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From Part 8:So, stage one, she needed to find out who her rival for his affections was. Okay, so he’d claimed complete bafflement, out in the hall, in response to her accusation that he was in love with someone else, but she didn’t believe him for one second. For one thing, he’d hesitated before saying it, and he’d looked incredibly embarrassed, rather than the bewilderment he was claiming. And anyway, that speech he’d made at the restaurant... that, more than anything else, told her that she did have a rival, and a very serious one. Well, she would find out who this other woman was.
And once she knew what she was up against... well, then it would be time to plan another campaign - Operation Knock Some Sense into Blockhead Clark.
Yes, that would do nicely, Lois thought, determining not to dwell on what had just happened one moment longer. There were more important things to do, and making Clark see sense about this idiot he was apparently head over heels in love with was right at the top of her list - followed closely by making him see what, or rather who, was right under his nose.
Lois Lane was going to get her man. And no-one was going to stop her!
**********
Now read on...The following morning, Clark headed for Smallville.
He was feeling quite glad that a major emergency involving a goods train crash with the spillage of hazardous chemicals had occupied most of his time overnight. When he’d left Lois’s building and flown into the clouds, his intention had been to head straight for the farm and find out just what his mother had been saying - and he hadn’t planned to hold onto his temper. But just as he’d been about to take flight, he’d heard sirens - enough of them to tell him that there was a major incident somewhere.
Now, his anger and humiliation had mostly abated and he just felt - well, very confused. Why on earth would his mother have told Lois that he was in love with some other woman? And what could she possibly have said to Lois to make his partner decide to... well, to take him in hand? To feel sorry for him.
Could Lois have misunderstood? That was possible, he now thought. Although what could his mother really have said to result in that sort of misunderstanding?
It didn’t make sense. But still, in a very few minutes he’d be at the farmhouse and he could get to the bottom of this mess.
The farm felt just as much like home as ever, Clark thought as he circled over the fields behind the barn and lost altitude in preparation for landing outside the back door of his parents’ house. No matter that he hadn’t actually lived there for more than a few weeks at a time since he’d gone to college at the age of eighteen; there was something about the Kent farm which would always resonate of home to him.
There was his father now, herding the cattle out into the field through the remains of the winter snowfall. That was one thing about farming, Clark thought: the very predictability of the activities, dictated as they were by the seasons and the needs of the animals and crops, was in its own way a comfort. There had been many times over the years when an hour spent milking the cows or repairing fences had given him the time and space to see his problems in perspective. Nothing, whether it was the insecurity of not knowing where he came from, the fear that he would be exposed as alien or as Superman, or the soul-destroying misery which came from failing to save someone, ever seemed as bad after time spent on some routine, but necessary, farm task - especially if his father was around to supply his quiet wisdom and strength.
One day, perhaps, he might consider returning to Smallville and taking over the farm. Maybe. If he ever grew tired of the challenge of reporting the news. If he ever got tired of waiting around for Lois to notice him, the ordinary guy who worked next to her, instead of the flashy hero who dazzled her.
He resolved anew to stay well away from Lois when he was in the Suit. Although he’d told himself that many times before, only to find himself floating outside her window on some dark night when he’d been low enough to grab whatever crumbs of affection he could get from her. Even her blatant Superhero-worship was worth putting up with on those occasions. The desire to visit her as Superman was exactly like a drug, with exactly the same highs - and the corresponding lows after he flew away, when he reminded himself of all the reasons why it had been a stupid thing to do - and when he next saw her as Clark and once again saw the look in her eyes which told him that, next to the hero she adored, he made a very stark contrast.
Lois.
Clark’s mouth tightened at the reminder of the beautiful woman he’d taken out to dinner the previous evening: the beautiful woman he’d finally thought was coming to see him as more than a partner - more even than a friend. Discovering that the entire day they’d spent together had been founded on a false premise still hurt; in fact, the thought of seeing Lois at work the following day made his heart sink. How was he going to face her, knowing that she’d only spent time with him, helped him, because she felt sorry for him?
And because his mom appeared to have given her some sort of wrong idea about some other woman...
He took a deep breath. Time to go inside and talk to his mom - he tried to avoid thinking of it as a confrontation, because he really didn’t want to fight with her. If she had interfered, he knew her well enough to know that her motives would have been good.
Even if it had been the last thing he needed...
Pushing open the kitchen door, he was immediately greeted by the smell of fresh baking. Corn bread, he deduced, no doubt to be eaten with dinner.
“Clark!” his mother exclaimed, turning from the stove where she was busy stirring something which smelt equally delicious.
“Hi, Mom.” He crossed to kiss her, forcing himself to squash the bitterness which arose inside him at the sight of her. If she *had* said something misleading to Lois, she’d done it with the best of intentions, he reminded himself.
“You’re staying for dinner, of course,” she told him. It wasn’t a question, naturally, and he stifled a smile at her assumption, which was almost an instruction.
But he couldn’t let himself relax and slip into his usual habits - enjoyment of a lazy Sunday spent at the farm, for example. He sighed, then spun out of the Spandex into his normal clothes, giving himself a few moments’ breathing space.
“What’s the matter, Clark?” Intuitive as ever, his mother had laid down the spoon she’d been using and was looking at him, concern in her gaze.
There was no easy way to lead up to what he needed to say. “What have you been saying to Lois?” he asked abruptly.
Martha blinked. “Clark, I’m not sure what you mean.”
He sighed again. “I think you do. Something you said made her suddenly decide to take an interest in me - she took me shopping -”
“Yes, I can see that.” His mother smiled broadly. “And obviously you’re happy that she did it, too.”
“What makes you think that?”
Martha raised an eyebrow at him. “Looks to me like you appreciated her help, honey. And I think she did a great job.”
He glanced down at himself, only to find that he was wearing his new chinos and another of the soft cotton shirts Lois had picked out. He had no idea just what had led him to pick those out when he’d got dressed. But then he grimaced. He did know why he’d chosen them. His mother was right: Lois had good taste, and he approved of what she’d helped him buy.
“That’s not the point,” he said quickly. “It’s
why she did it that bothers me. Mom, did you tell her that I’m... that there’s some woman I’m in love with?” The question emerged curtly, almost accusingly.
Unexpectedly, she turned the question back at him. “Are you in love with someone?”
“That’s not the point here!” he objected. “Did you tell Lois that?”
“How has Lois behaved with you lately?” his mom asked.
Clark gritted his teeth, suppressing his temper with difficulty. He really didn’t want to yell at his mother, but the way she was avoiding answering his questions was making it very hard for him to hold back. "Mom, I really need to know this. Did you tell Lois I'm in love with another woman?"
“No, honey, of course I didn’t!” she said.
Clark blinked. “Then why does she think that you did?”
“Honey, I never mentioned anything at all about another woman!” His mom flashed him a teasing grin.
“Mom!” Despite his best efforts, Clark couldn’t avoid the plaintive note.
“Now, answer my question,” his mother said, picking up her spoon to stir her sauce again. “How has Lois behaved towards you in the last few days?”
He took another deep breath, then shrugged helplessly. “I thought she was... maybe beginning to see me as a close friend at last. Maybe even more than a friend.”
He broke off, beginning to pace around the kitchen. “Mom, we had such a great time yesterday. I’ve never had such fun buying clothes. And then she even agreed to go to dinner with me. And... it was wonderful. It felt like a real date!” he exclaimed, pain coursing through him at the memory of how his illusions had been completely shattered at the end of the evening.
Forcing himself to breathe deeply and calm down, he continued, “Then I discovered that the only reason she’d done any of it was that she thought I needed help. That I was in love with someone and was too nervous to do anything about it. And so she felt
sorry for me,” he spat. “She helped me shop and she went out with me just because she was taking pity on me.”
“Are you sure that’s all it was, honey?”
Clark blinked, staring at his mother. “Of course it was! She told me so!”
Sounding disbelieving, his mom asked, “What did she say?”
He pulled a face, the memory of the way the evening had ended still having the power to cause him pain. “I went to... to kiss her, and she told me that I didn’t have to pretend any more - that we both knew it wasn’t a real date and that I was in love with someone else.”
“That doesn’t sound like she was feeling sorry for you,” Martha pointed out. “In fact, it sounds to me as if she might be just a little jealous.” She grinned at him.
“No way,” Clark said shortly.
“Are you sure?”
The probing question made him pause.
Was he sure?
Her manner, when she’d pulled away from him, had been verging on angry. Anger that he’d been about to take the pretence too far? But why would that have made her angry? He could understand her laughing at him, maybe, or pulling away and telling him that the game was over for the night - that she’d given him all the help he was going to get from her.
But anger? And, he remembered suddenly, she’d told him that she knew he didn’t feel anything romantically for her. Why would that even be an issue for her?
And... yes, there had been that moment when he’d thought she even looked sad. What had she been saying at the time?
Oh yes... that he made a great date.
Hope, which had been so cruelly crushed the night before, began to send out tiny exploratory shoots. Was it possible that...?
“You think she might have been jealous, hmmm?” his mother asked, smiling in a way Clark recognised. It was the way she always looked when she knew that she was right about something - a gleeful, smug kind of smile.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Maybe... It’s possible.”
“Aha! So it worked, then!”
He faced her again, giving her an impatient glare. “What
did you say to her?”
“Oh, just enough to make her think a little,” she replied impishly. “Clark, I’ve been watching Lois around you - both when you brought her here, and last week, when we were in Metropolis. That young woman is by no means as indifferent to you as she pretends. So I thought it might be interesting to see how she’d behave if she thought she had competition for you.”
Clark moved to the counter next to the stove and snagged a piece of corn bread from the dish his mother had just taken out of the oven. She swiped at his hand, then rolled her eyes as he popped the steaming chunk into his mouth.
“I can’t even tell you that it’s too hot to eat any more!” she said, giving him a long-suffering sigh.
“Nope - that one stopped working after I was about fourteen,” he pointed out, giving her a flash of a grin. Crossing to pour himself some coffee, he added, “I don’t know, Mom. I mean, maybe you’re right and Lois did get a bit jealous. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. All the same, though... I wish you’d left me to do my own... well, courting, I guess.”
“Oh, you’re on your own now, honey!” she said, winking at him. “I just gave Lois a little push, that’s all. Something to think about.”
“But you still made her believe something that’s not true,” Clark pointed out.
“Did I?” his mother challenged him gently. “She chose to believe that I had to be talking about someone else, Clark.”
“But that still doesn’t make it better, Mom. I mean, I’m not happy that you said something like that about me, anyway. And what makes you think I’m in love with anyone?”
“It’s a bit late to deny that, Clark,” his father drawled from the kitchen door.
Clark rolled his eyes. “Have I no secrets from you guys?”
“When you have kids of your own, son, you’ll understand,” Jonathan Kent said, grinning. “Clark, your mom knew you were in love with Lois right from the first time you stood in this kitchen talking about her non-stop.”
“Yup, no secrets...” Clark muttered.
“Clark, you know your mom was just giving Lois a little nudge in the right direction,” his father observed. “And if it’s made her wake up and take a bit more notice of you, then maybe it’s worked.”
Clark hesitated. “I think she did - but look at the mess I’m in now! Lois thinks that I’m in love with someone else. How am I going to tell her that she’s the one I want without making myself look even more of an idiot than I already did last night?”
“I’ll talk to her, if you like,” his mother said instantly. “I can call her and tell her that it was all my fault.”
Oh no. No. That was the last thing he wanted! Give his mother a chance to dig an even deeper hole for him? No matter how well-meaning she was - no matter that at least some of her strategy might have worked - he would handle this himself.
“No. You don’t need to do that,” he said, trying not to sound pleading. “I’ll go and see her and tell her that there was a misunderstanding. And hope that she’ll give me another chance.”
“If she loves you, Clark, of course she’ll give you another chance,” his father pointed out; at the same time, he thought, bewilderingly, that he saw a triumphant expression flit briefly across his mother’s face.
”Yeah, but does she love me?”
*********
Lois threw down the newspaper she was trying to read; it hadn’t held her attention any more than anything else had. She’d tried watching old movies, reading a novel, going for a walk, watching the news on LNN and going into the newsroom to do some background work on a couple of her ongoing stories. But nothing had managed to take her mind off the scene in her hallway the previous evening.
Returning home with Clark after what had felt like the perfect date. Longing for him to kiss her and wishing that there wasn’t some other woman in his life. And then completely freaking out when he had tried to kiss her.
It was all very well deciding that she was going to fight for Clark. But how was she ever going to live down her reaction? He probably thought that she’d flipped.
It was times like this, Lois reflected, that she really wished she had someone close she could confide in. It was useless thinking of her mother in that light - the last thing Ellen Lane could ever be was a confidant for either of her daughters. There was Lucy, of course, but she and Lucy had nothing in common when it came to men and the strategies they used to attract them.
In other circumstances, she might even have considered calling Martha Kent... but not when the man in question was Martha’s son.
She would even think about talking to Superman, but she hadn’t actually seen him for days. In fact, it was well over a week since she’d actually had a conversation with him. All the same, she couldn’t quite imagine asking Superman about Clark’s love life... the thought of saying, “Hey, Superman, you don’t happen to know who this woman Clark’s got the hots for is, do you?” really didn’t seem like an appropriate question to ask the Man of Steel. And anyway, even if she did ask him, he’d probably come over all guys-stick-together and refuse to say a word.
No; she would just have to do this on her own.
And anyway, now that she’d thought about things, she did have a number of advantages on her side. Clark might be in love with another woman, but he clearly wasn’t getting anywhere with her. And who was his closest woman friend? She was, of course. He was attracted to her, too - she knew that for sure after yesterday.
As well as that,
she was the one he’d invited to come to Smallville again with him. She’d forgotten that last night in her gloom at how the evening had ended. So he definitely saw her as having an important place in his life.
And he’d tried to kiss her. Okay, it could have been intended as just a platonic kiss between friends, but put that together with his obvious attraction to her, and there had to be a strong possibility that she could persuade him to forget about this other woman and notice her instead.
Though she still needed to know just who her competition was. If she was going to beat this unknown woman, it would help to know what she was up against. Though just how she was going to get that information was part of the plan she had yet to work out fully.
She’d ruled out asking Martha Kent, because she thought Martha wouldn’t say... but there had to be a way, didn’t there? Couldn’t she call Martha up and say something like “Martha, Clark asked me to send his girlfriend my recipe for lasagne, but he forgot to tell me the address...” That would work, wouldn’t it?
Except that Clark had probably told his mother all about her non-existent cooking skills... No, that one wouldn’t fly.
Maybe she could -
A sharp knock at her door disturbed that train of thought. Lois crossed the room and peered through the spyhole. Her jaw dropped as she saw Clark Kent standing on the other side.
*********
...tbc
