A/N:
Um, OK, so I do think I probably ought to fill this whole note with this little guy:
and quite possibly this one
. See, I don’t know if you remember when this Ficathon actually happened... it was quite a while ago now. I’m gonna keep my list of excuses as short as possible.
I struggled a bit with the prompts I was given, but managed to write the first version of this within the time-frame. BJ then very kindly offered to BR this for me, and did a brilliant job I might add, thank you so much. She got her notes back to me, and I started working on them... then we had a bit of a family tragedy, my home life pretty much fell apart, and my lovely muse Aoife took that opportunity to run away from home. Things are better at home now, but I’ve been really busy recently with other things, especially the last few weeks. And all the while I’ve had this nagging thought in the back of my mind “
Don’t forget your Ficathon fic!” Anyway, things have quietened down again, Aoife’s come back (although I’m not sure if this is permanent or a fleeting visit), and I’ve managed, finally, to get this to a (hopefully) postable state!
So, thank you again to Brenda for betaing this fic. A big apology to everyone involved in the Ficathon who did manage to keep to the schedule, and an even bigger apology to Lynn S M, who has been waiting
all this time for her fic. It’s here at last, and I really hope it doesn’t disappoint, although it might not be worth the wait you’ve had for it. You’ll find her prompts at the end of part 2.
*.*.*.
Ficathon: An Award Winning Storyby Alisha Knight*.*.*.
She stared at herself in the mirror.
What was she doing, and why was she doing it? It went against all her feminist principles; the whole thing stank. She should take the stupid dress off, put on her brown robe and eat chocolate ice cream; that would show the stupid judging panel a thing or two.
OK, so it wouldn’t. It would just prove that she really was that petty; and she wasn’t, not really. And she couldn’t really let Clark go on his own. She’d already behaved badly enough over this Kerth award thing; she couldn’t bear to let him down now.
Her doorbell rang.
“Just a sec!” she called, straightening the creases out of her new black dress and checking her hair and makeup one last time. She looked good.
She strode from her bedroom and over to her front door. She opened it. He looked good.
He beamed a charmingly happy and boyish smile at her and she noticed his eyes take in her appearance. She waited for the customary compliment of how good she looked. It didn’t come.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Almost, let me grab my purse,” she replied, slightly disappointed. She had gone to a lot of effort to put this outfit together and now it appeared to be for nothing.
“I’ve got a cab waiting outside,” Clark told her.
“Right. Let’s get this over with, then,” she replied with a grin.
Her smile wasn’t returned, instead he just looked a little uncomfortable. “Look, Lois, if you want to back out I’d understand.”
“Who said I wanted to back out?”
“No one, I’m just sensing that you’re not very comfortable with this.”
She stood facing him in the doorway and looked at his concerned face. “OK, I’m not. I haven’t really been out as a date in years, not counting Lex—“
“This isn’t a—“ Clark started to protest but Lois spoke over him.
“I know, please let me finish. I’m just saying. Tonight I am *your* date, that’s what I’ll appear to be to everyone at the awards. Normally when I’ve gone to things like this, *I’m* the important one and the man I’m with is the date; someone to make me look a little less like someone who doesn’t really socialise. I’m not used to being ‘the date’ for someone else.”
“Especially me?”
She smiled. “You know what Clark? I’m struggling to think of someone else I’d put myself in this situation for. And in the long run it might be good for me, you know? Character building.”
A broad grin appeared on Clark’s face as he helped her with her wrap. “I’d say you’ve got more than enough character already.”
For a moment Lois just looked at him. There was more than a hint of teasing there, but was there something deeper? Was there something about her character that he really didn’t like? She looked him in the eye, almost daring him to say it, to tell her what it was about Lois Lane that Clark Kent didn’t like. There was only fondness and... something else in those eyes. Nothing about him seemed to suggest that he was trying to belittle her.
“Thanks for that Clark,” she told him, shooing him out of her apartment and locking her door behind them.
They walked silently out to the taxi. The driver had been reading a copy of the Planet while waiting, and as they got into the back he folded it up and put it on the passenger’s seat before driving off.
“This isn’t a date,” Clark blurted out about a minute into the journey.
“I know. You said.”
“I meant, I know how to behave on a date, and I know how to behave when spending an evening with a friend. This feels... strange. I don’t really know where this ranks.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a second to gather his thoughts. “Can I tell you that you look stunning or is that too date-like?”
“Do I not normally look stunning?”
“If I recall, last time we spent an evening socialising you were wearing sweats. Stunning was not the word I would have used to describe how you looked.”
“What word would you use?”
“Comfortable.”
She grimaced. “Not quite the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed, “but not a bad thing, either. How strange would you find it if I told you I preferred comfortable to stunning? In a date, I mean.”
Lois looked at him. She swore Clark was blushing. “Any other man, very strange. You? Not so much. Although, not very flattering to think my best friend thinks I look better in some old gym clothes than an expensive new dress.”
He smirked. “I didn’t say you looked better that way, just that I preferred it. You’re tense now, I’m tense now. We weren’t when we were eating pizza on my couch in our comfy clothes. Guess I’m still a country boy at heart.”
She smiled. “And I prefer comfy country Clark to award-winning tux-wearing Clark.”
“Oh, I know *that*,” he practically laughed, giving her a quick flash of his pearly white teeth.
And suddenly, despite his teasing of her initial reaction to his being nominated instead of her, Lois felt herself relax. “Clark, this is how you should behave. No formality, just... you. And you can tell me I’m stunning if you like.”
He looked at her. Really looked at her. Then looked at the back of the seat in front. “You know you look stunning, Lois. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
She felt her cheeks start to burn slightly. Why did she care that how Clark thought she looked? Why, when she had been getting dressed, had it seemed so important to her to look good for him? She’d known that he wouldn’t care what she wore, that he would still have taken her if she had decided to wear her gym clothes. He still would have called her stunning. She felt her heart rate pick up.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be here begrudgingly, she wasn’t supposed to be acting like his ‘date’, let alone feeling like it.
“You look good, too,” she blurted out.
“Hm?” He’d obviously been lost in thought, too.
“You look good. You would have been a wonderful arm ornament if...” she tailed off. If things had gone to plan and the members of the judging panel hadn’t been idiots who wouldn’t know a good story if it had the words ‘A Pulitzer Prize Winning Story’ written in gold-plated lettering beside it.
“Thanks. Now, let me just check, you like to be the best at everything, right?”
“You know I do. And you’re happy to be second best, that’s why we work together so well.”
“Good. So I can tell you that I think you’ll make a better arm ornament than I would have, and you’ll take it as a complement.”
She stared at his serious face that was trying so hard not to smile. “Thank you, Clark.”
“No problem,” he replied. As she watched him, his face began to struggle to contain a laugh.
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’ve just been trying to think of what to label something that isn’t a date but has date-like qualities.”
“And?”
“The best I can come up with is a raisin.”
For a second Lois tried not to laugh, but in the end she gave in and he joined her. “I’ll go along with that if you like; this isn’t a date, it’s a raisin.”
*.*.*.
Clark was beginning to relax as they made their way to the bar to the pre-dinner drinks. He tried to console himself with the fact that, despite all her protestations, he was almost sure that Lois would have hated it if he had gone with anyone else. Still, all his efforts to get her to relax had seemed to be for nothing as they had walked into the Press Association building and were surrounded by their smartly dressed peers. She had made her way straight to the bar, leaving Clark trailing in her wake.
“What are you doing here, Lane?” Clark heard a man ask her. He had seen the man at many press conferences although he didn’t know his name. He had no idea that Lois had ever spoken to the man before. However, the man’s patronising attitude and snide comments would lead anyone to believe that he knew Lois. “I thought this dinner was only for nominees?”
She smiled patronisingly at her aggressor. “And their dates,” she told him smugly.
“You’re here on a date?” the man sounded incredulous.
“I’m here with my partner,” was her ambiguous reply, before returning to Clark’s side.
She smiled up at him and Clark found himself smiling back as the man stomped away, stupidly wondering whether he could possibly get Lois on a real date, rather than a raisin.
“Nice to see you being a team player, Lois,” chuckled a deep voice, and Clark looked over to see Perry White and a woman walking over to them. “Now, Clark, I don’t believe you’ve met my wife before, have you?”
“No,” Clark replied, shaking the woman’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. White.”
“Please, called me Alice,” she replied. “Hello Lois.”
“Hello Alice. And of course I’m a team player, Perry. Why else would I be here?”
“You’re a begrudging date, are you Lois?” Perry asked her.
“Actually no, I’m not a begrudging date, I’m... something else,” she informed him, giving Clark a knowing smile.
“Well you see,” Clark replied with a straight face before Perry could question Lois’ strange response. “I could never have brought a grudging date with me. I prefer something smaller, sweeter, without a hard centre.”
“So let me get this straight. You’ve brought *Lois*, something smaller, sweeter and with a softer centre than a grudging date?” Perry asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Exactly,” Lois and Clark replied in unison.
*.*.*.
The four of them were sitting on their own table for the meal that was being served before the awards were handed out. Clark noticed Lois relax even further. Despite Alice’s presence, the fact that they were sitting with their editor did make the entire evening feel a little less like a date and more like a works outing. Lois could obviously cope with this situation. Although, he sensed that Alice might have preferred it if they were two couples. Clark supposed that she didn’t get that many opportunities to spend a whole evening with her husband, he could guess how hard it had to be to prize Perry away from the Planet, but the couple displayed no public signs of affection, other than loving smiles, to make their companions uncomfortable.
The meal itself was excellent. Clark was enjoying the food, the company and suddenly found himself realising that he had completely forgotten about the award itself. It would be a lie for him to say that he didn’t care whether he won or not, he would be disappointed if he didn’t. He looked over at Lois, enjoying her meal as his raisin. No, he felt as if he had already won.
Lois looked up from her dinner and smiled at him. As she started to speak to him, he heard a siren in the distance. No, not now. Not this evening. Not when things were going so well.
“Clark?” she asked.
“Sorry?”
“I asked if you were enjoying your meal.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Are you OK?” She asked, concerned.
<An apartment building is on fire. Many people are trapped, whole families including children.>
“Yeah,” Clark replied, guiltily ignoring what he had heard from the firemen’s radio and continuing with his meal.
<It’s starting to spread. We’ve just been inform that one of the nearby buildings is storing highly flammable materials. This is a major situation.>
Clark put his cutlery down. “I’m, er, I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“You OK, Clark? You look pale.” Perry asked.
“Yes, I’m fine Chief. I’ll be back in a minute, I’ve just got to, er...” he motioned towards the direction of the bathroom and made a dash for it. Just how bad could this fire be?
To Be Continued...
