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Now I understand how Eddie has managed to keep his distance from all the super-kids and Superman: he’s just like Linda—he can sense them!

I like that he’s figured several things out on his own. Fortunately, he’s not a bad kid. What would have happened if his mother hadn’t wanted him because of who his father was? I’m no expert on the subject, but I imagine it must be incredibly difficult to overcome the trauma of abuse and then love the child who was conceived as a result of it.

Best wishes, Nan, and thanks for continuing to share!

CarolD

Finally finished my fanvid for auction winner KSaraSara. Such a brilliant song, I had so much fun making this even if my software did keep crashing 😂 Enjoy!

Lois & Clark - Arms

So here’s a new chapter. Let me know what you think. 😁
Thanks everyone for reading, replying and/or leaving a like.
Huge thanks to my BR Socomama and 90stvfangirl. ❤️

TOC

Chapter seventy

The phone rings.

I stop.

“Lane.”

“Lois. I just got off the phone with Henderson. The MPD found people in the basement. Over twenty individuals.”

I breathe in sharply. Clark stops beside me.

“How long?”

“They didn’t say.” Perry’s voice is careful. “They’re in poor health. Some of them more than others. The hospital is not releasing names. The police are trying to find next of kin first.”

I press my lips together. More than twenty people, and somewhere there are families who don’t even know where they are. I glance at Clark. His eyes are on the file on the table. There's something in the set of his mouth that makes me think of all the people who must be wondering what happened to someone they love.

He looks like he wants to do something, though there’s nothing we can do now.

“Your story ran an hour ago. Stagg’s made a public statement before the ink was dry.” A pause. “It’s what you’d expect: denial and promising to cooperate with the police. He’s also named a culprit from middle management.”

“Of course he has.”

“He held a press conference, and announced a fund to cover medical care, temporary housing, and ‘every legitimate need’ of the survivors.”

“Every legitimate need,” I repeat. “Translation: he gets to decide who counts.”

“Exactly. He’s also ordered an internal review run by lawyers who report to Stagg Industries. That’s not accountability. It’s a firewall with a press release.”

I press my fingers against the receiver. “He’s making himself the rescuer.”

“If he pays the bills, he can point to every receipt and claim he made things right. Meanwhile, the people who were locked in that building may be too frightened or dependent on his money to speak up.”

“The survivors. When can I talk to them?”

“All of them are currently being treated at the hospital. Right now, only police and medical staff have access.”

“But?” I can hear that there’s more.

“That’s why I’m calling.” Perry’s voice shifts into editor mode. “Henderson says the doctors may clear some survivors for interviews over the weekend. Anyone who agrees can speak to the Planet anonymously. No identifying details, and we’ll put out a separate call for next of kin. Anyone who recognizes someone goes through the police, not us.”

“Good. When can I go?”

“You get three hours with everyone willing to talk as soon as they are cleared. You go alone. No pressure, no crowding. You broke the story, Lois, but these people have been through a lot.”

“Understood.” I glance at Clark, and take his hand. “Perry, there’s something else I wanted to discuss. Would you like to have dinner with us tonight?”

“I’ll come by, when the Planet is put to bed. Gotta go now. Bye.”

“Bye.”

The click in my ear is loud.

I yawn and stretch after replacing the receiver.

Clark looks at me and leads me to the couch. “Sit down while I whip up something to eat for us.”

He returns to the kitchen and I close my eyes for a moment.

***

When I open them again, there’s a blanket covering me and Clark stands in front of the couch with two steaming bowls in his hands.

“Here’s some soup, do you want to eat at the table or do you want to stay here?”

“Let’s eat on the couch.” I sit up to make room for him. “How long did I sleep?” I take one bowl from him after he sits down beside me.

“Not long, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“I didn’t even realize that I was tired.”

He smiles and sinks back against the cushions. “Then stay put. I’ll do the rest.”

I lean against him, the soup warming my hands beneath the blanket.

We eat slowly. Clark keeps his bowl balanced on one knee, his free hand resting lightly against my shoulder, and every few minutes he glances down to make sure I am actually eating.

“This is good,” I say after a while.

“It’s only soup.”

“It’s good soup.”

He looks pleased with that.

When the bowls are empty, I set mine on the coffee table.

Then my stomach growls again.

Clark looks down at me. “Still hungry?”

I shrug.

“We should go out for groceries then, we don’t want you and your sister to starve over the weekend.”

“Now?”

“Why not?” he asks. “I could go without you, if you’re too tired.”

“No. If I let you go alone, you’ll probably just buy vegetables and nuts. Someone needs to put the right things in your cart.”

He takes the empty bowls to the kitchen, and I reluctantly sit up, folding the blanket over the arm of the couch.

***

Clark takes the basket and heads for the produce section. He chooses several types of fruit, examining each one before placing it carefully inside. Then come the vegetables.

In the next aisle, I get an urgent craving.

“Pickles.” I add a jar to the basket. “The really sour ones.”

“Pickles?”

“I used to hate pickles.” I reach for a second jar. “Things change.”

He makes room beside the yogurt.

“And those crackers.” I point toward the shelf. “No, the other ones. The salty ones.”

He adds them without comment.

By the cereal aisle, I have acquired cheese puffs, a box of sugary cereal, chocolate-covered biscuits, and a family-size bag of chocolate. Clark places granola, oatmeal, and a box of bran flakes into the basket beside them.

“That’s not a pregnancy craving,” I tell him.

“It’s breakfast.”

“It looks like cardboard.”

“It has fiber.”

“So does the box.”

His mouth twitches. He adds the cereal anyway.

Then I see the peanut butter. An idea arrives fully formed: peanut butter on a pickle, sprinkled with crushed cereal. It sounds like the single best thing I have ever considered eating, and I have to stop myself from opening the jar in the store.

He looks at me with a half smile and adds another bag of pecans to the basket.

We spend much longer in the store than either of us intended. Clark reads labels, checks dates, and makes sure we have enough food for the weekend. I keep discovering urgent requirements in every aisle, even food I have never liked in my life.

By the register, the basket looks less like a grocery run and more like we’re stocking for winter. The cashier divides everything into several bags. Clark pays without a word, without a single raised eyebrow, and carries all of them himself.

“You’re not going to say anything?” I ask once we’re back on the sidewalk.

“About what?”

“About choosing all that healthy food, only to watch me bury it under chocolate and ice cream?”

He shifts the bags to one arm and takes my hand with the other.

“You’re pregnant,” he says. “I’m making sure you have what you need. If you want ice cream and chocolate, we'll have ice cream and chocolate.”

“And the bran flakes?”

“Those are the healthy options I’m going to sneak onto your plate when you’re not watching.”

“Then I’ll make sure to keep an eye on you.”

“I have no objection to that.”

***

Back home, Clark puts away the groceries. “I thought we could make curry for dinner tonight.” He places the sweet potatoes onto the cutting board.

“That sounds good.”

He glances at me. “You could help.”

“If you want me to.”

“You can chop things.”

While he starts preparing what he needs for the curry, he sets out onions, garlic, ginger, and the vegetables we bought, cutting and arranging them.

As the curry begins to heat, I watch him.

“Show me something.”

He looks at me.

“In the kitchen. Something simple.”

That earns me a small smile. “Come here.”

He pulls the mixing bowl from the cabinet, the big one, and sets it on the counter between us. Then the oats, the bag of pecans, and an apple from the bowl by the window.

“Oatmeal cookies,” he tells me. “Simple, and healthy enough to count as a snack.”

He hands me the apple and a small knife. “Peel this first. Try to keep as much of the apple as possible.”

I start peeling, and he stands close beside me, one hand resting lightly on the counter.

“The curry can simmer while we make these.”

We break the pecans into pieces by hand rather than chopping them. He demonstrates, and I do the same, the nuts crumbling between my fingers. There’s something satisfying about it, the clean snap, the irregular pieces falling into the bowl.

He measures the oats by eye, then adds an egg.

“That’s not a measurement.”

“It works every time.”

“That’s what people say before it doesn’t.”

His mouth twitches as he hands me the spoon. I stir until the mixture thickens, the apple pieces catching between the oats and pecans.

My back begins to ache before the dough is ready. Clark takes the spoon from me without comment and finishes mixing while I lean against the counter.

“Now make a cookie,” he says, handing me the spoonful of dough.

I drop it onto the baking sheet. It spreads into a lopsided mound.

I give him a look and make the next one. It’s marginally better. By the time we finish, the sheet is covered in uneven rounds, some larger than others, none of them remotely identical.

Clark slides the cookies into the oven and sets the timer.

Then he moves back to the curry. The kitchen fills with the scent of onions softening in oil and the warm spices he adds one after another. I hand him things when he asks, staying close enough that our shoulders brush whenever he reaches past me.

“Now we wait until the cookies are done.” His eyes shift toward the new couch.

I follow his gaze. “Then we have time to cuddle, right?”

His smile comes slowly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He holds out his hand. I take it and settle beside him, tucking myself against his side beneath his chin. His arm closes around my shoulders.

“Comfortable?” he asks.

“Very.”

He presses a kiss to the top of my head, then another just above my temple. I slide my hand beneath his arm and curl my fingers into his shirt. His lips meet mine.

“Love you,” I murmur.

His expression changes.

“I love you, too, Lois.”

He kisses me once more, then draws me back against him. I close my eyes.

I rest my hand over his heart. He covers it with his own.

“Do you think they’re doing any better?” I ask. “The people from the warehouse?”

“I don’t know.” His thumb moves over my knuckles. “I wonder if there’s been any news.”

He reaches for the remote and turns the TV on, keeping his arm around me.

LNN has picked up the warehouse story. Lex Luthor fills the frame in a dark suit, standing behind a podium bearing the LexCorp seal.

“What happened in that warehouse is a disgrace.” His expression is grave. “LexCorp is establishing an emergency fund to provide medical care, rehabilitation, and long-term support for the survivors. We cannot undo what has been done to these people, but we can make sure they are not left to face the consequences alone.”

The camera pans to an oversized LexCorp cheque.

“He’s making sure everyone knows he’s helping.”

“Is that a bad thing? Lex Luthor has done a lot for this city over the years.” I look at Clark.

“Maybe.” He watches Lex smile for the cameras. “But I just wish the cameras weren’t part of the aid package.”

“You’re right, the oversized cheque is probably a little much.”

The report moves on to Stagg Enterprises. Stagg states his denial of any knowledge of the warehouse operation, while the company confirms that Brenton Oswin, a senior logistics manager who had been with the company for seventeen years, has been dismissed pending investigation.

The screen cuts to a photograph of a middle-aged man in a business suit.

“Seventeen years. And there’s only one person who needs investigating.” I raise an eyebrow.

“What happened in that building is an abomination,” Stagg says. “Senior leadership had no knowledge of these activities. We are cooperating fully with authorities, and we have identified the individual responsible.”

“Convenient.”

He doesn’t argue.

Then the broadcast cuts to the hospital entrance.

“The hospital has also confirmed a substantial private donation from an individual who requested anonymity. The funds will help cover ongoing care and other needs as survivors begin recovering.”

I watch the screen. “That’s good.”

Clark looks at me. “The donation?”

“The fact that someone helped without needing a camera pointed at them.” I nod. “Someone who thought about what those people might actually need.”

“That’s how it should be,” he answers.

I tilt my head to look at him. “What is?”

“Helping someone. You don’t do it so people will think you’re a good person. You do it because someone needs help.”

I study his face for a moment. He says it so simply, as though there’s nothing else to consider.

“And if they never know who helped them?”

“Then they never know.” He shrugs.

I lean against him again, turning his words over in my mind. On the television, the anchor moves on to the next story. I reach for the remote and mute it.

T. B. C.

They're getting closer. I fear for Clark, because getting closer also means it's going to be more dangerous.

Yep, starving the fans was a major hobby of those evil producers. They as much as admitted it in the DVD extras...



It's just one of those A-plot holes the writers didn't give a damn about and we viewers had to patch up for them.
One explanation: disasters happening in other parts of the world were way outside Clark's telepathic radar, so he could only pick them up randomly off TVs and radios. We can imagine how slow news must have been in the '90s. So usually, by the time he heard about it, it was already too late. That's why Superman sightings outside of Metropolis had been rather scarce before "Vatman."



Yes, indeeed. I always sensed something rather sparky between Luthor and Superman. And I’m pretty sure there are fanfics dedicated to their love-hate relationship.


I think the default setting was that L&C’s mutual attraction was genetic. It was the same with Clois, and with Alt-Clark.



I like this line a lot. It shows how deeply ingrained Clark's farm-boy nature is in his personality. No matter how weird his life has become, he could never quite wrap his head around things as “far out” as sci-fi or voodoo, because such wild ideas went against his "ordinary" upbringing.



I think the reason she didn't give up on Superman the way she gave up on Clark is that she never had much hope for Superman in the first place. Superman is a celebrity who's expected to be out of reach—but Clark isn't. I bet when Lois first marked Clark as her prey, she probably thought for a while that he'd be a rather easy one to catch. And the fact that she couldn't reel him in only did more damage to her already dangerously low self-esteem. Poor Lois.



Exactly. The fact that Luthor was willing to take such a huge risk is clear proof of how shallow his "love" for Lois really was, even by villains' standards.
One reason I keep bringing this issue up is that controlling, manipulative men like Lex Luthor are in abundant supply in real life. And women with low self-esteem do tend to misread men’s strong, persistent desire for domination&possession as "love." Such misjudgment produces real victims and often leads to domestic abuse. That's why I feel we should always be careful not to encourage such harmful illusions when writing romantic stories.
Bottom line: stay away from controlling men, ladies! No matter how charming or persistent they are.



Well, even if Superman miraculously smartened up somehow, Clark still wouldn't take his place in "Vatman," because he wasn't yet ready to accept Lois as his life partner at that stage. Personally, I don't think he was ready even in "BATP." He only declared his love because his hand was forced by Luthor. And his not being ready was the real reason he chickened out on Lois at the end of "THOL."
But he was definitely ready in "Metallo," a solid year after "Vatman." (You have to admire this guy's sluggishness.) And he did have an honest conversation with Lois in that episode to put an end to her Superman fantasy, just like you advised him to.
By the way, the timeline in the first half of Season 2 was scrambled too. The events in "The Eyes Have It" actually took place before "Season's Greetings." In the corrected order, Lois no longer had any romantic entanglement with Superman after their late-night conversation in “Metallo”.



You are absolutely right. I’ll see what I can do to honor the clone’s tragic death in the commentary on “Fly Hard”.

Actually, that doesn't make much difference to the possibility I'm talking about in the end. Lois could indeed have thought that his memory had returned gradually. There's nothing to prove that she realized what we and Clark know, that there was a definitive trigger in the alley. But I believe she noticed that he seemed more like himself when he returned to the Daily Planet, so regardless of how it happened, she knew he had regained his memory. Therefore, Lois's question could have been about the first thing he remembered since the last time they saw each other, when he still seemed so lost. That's what I meant earlier, not that she necessarily thought there had been a big revelation. Or, of course, she could have been asking about the very first thing Clark remembered overall, hoping he would admit that it was a little habit of hers, but that wasn't the impression I got when I watched ASU. What I do agree with is that, regardless of what she was asking, she probably wanted the answer to be her - even if she wasn't aware of that desire herself. And then Clark lies, or rather, tells less than half the truth, and unfortunately, we don't get to see a sweet moment.

If you find one, please let me know

Oh, I can imagine a scenario or two in which she would do that.

Indeed, indeed.

The beginning of this episode feels a little strange to me. Why does everyone, including Jonathan and Martha, seem so impressed by Superman in Paris? The way they talk, you'd think he'd never left Metropolis to make a rescue before, which doesn't make sense unless this was right at the beginning of Superman's career... Or is everyone so excited because it's specifically his first time in Paris and they're thrilled to see Superman in action in a city he hasn't visited before?

The first meeting between Clark and his clone was pretty anticlimactic. I mean, I liked their conversation itself, but the way they met was a bit dull. And it was funny to see Lex Luthor being a father and scolding his son for getting home after ten. What was that version of Little Red Riding Hood? Wow. And we can't forget the scene where he carries the clone - because how much does Superman weigh? Are Kryptonian molecules denser, meaning Clark weighs more than an ordinary man in the L&C canon? I don't know, but either way, it seems Luthor doesn't skip his workouts.

Speaking of which, about this line:
LUTHOR: You will be the instrument of our victory, then _you_ will be the one, the only Superman. _My_ Superman.
Maybe Lex was in love with both Lois and Superman at the same time, which is why he caused so much trouble for them.

I wonder why the clone was also attracted to Lois. Was she the only woman who had approached him in those last few days? Impossible. This was the time to see Superman flirting with a blonde named Tiffani, not when he was under the influence of red kryptonite. But anyway... Maybe she was the only woman who approached him with the kind of boldness that suggested prior familiarity, which made him curious.

I also wanted to mention how funny this part is:
MARTHA: I saw this movie once. There was a parallel universe and...
CLARK: Mom, don't get sci-fi on me, please.
Seriously, Clark? You're an alien who came in a spaceship that traveled who knows how many light-years through outer space while keeping you alive, you found a mysterious globe containing a hologram of your parents and you have superpowers. What does all that sound like?

I liked Lois's attitude during the dinner (which never actually got served), questioning the supposed Superman about what was wrong. She didn't act like a groupie. But I wish that after everything that happened in this episode, and after realizing that Superman was ignoring her more than she'd thought, she'd given up on him for good. At the same time, I understand why she didn't.


Indeed, it's something the viewer can tell he's going to do the moment he leaves the note, so we didn't even need a scene of him standing outside her apartment this time.

Yay, biology!

Hey, let's not be so certain Having a brave, purely platonic friend is everything in life.

I think Luthor was sure Superman would protect her from any harm the clone might cause. Which, of course, is still absurd, and brings us back to that discussion about how real love can be when there's no purity in it. In any case, it's definitely not a kind of love I'd have the slightest interest in experiencing.

This makes me think once again that I really wish we'd seen more of her interactions with other people at the Daily Planet. By the way, this scene made me laugh:
CAT: Uh huh. She left a few minutes ago... with Superman.
CLARK: What!?
CAT: Yeah. They flew out that window... is something wrong... I hope?

I would have praised him if it weren't a little too late to try to sneak out unnoticed. Now that Superman and Lois had a whole history together because he hadn't managed to establish boundaries between them earlier, the ideal and smartest thing for Superman to do would have been to ask her to have an honest conversation to put an end to everything. And then Clark could step in, so to speak.

Well, that's a relief, huh? Better to be rejected by one man than two.

Definitely. It's especially sad for Clark and the clone himself. Lois suffers gracefully, not only because this is a minor matter compared to the family crisis we witnessed, but also because deep down, perhaps she'd expected this outcome from the beginning. It's interesting how she goes through moments of feeling like she has a claim on Superman or is someone special to him, only to end up feeling the exact opposite: like an absolute pathetic nobody for having even entertained the idea that something might happen between them. It makes me wish we'd seen what a relationship between Lois and Superman would have looked like in the series. It probably would have been very short and awkward, and she might very well have ended up realizing that she couldn't feel like she was on equal footing with him and that, as a result, things wouldn't work out between them.

The clone's story is especially sad because shortly before dying, he realizes that his own father doesn't truly love him and sees him only as a tool. At least he helped Clark with the lock of hair, showing that he could have been a good brother under different circumstances. And then Clark gives him a dignified ending. I think this moment is important enough that it should have had a greater impact on the end of the episode (considering I can't expect what happens in one episode to affect the next, even though it naturally bothers me a little. For example, the consequences of Mayson's death were short-lived. I mean, I understand that the series couldn't turn into a drama. Still, I think there are ways to honor these characters in this kind of story. But anyway, I've completely gone off on a tangent). Instead, the script has Clark think more about what the clone could have been to him than about who he was and the life he could have had, which makes the character seem a little selfish. There's also an intentional reference to Bizarro, another character from other Superman media who also has a sad story: LOIS: I don't know. He's just... bizarro, that's all.

Perry and Jimmy's subplot here is really good, and I love that scene at the end where they and L&C are sitting close together even though there's plenty of room to spread out on the bench. These four are just too adorable! The scene where L&C are left alone there afterward is cute too. And Clark laughing so openly at Lois's joke about being available to keep Superman company just proves that he knew how to handle her crush on or flirting with the hero. It's not as though he were some poor doormat who suffered because of superficial and evil Lois all the time. In fact, for most of season 1, he seems cheerful and hopeful, although he certainly went through some complicated and painful moments in this love triangle involving two people.

Wow, I ended up writing much more than I expected. I've been writing so much lately that I'm afraid I'll run out of my monthly word count. At this rate, I won't be able to publish my special Halloween fic in time.

Wow, I didn't expect that! Now I really want to know what's in the warehouse.

This was so fun! It was easy to figure out who the visitors were - excellent characterizations!! The excuses were truly Cheese of the Month Club worthy, and the headlock had me in stitches!! Fantastic job, thank you for sharing!!

Hey, so here are last parts of the file, finally done. Now Lois and Clark just need to write all of the facts into a story and boom, problem solved, right?
Thanks to Socomama and 90stvfangirl for their help with this. ❤️
And also thanks to everyone for reading, leaving a like and special thanks to everyone who left a comment ❤️

TOC

Chapter sixty-nine

Clark makes tea for us, we sit back down.

He hands me my cup. The window is still open. The city sounds distant from outside, ordinary in a way the file is not.

Then he sets his cup down.

“Come here.”

It is not meant as a question, but it is not an order either. It is an offering.

I put my tea beside his and move into him. His arms come around me immediately, one hand settling at my back, the other resting against my side. I turn my face into his neck and breathe.

I can smell soap and tea and feel the cold air from the window. Beneath all of it, he smells like Clark.

His hand moves slowly up and down my back.

“He waited,” Clark says. “Until we were eighteen. Until there was no one whose job it was to keep us safe.”

I tighten my arms around him. He doesn’t say anything more, but I can feel how hard he’s holding himself still.

“We’re going to read the rest of it,” I tell him. “Every report, every name, every lie he put in those margins. And we’re going to expose him for what he did.”

He nods.

I kiss him.

It starts slow. His hand comes up to my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek, and the kiss deepens.

We break apart

I rest my forehead against his.

“Still two minutes?” I ask.

His mouth curves, faintly. “Maybe five.”

“Five,” I agree.

He pulls me closer again, and I let him. His hand rests over the small curve of my stomach. Neither of us says what we are both thinking.

Instead, Clark kisses my hair.

I hold him a little tighter. “We’re okay.”

After a while, he reaches for the next tab himself.


The official text is bad enough.

The margins are worse.

Trask’s handwriting crowds the page, cramped and slashing. Every rescue becomes an act of infiltration. Every unexplained event confirms what he already believes.

I shift, trying to sit in a way that doesn’t pull at my back. Clark notices and rubs my back, warming it with his heat vision.

Trask created a dehumanization protocol. The alien is referred to exclusively as IT. Emotional or anthropomorphic descriptors prohibited in all internal records.

Clark doesn’t look at me. Just at the words.

“If he had to write that into a protocol,” I say, “he was afraid someone might forget to follow it.”

Clark doesn’t move a muscle.

I lace my fingers through his, his hand tightens around mine.

“Clark.”

He looks at me.

“This isn’t on you,” I say. “You didn’t make him twist every good thing into something monstrous.”

He doesn’t answer, but gives me a slight nod.

I keep reading. An anonymous donation to an orphanage. A gas leak detected before ignition. A factory worker who survived a forty-foot fall.

Every time, Trask has the same answer.

“He couldn’t imagine anything that didn’t fit his theory,” I say. “So he made everything fit.”

Clark reads that one. “I wasn’t even close to most of those incidents.”

“He couldn’t imagine luck,” I say. “Or resilience. Or being in the right place. He had one explanation for everything and everything confirmed it.”

“And he never stopped looking for me.”

Then something catches his gaze.

Entry 1704 from October 3, 1988.

A farmer’s daughter found safe after two days missing, brought back by a kind man who gave her food.

Clark draws in a sharp breath at that one.

I look at him.

He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes stay on the page, and I can see him fighting to keep his face still.

“Clark.”

“She was eight.” His voice comes out rough. “Maybe nine. She’d been out there two days and it was already getting dark. I could hear her heartbeat before I could see her, and it was so slow, Lois. I didn’t know if I’d gotten there in time.” He blinks, and it doesn’t help. “I gave her my jacket. Gave her some water and a chocolate bar I had in my bag.”

“I carried her to an area where the search team was close. Waited with her until I heard her parents coming, and then I left before anyone saw me clearly enough to describe me. I stayed just long enough to know she wasn’t alone.”

A tear slides down before he can stop it. Then another.

“I never knew what happened to her. Whether she was okay.” He wipes his face with the back of his hand. “I couldn’t risk anyone connecting her to me.”

He looks at the annotation again.

“And now I know what he made of it.”

Feeds the young. Indoctrination begins early. Trask wrote it in the margin.

I brush the next tear from his cheek before it can fall. “You saved a little girl’s life.”

“I know that.” His hand curls into a fist on the table. “I know that’s what happened. But it doesn’t feel like it right now. Right now it feels like I handed him a weapon.”

“You didn’t hand him anything. He built the weapon out of a child getting to go home.”

I keep my hand against his cheek. After a moment, he leans into it.

He nods, but I can tell it hasn’t landed yet, not all the way. I let it sit. Some things don’t get fixed by being told twice.

There’s a map attached to the file. Each marked location corresponds to a rescue, with a separate notation for the date Trask’s people investigated it.

“He was following the rescues. But look at the dates. Most of the time, by the time his people arrived, the witnesses had already gone home. He was collecting aftermath, not catching anyone in the act.”

Clark leans closer, but the movement is cautious now. His eyes stay on the dates.

“Most of the time,” I repeat, my eyes moving to the last entries. “Not always.”

I turn the page toward him.

“They were close.” Clark swallows.

His jaw tightens. He looks back at the earlier entries. What had seemed like a series of near misses now looks like a narrowing corridor.

I read Trask’s handwriting again. Does it change shape? Does it wear a human face? My stomach tightens. “He even considered that the descriptions might not match because he was looking at the same person.”

“But he thought I was doing it deliberately.”

“He made everything fit what he already believed.” I touch the page, careful not to cover the next line. “But he wasn’t wrong about the pattern. You kept appearing at these incidents, and Bureau 39 was beginning to narrow down where you might be.”

Clark doesn’t answer. His attention has fixed on the map, on the lines connecting one rescue to the next. His breathing has gone shallow. One hand rests against the table, fingers spread, but the knuckles are beginning to pale.

I turn to the final entry. The paper is creased. “Look.”

He reads with me.

The report is dated two days after Atlanta. Bureau personnel arrived while the witnesses were still there.

“They almost had me,” Clark says.

His voice is low. His eyes move over the report, then again, faster the second time. His thumb presses into the edge of the table until the wood gives a faint creak.

“Yes.” I keep my finger on the page. “His people were almost close enough to catch you in the act.”

Clark’s expression hardens. He looks toward the door, then back to the dossier.

“People needed help, and you happened to be there. But Bureau 39 understood what was happening. They just kept arriving too late.”

His fingers curl against the edge of the table. The motion is small, controlled, but the frame beneath his hand gives a muted groan.

“How did I get away?”

“I don’t know.”

He seems to be searching his own memory and finding only blank space. His gaze loses focus. A muscle flickers beneath his cheekbone, and his hand slowly releases the table as if he has only just realized how tightly he was gripping it.

“And now I’m here.”

“In Metropolis.” I glance at the map. “You haven’t been rescuing people here, so they don’t have a local pattern to follow. Not yet.”

He looks down at the report again. His shoulders remain rigid, his eyes fixed on the faded description, as though some part of him is still standing in Atlanta, listening for footsteps behind him.

“We know how he thinks. We know what he looks for. We know where he’s overreached. That’s our opening.”

Clark looks at the map. Then at me. Then he nods.

“There’s one more entry I want to check.”

The knock at the door comes before I can turn the page.

Clark looks at the clock. Twelve forty-three.

We look at each other. Then at the file open on the table.

He closes it. I take it to the bedroom and put it in the drawer under my side of the bed.

When I come back Clark is opening the door.

Two men with a dolly. They look at the apartment, look at the space where the couch needs to go.

“Table there?” the taller one asks.

“Yes,” Clark confirms.

The taller one looks at the cracked table and shrugs.

Clark holds the door.

They start with the couch.

It’s bigger than it looked in the store. The two men work it through the door, angle, tilt, repeat.

Clark watches for a moment. Then he steps in.

“I can take that end,” he offers.

The shorter man eyes him. “It’s heavy.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Yeah, I heard that before.”

He takes the end and carries it, grunting. The slight lean, the adjusted grip, the controlled pace that says this is work. The two delivery men exchange a glance over his head.

I lean against the kitchen counter and watch him.

Clark steps back and looks at the couch.

The taller delivery man claps him on the shoulder. “Good man, thanks for the hand.”

Clark smiles. It reaches his eyes.

The table is next. The cracked one goes out and the new one comes in.

Clark runs his hand along the surface when it’s in place. Then he steps back.

The delivery men do their paperwork. I sign it and they leave.

The door closes.

We stand in the living room and look at the couch. Then at the table. Then at each other.

I cross to the couch and sit down. Properly, both feet on the floor, back against the cushions.

Clark sits beside me.

We both look straight ahead for a moment.

“This is much better.”

“Yes.” He grins.

His arm comes around me. I lean into him. The couch accommodates both of us without anyone’s elbow finding an armrest at the wrong moment.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

We get up and I go to the bedroom to retrieve the file.

Clark disappears into the kitchen while I get the file from the drawer.

When I come back to the table he’s already sitting down, and beside my place is a small plate. Three oatmeal cookies, a handful of grapes, and hazelnuts from the bag in the cupboard.

I look at the plate. Then at him.

I sit down. Eat a grape. Then a cookie.

He watches me eat.

“Okay,” I say, when the plate is half empty.

I open the file, turn the pages and stop.

It’s a memorandum. Department of Defense letterhead, dated February 17, 1970. Official language, formal structure, the bureaucratic finality of a decision already made.


The paper is badly crumpled, as if Trask had balled it up in a fit of anger, only to smooth it out again to put it here.

Bureau 39 shall cease all active operations, effective immediately.

I read the sentence again.

Then I look at the handwriting scrawled across it. Not in the margins this time. Over the official text, as if Trask can’t even bear to let the order stand on its own.

COWARDS. THEY THINK SHUTTING US DOWN WILL MAKE THE THREAT VANISH.

I set the page down.

“They really tried to shut him down,” Clark says.

“In 1970. Four years after the Kents brought you home.” I look at the document. “Project Blue Book ended. The DoD pulled the plug on Bureau 39 as part of it.”

Clark looks at Trask’s handwriting over the official text. “But he didn’t stop.”

“No.” I find the attached pages, photocopies mostly, a memo from Lutter, but the record at the top is Trask’s own. I read it aloud.


“Hargrove and Stagg,” I say, writing down the names. “We need to establish what they gave him, and when.”

Clark looks at the page.

“And whether they knew what they were paying for.”

“Exactly.”

When I look up, he’s staring at the page.

I watch the realization settle over him. This wasn’t a government pursuing him under orders. It was one man’s certainty, sustained by private money and protected by people willing to look the other way.

No chain of command. No authority to appeal to. No one who could make him stop.

“That should make it easier. Shouldn’t it? One man is smaller than a government.”

“Is it easier?”

He thinks about it. “No. It’s worse. A government has rules, even bad ones. This had none.” He looks at the document again. “He built his own country in the margins of somebody else’s, and nobody stopped him for twenty-three years.”

I reach across the table and cover his hand with mine.

“We’re going to stop him.”

He nods, but I can see him still working through it, the specific, personal weight of learning that the thing hunting him his adult life had never been sanctioned by anyone but itself.

We look at each other across the table.

The Hargrove story. The Stagg Foundation. Prometheus Holdings. The warehouse and the people who acquired it.

It wasn’t two separate investigations.

It was never two separate investigations.

I reach for my notepad.

“Bureau 39 didn’t disappear when the DoD shut it down,” I say. “It went private. Trask kept the operation alive, and Hargrove and Stagg were among the people he trusted to fund it.”

Clark looks at the names on my page.

“The warehouse.”

“Stagg’s building. And if Bureau 39 is connected to it, that might explain why Trask’s men showed up at the Planet.”

“We need to tell Perry.”

“Yes. And we need to find out what the search warrant uncovered before they have time to cover their tracks.”

T. B. C.

It's time! We are having a Christmas ficathon this year!

If you want to participate, then get me a prompt composed of a list of 3 things you want in a story and 3 things you want left out of a story, due by 30 October!

I'll shuffle these lists up and assign them to authors on Nov 1, and then you will have 2 1/2 months to write, write, write!

Stories are due 15 Jan (because, holidays...).

I'm accepting prompts by DM on Discord, by email at veritycantare@gmail.com or in Private Message here on the Boards!

Format:

Authors will post their own stories and table of contents on this day. There are no extra challenges this year, because writing during the holidays can be challenging enough, haha.

At the end of each story, the author should include the prompt and who the story is for, like this:

2026 Christmas Ficathon for Verity

Wants:
Snarky banter
Definitely kissing
Hot chocolate

Don't Want:
Either of them with anyone else
Zebras
Jimmy Interruptus (regular Jimmy is fine)

If you want to see how this works, the master thread for last years ficathon is here

https://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/topics/302987

What a serious and in-depth piece! I suspect the problem you raise here is part of the reason I'm not comfortable with Clark Kent being written as such an extreme altruist. A person needs a certain amount of selfishness to stay alive and retain their sanity. But the L&C writers didn't give this character nearly enough.


This is another issue you bring up that the series never addressed. To protect Lois Lane's innocence, the L&C writers created an idyllic world with no rapists. In the ugly reality, a female reporter with that kind of recklessly aggressive style would have been sexually assaulted multiple times already. Real criminals rape female prisoners before murdering them—they don't grant them a dignified death. That's why whenever I saw Lois get caught by villains, I was strongly reminded that I was watching a lovely fairy tale, a blissful escape from the rotten real world.


There's one theory worth considering. It's called "the law of conservation of misery." The central idea is that misery, like energy, is never destroyed—it just changes form or moves from one being to another. Trying to reduce suffering for one person or in one place only increases it elsewhere, where you can't see or don't realize it. For example: feeding a hungry person chicken and potatoes makes both the feeder and the hungry person happy. But the misery doesn't disappear; it's merely passed on to the chicken and the potatoes. Anyone who keeps a chicken as a pet will tell you that chickens are highly intelligent animals capable of deep emotions. And scientists have already discovered that plants not only feel pain but can also recognize the specific person who harmed them, which means plants likely possess intelligence—or even souls—that we humans can't yet perceive.
So if the Almighty ensures every human is happy on Earth, it wouldn't be fair to other living beings, because energy and resources are limited on this planet.
Of course, I'm not saying we should just lay back and let things be. But theories like this do help if the suffering in the world affects one's emotions too much. They also remind us that instead of trying to solve all the problems on Earth, it's more important to try not to pile extra misery on others. For example, if chicken is enough to satisfy our needs, don't go for Chianina steak. It's much less environmentally friendly.



I think it's simply because we were shown a version of a parallel universe in which Lois Lane was particularly lucky. In other universes, other Lois Lanes must have died in all sorts of gruesome ways at different points before her wedding.
And who knows—maybe every one of us suffers our own share of misery in at least one version of a parallel universe. So it's all fair in the end.



I agree with your second point—the Lois Lane in this story feels more like the Lois Lane from early Season 2, soon after Clark "robbed" her of her Kerth Award, when L&C were briefly warm, platonic friends before they started dating.