred... .... ... aliens among us... apologies... .. . .......... to justice.. forgive...
WHAT?
She gave up with stealthy and flipped the switch on the small desk lamp that was sitting on the table. But it didn't help, even when she leaned in real close. The words were just too far scratched out. The whole page was drenched and crusted with black ink, and the parts where she could see through the scribbles were few and far between. Enough to absolutely infuriate her that she couldn't see more, but not enough to really draw any solid conclusions.
It sounded like Thompson was going to make some sort of apology speech? But then there was the aliens among us deal that just didn't seem to go along with that. Could that be a reference to Miracle Man?
It is with great regret that my service in the FBI has been marred by withholding aliens among us in a small unlighted prison with no food and no water, just because we can, although I'm not exactly sure how we managed to do that to Miracle Man, since he's reportedly invincible and indestructible, and actually not even proven to be human or not, or existing in the first place, but anyways, I hope you'll accept my apologies and after Miracle Man, excuse me, *alleged* Miracle Man, is all better, take me to justice, arrest me, and then forgive me? Oh, and by the way, somehow Clark Kent is involved in this. I'll let you know when I figure out how.
Somehow, her makeshift fill-in-the-blanks speech just didn't seem like it was going to cut it.
She did a quick circuit around the room, rifling through all of the drawers and cabinets she found, but after encountering nothing of interest, she gave up and went back to the writing desk. Sighing, she flipped the desk lamp back off and was plunged once again into the eerie triangular glow of her flashlight. Shadows and specters danced along the walls as she rotated and headed back out the door.
She took a detour into the bathroom, just to make sure there was nothing unusual in there. There was a damp pair of boxers hanging over the shower curtain, which she discovered only by placing her hands on the fabric by accident and then cringing backwards in horror. She didn't want to know why they were there. She really didn't. He had obviously been in need of a dish rag and had come up short, so he'd used... Yeah. That was it, she decided as she exited the bathroom too quickly to appear even the remotest bit like she wasn't running in terror.
What candidates do with their underwear! Find out, in the next issue of the Dirt Digger! At least the boxers or briefs question had been answered for inquiring minds wanting to know.
But she wasn't. An inquiring mind. At least, not about this.
She shuddered as she walked back through the living room and into the foyer. One last room.
She turned the handle slowly, her flashlight out in front of her like a shield. The door gave way and pushed open with a long, whining creak. She rolled her eyes at the cliché. Young, gorgeous woman, alone as she sneaks through the darkness, unaware that the axe murderer in the nearby closet is about to strike.... Very funny, Lane.
She shot her light out in front of her, and was met with the dull translucence of the beam hitting two eyes. Two human eyes. Her hands flew back to her mouth. The flashlight, surrendered in defeat by her lax fingers, went skittering to the carpet with a dull thud and went out, shrouding them in darkness.
Ohmygod. There was somebody in here!
But the person she had happened in upon didn't move except for what seemed like a dull tremor in his shadow. She could see his outline as her eyes adjusted reluctantly to the new light levels.
"Lois?" the voice was weak. Breathy. But she recognized it.
"Clark!?" she exclaimed as she rushed over to him. "What are you doing in here? Why are you sitting in the dark?"
He didn't respond.
What was going on? How had he beaten her here? He must have decided to do some investigating on his own. She felt a flash of respect when she realized that he must have been here the whole time she had been in the suite. She hadn't heard any doors open, or anyone picking the front lock. Not a sound. So he must have solidly beaten her to the punch. Well, that was odd. Surely if he'd been picking around in here she would have heard him searching the room?
The draperies were thumping against the sliding glass doors to the back of the room, each swell letting a small burst of wind and the briefest of lights through to where she stood, and Clark sat.
He was awfully still... His breath was sounding rather thready.
"Clark?" she whispered again, this time more worried.
It wasn't until she flipped the lamp on that she noticed something was really, really wrong. There was no color to his skin at all. He looked like somebody had tossed a heap of flour on to his face and it had just settled there, a dull, pasty white. His breath was short, and shallow, and his stare seemed glassy. Even with the light on, he barely moved, almost appearing... disoriented, or dizzy somehow.
She put a hand on his forehead and was shocked at how icy cold it was. And his skin was slick with the sheen of perspiration.
Looking around, she noticed that the desk where Clark sat was a mess of papers. There was a discarded book, crumpled on the floor below his slack hands, and the drawer of the desk was slightly ajar. The lock appeared broken.
The flapping of the drapes was starting to annoy her, and she went over to the sliding glass door to attempted to force it shut. It went with a small protest and a groan, but when she put her foot down, she noticed the foot lock was completely destroyed. The lock had popped off the rails and was lying in a disfigured, mangled heap between the draperies and the track. What on Earth?
She looked back at Clark, who still wasn't moving, and barely appeared aware that she was in the room in the first place. She rushed back to his side, gathering up the book that lay strewn at his feet, and shoving it in the desk drawer in the process. She rubbed his back, and he wobbled about with each circular motion. Was he that weak? "Clark?"
She'd seen victims go into shock before in the process of her reporting career. But it'd never been someone she cared about. And it certainly had never been something that she and she alone was in a position to help with. It wasn't like she could call the paramedics.
"Hello," she'd say. "Yes, I was breaking into George Thompson's suite and discovered my partner, who apparently had also broken into George's suite, what a happening place, eh? But anyways, Clark hadn't beaten me there except from luck, he obviously just got a faster cab, but you see he's gone into shock and I'm not sure what to--"
She stopped that rant right there.
So what had happened to him? She bit down her worry.
There were no physical signs of injury anywhere on him. No blood. Nothing. So maybe this wasn't *real* shock. Didn't you have to be suffering circulation loss for that? Or maybe he was just manifesting the symptoms like people experiencing stigmata, except with shock. Was that possible? Manifesting, manifestation, maaaanifest, hmmm.
"Clark? Can you stand?"
That was when things went from bad to worse. Voices rumbled up against the suite door and the sound of the lock being opened made her almost panic. But Lane women didn't panic. She grit her teeth and darted towards the study door. She closed that, swiped up her flashlight from the floor, and darted back to the desk where Clark sat. "Get up, Clark, now!" she hissed as she turned the light off and started pulling at his shoulders.
Come on, Clark, she encouraged in her head. Come on, come on. She heard the door to the foyer from the hallway outside the suite open, and she squeezed his shoulders even harder, surprised she wasn't doing damage to him. He finally seemed to respond to her prodding and was up on wobbly feet.
She guided him quickly to the center of the room and looked around, again experiencing the beginnings of panic. There was absolutely no where to go. But Lane women didn't panic. Oh forget it, yes they did panic. What was she going to do? There was no way out of the suite except by way of the foyer, which the voices were now coming from. She gulped, realizing that all that stood between discovery and them was a door which she hadn't even locked. Clark was with her, barely able to stand on his own steam, and she couldn't in her right mind leave him behind. Actually, Clark didn't seem to be comprehending what was going on at all. His breathing, still shallow and fast, echoed along with the thumping of her own heart, and all he seemed to do was stare ahead dully. What was *wrong* with him?
Oh, God. They were going to get caught and...
WAIT!
She looked at the drapes. They were *heavy* drapes, and they came down past the floor. There was an inch of extra fabric that caught on the oriental carpet on the floor. That would do, she hoped.
"Lois," he whispered again, followed by a mumble that was mostly nonsensical, like his voice had been mashed and cracked. He wasn't making any sense, and he was looking at her in a not looking at her sort of way, almost as though he were blind.
"Clark, you have to be quiet," she hissed as she pulled him back behind the viney tangle of drapes. She prayed that they didn't make a visible lump. Shoving her hand out, she smoothed the drapes as best she could before wrapping her arm around Clark to support him. He stood there, sort of half-huddled, and limp, curled over like a dead flower or something. His arms were down at his sides, and she had her own arms wrapped around him at about his elbow height. Lord, but he was a big man, well, at least compared to her own tiny frame. Her arms didn't go all the way around, not when she had to encircle his arms too. And he was *heavy*. She felt almost crushed into the small corner as he hovered over her, leaning partially against the wall and partially on her, his cool skin trembling.
She stifled a flash of worry for his condition when she heard muffled movement. She apparently had hid them none to soon, because now the voices were coming closer, and the door cracked open wide. The thunder of conversation invaded the room, and her whole body stilled and stiffened. In a sudden change of heart she was actually glad Clark was so large, because she feared she would be crushing him with the tightness of her grip at this rate.
The room flooded with light, but aside from a vague glow over the top of the curtain rod, it was dark back where they were. These drapes were *thick*. Lois buried her head in Clark's firm chest, as if it would somehow help. But it didn't. She was still stuck here in a room with two government madmen with nothing but a shoddy set of curtains between her and discovery. Well, they weren't that shoddy. But still.
She hoped against hope that they wouldn't notice the lock on the desk was broken. Please, please, just don't let them look at the desk, she pleaded with whatever entity had allowed her through life thus far unscathed. Well, except for the miscellaneous scrape and sprained ankle, but hey, she wasn't dead, and she really, *really* had a strong desire to stay that way.
"That can't possibly be the plan," an unfamiliar voice rumbled through the thick drapes. She could hear him pacing back and forth like some sort of rabid animal. Could this be Jason Trask? She imagined it was, and wished that she could see what was going on. What was this about? Plan? What plan?
"Well, it is. Simple, isn't it?" the distinctive voice of George Thompson replied.
Clark's breathing was soft against the top of her head, still irregular, but quiet, and unnoticeable, she prayed. She rubbed her hand along his back, trying to be soothing and yet not audible at the same time.
"Insane! You expect the public to do your dirty work for you, George. But what if they don't realize how dangerous he is? Indestructible! He could kill them all with a stare."
"When they see something strange, they will cry out for action. And in this case, there is no minority group for aliens. No one to be there to help him. He'll get burned alive in the throng of public opinion. Just think, Jason, you won't have to use such extreme measures to control him in the future. No one will ever accept him back as a miracle maker if they hate him. And we won't be villains any longer for keeping him down."
There was a long pause, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing them not to discover her and Clark. Her heart thudded in her chest as she heard the soft pats of Trask's feet on the carpet as he paced right past their position.
"They accepted him before," Trask said.
She exhaled. Were they talking about Miracle Man? It sounded a lot like they were.
Clark jerked in her grasp and she tightened her grip to keep him still, praying that he wouldn't topple over. Was he coming around? Or was he starting to spasm? Spasms would be bad. The drapes were sure to move if he moved, he was simply too large. Then she realized Clark was against the window. She had a wall, thankfully, but Clark, who was already freezing to the touch, was stuck up against the glass, which was bound to be uncomfortable. Weren't you supposed to keep people who were in shock warm? Glass on a cold fall day was *not* warm!
She mentally kicked herself for not having reversed their positions before they had become permanently committed to them. Great. Her partner was going to freeze to death while she stood in the relative comfort of this... really cramped... dark... corner.
And then as her thoughts drifted back to the window Clark was leaning on, with horror, she realized they were completely visible should George and Trask decide to go outside. Or at least Clark was. She was smashed up against the corner like she herself was wallpaper. Or was that molding. Okay, maybe paint. At least it was fall, and they weren't likely to want to go outdoors.
Unless one of them smoked. In which case, she and Clark were doomed.
Did George Thompson smoke? That wouldn't be good for the public image would it?
"But that was before they were even able to prove his existence. He did a very good job of lying low, so to speak. Always out in a flash."
Okay, that was definitely Miracle Man they were talking about. What could they be planning? They were talking about him like he still existed! Which would mean he existed in the first place!
"I think you have no idea what you're talking about," Trask grumbled, his voice sarcastic.
Exactly! Wait...
"We'll still have the rock if my plan fails."
Okay, these men were making absolutely no sense whatsoever. It was a conversation *designed* to pique her interest and fail to deliver anything remotely close to coherence. She *hated* when people she was eavesdropping on did that. It was horrible etiquette!
So. They were going to use public opinion to kill Miracle Man, and if that didn't work, they were going to kill him with a rock.
What the heck?
"Which you haven't even allowed me to test yet."
"Well, you'll get your chance in a few hours, Trask. I want them brought in in the morning. Ah, here's what I was looking for. Let's go."
Them. There was more than one Miracle Man? She blinked and pondered that. She'd never considered that one before. Could there be a whole race of aliens on the planet? That fit with the plural aliens she had found in Thompson's garbled practice speech.
Thompson and Trask began to leave, and Lois almost began to collapse she was so relieved, but first of all, she was pinned, and second of all, the phone rang shrilly just as she heard one of them enter the foyer.
"You go ahead, Jason," Thompson said with suave ease, a tone that just screamed fake friendly. She had learned how to peg that saccharine-laden mirage easily over the course of the years. It helped extremely when she was trying to interview people. "I'll take this."
The door shut once again, and she could only presume that Trask had left, which left them in the room alone with Thompson. She rest her forehead on the soft cotton of Clark's shirt, withholding a growl of frustration. His chest rose and fell so minutely, and he stood there so still and silent, it was like she was hiding with her arms wrapped around a statue.
Please be all right, Clark, she thought.
The shrieking of the phone finally stopped when Thompson picked it up. "Yes?" he asked.
There was a long pause.
"Everything is going according to plan. He doesn't suspect anything. Don't worry."
That perked her up from her worry a bit. She hugged Clark tighter. What was Thompson talking about now?
"Yes, he thinks the press conference will go exactly as my speech outlined."
Another pause. She forced herself not to strain against the drapes to hear better.
"Yes, I made absolute sure to hide my real drafts."
Hmmm, so the scratched out gibberish she'd found wasn't even what he was really planning on saying?
"Look, Bureau 39 is my baby. Not yours. And *I'll* decide how to deal with her. The press will think I'm the good guy, here, and the problem with Clark Kent will go away. I assure you."
Lois withheld a choked gasp. Fat chance of that now, you snake, she thought as her mind roamed back to Clark. Thompson was going to double cross Trask and... do *something*... to Clark. Kill?
What could these men possibly want to kill Clark for?
Thompson stalked out. She heard the door to the study shut, and then she heard him leave the suite entirely. As the outer door shut with an echoing slam, she let loose a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, but stood quietly with Clark for a few moments to make sure that neither Trask nor Thompson were coming back.
It didn't seem that they were. Five minutes of silence had ticked by.
She muscled the both of them back out of the drape tangle. Clark still had no color, but his eyes weren't nearly so distant. "Clark?" she whispered. "Clark, we have to get out of here," she urged him.
There would be time for questions later, but first they had to get out of danger. She grabbed his hands and pulled him forward, wishing she could do something that would ease his shivering.
"What's going on?" he whispered. He was definitely still not quite all right.
"I'm saving your butt, now come on," she said. And with that, they fled out of the suite and into the stairwell, Lois firmly out ahead, while Clark shuffled along behind with a dazed look on his face.
They had made it down about four flights of steps before she heard Clark collapse behind her. "I have to sto--" his legs gave way and he fell into a sitting position, "--op," he whispered with a bit-back moan.
She raced back up and sat beside him. "Hey, take your time," she replied. Trask and Thompson were long gone by now, most likely, and they were high enough up in the building that nobody in their right mind would be using the steps except two crazy reporters interested in avoiding elevator traffic. The excitement finally dying down, she realized that she could barely breathe in this horrible mal-fitting uniform.
One look at Clark, however, pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. She would change later.
"What happened, Clark? Why were you there? What's wrong with you?" The questions tumbled from her lips so fast she doubted he was even comprehending what she was saying. He still had a somewhat dazed look on his face, although he looked *a lot* better than he had just a few minutes ago.
"I found out. He killed my parents because of me. I mean... I knew before that he did it because of me, but--" Clark replied in clipped tones, the self-recrimination practically dripping from his words.
"What?"
Her hands kept trying to snake over his shoulder and start rubbing his back, but she held them tightly in her lap. He wouldn't want her comfort now that he was lucid enough to reject it, would he?
"Trask found his wife dead with Thompson. Thompson somehow managed to convince him it was me."
She blinked, taking in once more his pale, shivery form. A hick from the bowels of Kansas, where the sheriff had quit the job over three deaths. Did they even *know* how to kill people in Kansas? Well obviously somebody did, but that wasn't the point! And besides, Clark looked like he would blow away at the slightest breeze, he was that wobbly. "You? Clark... How could Thompson convince a man that a nine-year-old boy had killed his wife?"
The whole story was surreal. Ridiculous even. There had to be more to it. She imagined a younger, littler Clark, and she just couldn't even comprehend how somebody could convince anyone he was a killer. Not if they knew him, as she sort of felt she was starting to.
"It's complicated." He stared at his shoes, his tone flat, and unforgiving. There was a *lot* more going on than he was letting on, that was for sure. A *lot* more.
"Complicated," she echoed, mirthless.
His face went into his hands. "Please, Lois, can we not do this right now."
She considered him again. Forget the how for now, Lane. Let's work on why. *Why* would Thompson target Clark in such a way? What in the world would convince him to shift the blame onto a local kid--
"Oh, my God."
"What?" His head woozily tipped back up as he moved to look at her.
"Clark!" She sort of half-stood with the exclamation, but her awful uniform brought her back down into a seated, calm position.
"What!" Clark looked at her, his eyes riddled with fear and anticipation. The dazed look was definitely receding now, and there was at last a little hint of color to his cheeks and lips.
"Thompson killed her," Lois explained. "It's the only explanation. And now he's shifted the blame onto you to save his own skin."
So, Thompson was a murderer. Thompson was a *murderer.* Despite the horror of the fact, she almost wanted to giggle. Oh, this was getting better by the second. Thompson was in charge of a secret FBI agency dealing with defense against *aliens,* possibly the cause of Miracle Man's disappearance, *and* a murderer. Not only that, but if he was in collusion with Trask, he was harboring *another* murder, and possibly planning to backstab him at the same time. What a scum! This was going to look very juicy on the front page. Very juicy. At least the elections weren't for another month or two. She still had time to prove everything--
"Yeah," Clark mumbled, breaking her from her mental tirade.
She blinked. "What do you mean, yeah?"
"I mean, yeah, Lois. That makes sense." He shrugged, as if it weren't news. As if it weren't even important to him. Defeat bled from his sagging shoulders. He had never given her an inch on this investigation. Not once. And now he was giving her a mile. He knew more. She was sure of it. He had even *more* information that he wasn't telling her.
"And you don't care?" she asked, incredulous.
"I do care, Lois, but--"
She cut him off, anxious, "But, what?"
Another shrug. "There's nothing I can do about it, Lois."
"Yes, we can Clark. That's our job. We *do things* about umm... these... things."
"No, Lois, not this thing."
Despite his pallor, and her uniform, she wanted to launch across the steps and wring his neck.
"Clark, this is huge," she exclaimed. "We have the chance to bring down the man responsible for your parents' deaths and a political golden boy all in one move if we do this right. Can't you see how important this is?"
"Important to what?" he shot back. "Getting another journalism award? You would do all that. Wreck my life. All for an award?"
She stilled, barely stomaching the hint of accusation, the fear, and paranoia biting at his words. *What* was making him like this? Yes, she was a driven woman. Okay, maybe driven was a little bit of an understatement unless the image brought a miniature Andretti out of her head and to the wheel, but-- but... Well, jeez, he was a dense one. That was the only explanation!
"No, Clark. Not for an award, although that might be a nice side-effect. You can never have too many of those. But anyways, because it's bringing a very bad pair of men to justice. It's the *right* thing to do. And how is it wrecking your life?"
Just ANSWER! she resisted the urge to scream as he peered at her. She could practically feel him assessing her, peeling off layer after layer of her personality in one, scrutinous examination.
"Because if we take one wrong step. Everything that I care about. Innocent people. You, most likely. Will be destroyed and I will be left behind to watch the burning wreckage."
"That's why we need to expose this, Clark. We need to expose this man so he doesn't have any power over you. Can't you see? I've seen victims in my life before, Clark, but I think you're taking it to a whole new level."
She looked at him, sitting there. The very dull shade of blood finally flowing under his skin did nothing to remove the appearance of utter devastation shunting off him in waves. He was looking much better. Much better. But he still looked like he probably couldn't have stood up if he wanted to. Like a big, Clark-like, albeit extremely muscular kitten. He was just too weak, and wracked with other emotions to recover properly. Maybe his innate paranoia was hurting his chances at snapping out of this... shock-like state. Or something.
What are you, a psychologist now, Lane?
"Clark, talk to me here," she pleaded, feeling more and more like she was trying to get a delinquent child to fess up to stealing the cookies from the jar.
He shrugged. "What is there to say, Lois?"
She folded her arms over her chest, trying to keep a hold of her frustration. It wasn't working in the slightest. "You're a pigheaded lummox, you know that?!" She waved her arms around for good measure as she finally convinced her body a standing position wasn't going to bisect her torso even if it felt like her waist was in a vice.
Clark was up in a flash, eyes blazing, finally responsive, and finally, definitely, completely, not a kitten. "And you're a domineering obsessive ..." His voice cut off into a small groan as he fought to find words. She stared at him with wide eyes. "Crazy person!" he finished.
They stood there panting, staring at each other for several minutes.
God, he was infuriating. He knew something and wouldn't tell her. He was the one going into shock for no apparent reason, at least not one that he felt she needed to be clued in on. He was the one being paranoid and scared. And he thought *she* was crazy? Of all the nerve!
She opened her mouth once or twice to retort, and unusual for her, but usual for her in the presence of Clark Kent, it just wasn't working. She just wasn't able to make a snarky comeback. The possibilities rolled before her eyes and toppled off cliffs, unused, and gone from sight. As she took in his scarlet-colored face, she couldn't help but smile with relief. He was all right, relatively. "Well, hey, at least your color is back. You're all red now. I never knew my temper was therapeutic for bystanders."
There was a long pause, and his own look of fury relaxed, slow but steady. "You're good for me, Lois Lane," he replied as he quirked a small grin.
"So," she hazarded, sensing the unaired truce. "Bessolo now?"
Surprisingly, the grin remained plastered across his face. Not that that was unusual -- the man probably burned more calories from grinning at her than any other exercise. Screw the gym, he probably got all his conditioning just from looking at her. That would be a neat trick for fitness. Smile more and you lose weight! Or wait, didn't it take more muscles to frown?
"You're going to go regardless of what I say, aren't you?" he asked.
She nodded and gathered her purse from where it sat on the steps. "Pretty much."
"And there's nothing I can say to get you off of this story?"
He was learning!
"Also true."
"I guess we're going then," he shrugged. The grin was still there, but it did little to hide the defeat in his tone.
She regarded him once more. He was hiding something. She knew it. But his willingness to go along with her anyways, despite his obvious fear was amusing. Almost sort of touching in a way, even if it was mostly for chauvinistic purposes.
Protect the little woman.
But then, she had just saved *him* hadn't she.
"I just saved your life, you know."
Points for subtlety, Lane.
"I guess I owe you one, then," he whispered.
"I don't need protecting."
Again, with the subtle! And again, with the lies, another voice interjected. She smooshed that thought like a bug under her painful little shoe.
"Is this really about who is saving whom?"
He moved closer, until he was a solid tower over her. Ominous, but she wasn't afraid. The soft sounds of their breathing tangoed as she gazed at him. His expression was riddled with a deep caring, and something more. Desire. Heat.
All for her.
Maybe she hadn't scared him off as much as she'd thought.
She swallowed harshly and took the plunge. "You think after all this is over, we can try that date again?" His breath caught, and in the horrible, awkward, embarrassing silence that followed, she hastily stammered, "I promise, no interrogations."
He stared at her for the longest of moments. Silent. But the look in his eyes was thankful. "If you still want to, after all this is over, I think I'd like that very much, Lois."
Her pleasure at his response was stunted immediately, once again, by indelible curiosity. If she still wanted to, after all this was over. What kind of stipend was that?
Plain sight, Miss Lane. General Newcomb's words bounced around again.
Plain sight, she thought, as Clark started moving down the steps.
She felt like the final clue was dangling in front of her like a piece of cheese for a mouse, just out of reach, taunting.
Just what was she missing?
"Lois, I do have one question, though," Clark called over his shoulder as they shuffled down the steps.
"Yeah?"
"What exactly are you wearing?"
She felt heat spread across her cheeks in a sharp, stinging blush as she looked down to her pinched uniform. Under the dim fluorescent lights of the stairs, it looked even tighter than it felt. "Don't ask," she growled as she shoved out in front, purse flung over her shoulder like a trophy. She just hoped she could get back out of this wretched thing without resorting to scissors.
He chuckled all the way down to the street.
*****
TBC...
(End Part 17/??)
