Pressure, pressure, pressure! I hope this pleases the masses! I gotta get a beta reader I guess so you'll get well polished story pieces on here. But you guys are helping me write this you know! I thrive on encouragement.
Nancy
Disguise failed pt 5
Clark watched as Lois returned to her desk. He’d heard the whole conversation. Perry was a real friend, someone who could be trusted, that was for sure. He felt grateful, but embarrassed to be hearing what Lois was muttering under her breath.
His life had come so close to being over, he felt like someone had snatched a knife out of a hand about to kill him. He was still in shock. His shock was twofold, or was it three? Lois had actually been trying to give away his secret. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what sort of a mentality she must have. Was that more shocking than the fact that Perry hadn’t published the article he’d demanded the newsroom to get? Lois gave him all the information he’d wanted. Lois had actually done her job, been an obedient reporter, been more observant than anyone else in the newsroom, and was being punished and sent to outer Siberia, or what must seem as far to her. But above all, he couldn’t fathom the consequences if her article had been published.
He now had a decision to make. Could he continue to be Superman? Could he don the suit, knowing that he might be as see-through to the rest of the world as he was to Lois Lane? He pursed his lips and looked down at the papers on his desk.
He picked up his pencil and tapped it on them, glancing across at his co-worker as she straightened up and filed her work. She was all business. She picked up the phone. Clark heard her canceling and postponing appointments.
Jimmy came over. “I got the info you wanted Lois.”
“Thanks Jimmy. I’m going to be gone on assignment for a week, so I’ll get to this when I get back.”
Clark was surprised enough at the calmness of her voice that he turned to look at her. She didn’t look angry anymore. What was she up to? Was she in pursuit of another story already? He tipped his glasses down to read the brochure on her keyboard.
The Pines Resort, Landheart, Ontario. The map showed it was somewhere near Algonquin Park. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of place that Lois Lane would be interested in going. Black bears, moose, wolves, red foxes, beavers, raccoons and porcupines were about the only inhabitants of that forested hilly area.
Clark watched as she put the brochure along with a few other papers into her satchel. He got up and headed to the coffee machine. She could probably use a cup, too.
Bringing it to her desk, he placed it beside her, and then leaned on the edge of her desk.
“Yes? Is there something I can do for you, Kent?”
He smiled at her attitude, which was about as changeable as this reporter that for some unknown reason had gained his attention over the course of the short time he’d worked at the Daily Planet.
“What’s on the agenda today?”
“I work alone, Kent.”
Clark nodded. “So what are you working on now?”
“I don’t see what business that is of yours. Please remove yourself from my desk. I don’t have time for a friendly chat. This is a work day, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Clark slid off her desk and walked back across the aisle to his chair. She was in no mood to resume any sort of a working relationship with him; that was for sure.
It wasn’t long before a runner brought a package up to Lois. She signed for it and then opened it. The airplane ticket was obviously not a pleasant sight to her, but she seemed to be holding her disgust as she checked over the itinerary before pushing it into her satchel, picking up her jacket and heading out of the newsroom.
Clark swiveled in his chair to follow her to the elevator. She was going to get into trouble. He just knew it. While she stood at the elevator, Clark glanced around the newsroom before lowering his glasses to look at the ticket through her bag. He jotted down the schedule on a pad as she stepped into the elevator. It appeared she would be flying from Metropolis International Airport to Ottawa and then taking a VIA rail train to Coyote and a hotel shuttle to the resort at Landheart. He went to
www.maps.com and printed out a map of the area where she’d be going. It looked like she only had a few hours to pack before she headed to the airport.
A yell, “Help! Help! Oh Help, Someone!” reminded him of his job as Superman. This wasn’t the time to decide whether he wanted to continue flying in public view or not. He got up and headed quickly toward the stairwell.
Lois couldn’t believe what Perry had done to her. He had gall, nerve! Her mind recited all sorts of rarely used words to describe her boss, formerly the best boss she’d ever worked for. Now, however, he had fallen from grace. Such was also the plight of Ralph and Clark, aka Superman. The rage she’d felt before had subsided. She was sure there was something to be found at the resort, after all, as an investigative reporter, unless everyone had lily white hands, there would be some stink to follow. She just hoped it didn’t lead to dead mice or rats in the pantry. The thought made her shudder.
She’d never taken a vacation, in all the time she’d worked at the Daily Planet. She’d never found relaxing to be as fulfilling as uncovering a story. However, if she had to, she could lie in a hot tub and listen to the birds. Well, maybe not the birds, but she could certainly listen in on the conversations of the other guests. This place she was going, what was it called? She pulled the brochure out of her bag and looked at it again, then opened it to look at the map of the area. It was probably so far away from civilization that they spoke with some unintelligible dialect of English. It was Canada though, maybe they spoke French. She moaned. Her French was about as good as her stacking hay bales talent.
What had Clark said about his small town in middle America; everyone knows everything about each other? Maybe that would be the case up at the resort. Who’d go to a resort that wasn’t on a beach anyway? What in the world was there to go there for? She would find out. She may be on her way to getting a travel article, but she was darn well going to come back with a Kerth if she didn’t die of boredom first!
Her novel was on her laptop. She’d take that along, just in case she had to stay in a room without a TV or a phone. Perhaps she should take toilet paper along too, just in case. A horrid thought occurred to her, what if she would be in a cabin with an outhouse out back. She shuddered as she recalled spiders and critters that usually inhabited those smelly places.
She backed out of her parking space in the basement garage, wondering if the roads were paved and if they would be safe for a rental vehicle. She’d have to rent a car. There was no way she was going to be at the mercy of some bunch of hicks from the sticks. They probably only drove beat up trucks and tractors or snowmobiles anyway. She’d die before she’d let one of them drive her anywhere.
Traffic was moving well in front of the Daily Planet. She glanced up at the globe, just as Superman landed on top of the building. Resentment oozed between her clenched teeth as she watched him disappear onto the roof. It wasn’t his fault that she’d been sent to Hell for a week. But, it was mighty lousy that he was still flying free, a story open to any other reporter in the city, fair game to all the competition, but he was off limits to her. Nothing was off limits to her. Nobody, nowhere, no how. What Lois Lane wanted, Lois Lane got and some Hack from Nowheresville wasn’t going to come between her and her career.
The light changed and traffic began moving again, interrupting her seething. A huge poster was displayed at the next traffic light. Someone must have been doing some touchup work on that one! Muscles didn’t bulge like that. Once she had her attention on his body, she couldn’t seem to remember what she’d been thinking about before.
The cabbie behind her leaned on his horn and signaled her with a less than friendly hand signal out the window.
“I’m in front; you’ll go when I’m ready!” she growled, stomping on the gas to get through the intersection. Between the poster and the cab behind her, she missed the driver who was running the red light. Her life flashed before her eyes as she gunned the motor to get out of the way of the vehicle. But she wasn’t fast enough. In the second it took for the black limo to smash into her car, everything she’d ever thought or felt seemed to be in her mind.
The screeching of brakes then metal on metal filled the air. The impact against her door happened before she could even brace herself. Suddenly all she felt was pain. She grabbed her left arm with her right and screamed in agony. Blood oozed from between her fingers. Almost as quickly she felt the car lifted away from the limo, then set back on the ground. Superman was at her door, ripping it from the hinges and tossing it out into the intersection. The air on her body felt cold.
“Don’t move, Lois.” Superman was saying. He was bending the front of the vehicle away, so the steering wheel inched away from her. He snapped the seatbelt where it connected to the side of the vehicle, tossed the side out of the way and lifted her bucket seat carefully out of the vehicle. Her feet were dangling as Superman talked softly to her while he began to fly her to Metropolis General Hospital. The noise and heat from an explosion below them hinted that her precious Jeep Cherokee had blown up.
“You’re going to be alright, Lois, just stay calm, don’t move.”
Lois was crying and screaming in agony as Superman flew her in through the emergency doors. In moments she was surrounded by men and women dressed in white. Superman was holding her bucket seat at an angle so they could move her onto a bed. Her head was swimming before blackness enveloped her.
Clark had been returning from an emergency and had just landed on the roof of the Daily Planet and spun into his business clothes, when he heard the crash and Lois’ screams. As he flew down he sized up the situation. The driver of the other vehicle was uninjured but Lois was riddled with broken bones. To top it off, gas was dripping from her jeep. It hadn’t taken him more than a minute to pull her car apart so he could get her out before it blew up. He hoped he wasn’t adding to her pain and injuries by moving her or the door that had been shoved into her. He thought that by keeping her in her seat she would be least likely to have done any more harm.
After Superman had delivered her into their care, he left the hospital and returned as Clark, and stood by her side, holding her hand, while they worked on putting her back together again.
He was worried about her. He’d been furious with her for what she’d tried to do to him. Now he felt bad for all the horrible things he’d dreamed of doing to her in revenge for her story about him. She looked so frail, so broken and crushed. Clark was watching the machine that was recording her heartbeat he was hearing.
The emergency room technicians tried to get him to leave her while they cut her blood soaked clothes off her tattered side. Oblivious to their efforts, he stood beside her and held her frail hand, talking to her all the time as they stitched up the gashes and replaced the bones in the right places before casting her various injuries.
No matter how badly she’d treated him since he’d arrived at the Daily Planet, he still felt very protective of her. Not only was she was a fascinating woman, unlike any other he’d ever met, but he’d heard her bare her soul to him when they’d been tied up once. His feelings, though contrary to what they should have been, were tender towards her. All the anger he’d felt for her previously had dissipated when he’d heard her scream. It had rent his soul in a way that no other scream ever had before.
It was late in the day when a nurse wheeled Lois into a hospital room. Clark was still by her side holding her hand. She’d come to, a short while ago. Her left side was broken and bruised. Three ribs, her elbow and lower arm, her hip and upper leg had all been broken. She was on a heavy dose of pain killers. Her leg was hanging from a contraption over the bed. She hardly looked like Lois Lane, investigative reporter anymore. She looked more like a child in an array of adult casts.
She moaned and rolled her head to the side. When she opened her eyes she realized that it was Clark who was gently stroking her hand and murmuring, “It’s okay, Lois. You’re going to be okay.”
Confused at first that he should be beside her like that in this strange room, where she was unable to move, she accepted his presence and closed her eyes again. Whatever this dream was, it was certainly crazy. Was she tied up? Why was she imagining Clark was with her? Was it just because they’d worked together for the past few weeks? Wanting to roll over, she moved slightly before realizing she was indeed constricted. The room wasn’t too clear when she opened her eyes. She met Clark’s worried eyes, wondering what he was so concerned about and where she was.
“What’s going on?” She finally asked as the anesthetic continued to wear off.
“You were in an accident a few blocks from the office.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes again trying to remember what had happened. She remembered seeing the car coming at her, but that was about the last she could remember. No, there was Superman. Or was that a dream?
She opened her eyes a bit later and asked, “What happened?”
“A limo hit you. He ran the red light as you entered the intersection.” A muscle twitched in Clark’s jaw.
“How’s my car?”
“It’s worse than you. Superman had to peel it apart to get you out of it.”
She nodded and closed her eyes again. “Everything hurts. I feel like I’ve been ground into hamburger.”
He smiled at her analogy. “I guess some of you has!”
It was comforting to have Clark beside her, especially when she woke up in so much of a daze and in pain. His gentle stroking of her hand made her feel secure. It was one of the only parts of her body that didn’t hurt.
It was hard to tell where the pain was coming from; it was as if everything was pain, as if she was in a cauldron of it, being buried beneath it, swimming in it. She squeezed his hand slightly; glad to have something to distract her from it slightly.
“Lois, you’ve missed your flight. I guess you’re not going up to that resort in Canada after all. You didn’t look too enthusiastic about your newest assignment.”
She grinned with her eyes closed. “Serves Perry right!”
He chuckled. Leave it to Lois Lane to say something like that. “Maybe I should call him to let him know where you are. I haven’t called anyone yet. Should I phone your parents or anyone?”
She was still pretty groggy, but she knew she didn’t really want her mother coming over to scold her for getting herself into an accident. “Just Perry.” She heard herself saying.
“Will you be okay for a minute?”
She tried to nod her head but there was too much pain. Instead she muttered, “Um hum.”
Clark got up and walked to the door, then looked back at her before stepping out in the hall to find a phone.
