Hearts United
TOC part 5
by Pam Jernigan
"So we went back this morning," Lois explained as she stood in the doorway, sorting her office mail. "We've officially applied for a license. We have to wait two days, but then on Friday, we're getting married!" Lois was so happy and excited she was bouncing a little on her toes. "And it won't be a big thing, just a civil ceremony, but you guys have to be there."
Francine leaned against her desk and hid a smirk. She pretended to think. "Well, I don't know... we're going to be pretty busy..."
"Francine!"
"Don't listen to her, Lois," Brenda advised cheerfully. "Of course we'll be there."
Francine's smirk emerged, though she tried to tamp it down to a polite smile. "I wouldn't miss it for anything," she admitted. She'd watched Lois and Kal's courtship, separation, and reunion. The wedding was the essential next step. Even if it wouldn't be very fancy... "Actually, I'd like to arrange a reception for you, if you don't mind."
Lois looked rather more surprised at the offer of help than Francine liked, but she was also clearly happy. "That'd be a great idea! Thank you! I hadn't even thought about that."
"Well, it won't be a long guest list," she pointed out dryly. "But if you think of anyone you'd like me to invite, Lois, just give me their addresses. No, wait," she corrected herself. "The wedding's only two days away. Better give me their phone numbers."
Lois grinned. "Thanks, Francine, but like you say, it'll be a short list -- and I should probably do the inviting, myself. Since this will be the first time anyone's heard about this whole wedding thing, and all."
"Heh, good point," Francine replied, leaning back over her desktop to grab onto her day planner. "I'll get it set up and let you know the particulars."
"So," Brenda asked cheekily. "Where's the groom this morning?"
"Shopping," Lois replied. She gathered her mail together and made a small move towards her office, across the hall from theirs. "He said he wanted some new clothes."
Francine would just bet that Kal was shopping for something more valuable than clothes, but it wasn't her place to say so. A faint ringing was heard, and Lois turned her head to follow the source of the sound.
"I think that's my phone." She waved at them and vanished.
"Yeah... Hope it's a client, not a creditor!" Francine called after her. She looked over toward Brenda and cracked a smile. "We've got a wedding reception to plan."
"What do you mean 'we,' white girl?" Brenda asked, with a laugh in her voice that made it impossible to take offense. "But okay, I'm in. This is gonna be fun."
****
Gwen shuffled her notes one more time, then told herself to stop stalling. He was expecting a phone call from her today, so she would have to call him. It wasn't entirely due to his possession of some embarrassing documents, either. Unexplained phenomena had intrigued her since she'd been a child, and she'd seen enough to be convinced there were aliens afoot. The Bureau was one of the very few groups that shared her concerns.
Resolutely, she reached for the phone and dialed Trask's number. "Gwen Porter here," she announced as soon as she heard his voice. "I've got a few things to report."
"You were able to find the right people to talk to, then?"
"Of course I did. I could hardly be in this business and not know about UFO groups." She'd made it a priority, in fact, to keep tabs on them as unobtrusively as she could. She could usually get her patients, who often were plugged into such informal groups, to talk about them. They were a bunch of amateurs, but every now and then, they might stumble across something. "I spoke to one such group last night. They had a few tales to tell."
"Good -- write it all up in a report. Anything significant?"
"The most interesting was a story of an auto accident yesterday, in West River. Two young women took a curve badly, and their engine caught fire after they hit the corner of a building. One of the women in the group last night claims to have seen the whole thing." Of course, Kari also claimed she'd been abducted by aliens, which Gwen had already disproved to her satisfaction. "The car crashed, the engine caught fire, lots of smoke, then suddenly the fire vanished. She thinks there was someone on the other side of the car, but when the smoke cleared, there was no one there."
Trask snorted.
Gwen ignored him and carried on. "There was another account of someone saved from a fire -- this was second or third hand. I'll try to verify."
"Another mysteriously-quenched fire?" He sounded skeptical to the point of derision. But then, he always did, unless he was giving orders.
"No, the building was totaled." She'd double-checked that. "Supposedly, a man who had collapsed on the top floor was found by paramedics at the rear of the building, totally unconscious. With no idea how he'd got there."
"Hmm. See if you can talk to that man."
She scowled, secure in the knowledge that he couldn't see it. "I told you, I'm checking. There's also a report of a fairly standard abduction. I've got her coming in for regression therapy tomorrow. On a more non-standard note, a few weeks ago, the entire floor show of the Metro Club -- four dancers -- disappeared into thin air overnight. Two of them have since returned, but the other two have not. This was about the time the Metro Club closed down, however," she qualified, "so there may be nothing there."
"Find out," Trask said crisply. "If they seem promising, get me a background check on them."
"I'll pass along any names or addresses I get," she promised. They shouldn't be too hard to track down.
"Fine. What else?"
"Apart from several Elvis sightings, not much." She dared slip into sarcasm. "Unless you'd like for me to investigate the man who claims Harry Truman is living in his blender."
"Don't try my patience, Porter. Anything else?"
"I've asked about the alien from the tidal wave, but all they had was speculation. Nothing else."
"Keep looking. Keep me posted. Out." Trask hung up on her.
****
Kal turned the key in the lock with a slight smile. Having a key to Lois's apartment was a little thing, he supposed; he was temporarily staying with her, and needed his own access. Perfectly sensible and mundane. He was a little surprised by how good he felt about it. He opened the door and entered the apartment. A perfectly normal apartment. What was extraordinary, he decided, was that *he* was welcomed there. Not as a noble, or a fellow officer, but him personally. He tried to recall when he'd last felt that.
Maybe this was what people talked about when they said, 'home, sweet home.'
He became aware that he was standing in the middle of Lois's -- no, *their* living room, staring out the window at nothing in particular, and smiling. He gave himself a mental shake and got back to business.
He hadn't yet found a ring. None of the engagement sets he'd looked at had felt right. Lois deserved something very special -- he wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, he would know it when he saw it. He just hoped he saw it soon; he was running out of time.
He'd bought new clothes and accessories, instead, but only enough to last a few days. Kal wanted Lois to go with him when he picked out the rest of the wardrobe. After all, she was the one who was going to have to look at him. He wasn't entirely sure where to put the things, so he figured he'd just lay them on the sofa for review.
Where was Lois, by the way? She'd planned to go into work and catch up on things, but he thought she'd wanted to be home by now. He tried to focus on the bond, but the mental image didn't tell him much. Well, wherever she was, she was fairly happy.
He flicked on the television -- naturally, it was tuned to the all-news station. At the moment, though, they were going on about some high-profile case of assault, so he wandered over to the kitchen to see if there was anything to snack on.
He'd barely scanned the cupboards when he heard the sound of the *other* key in the lock. He turned towards the door with a big smile. "Hi, Lois!"
"Hi, yourself, Kal," she replied, coming over to give him a kiss and a hug. "I missed you."
He grinned at her, holding her loosely in his arms. "Lois, it was only four hours."
She gave him a wide-eyed innocent look. "Is there a minimum amount of time before I can miss you? I mean, I knew the police wouldn't look for missing persons until they'd been gone for two days, but I didn't think that would precisely apply here. Oh, I know!" she exclaimed, as if the thought had just occurred to her. "We should practice spending time apart, so I'll get used to not missing you."
"Lois!"
She laughed. "Or not. What did you get today?"
"Clothes, mostly." He waved toward the living room. "See what you think."
That caught her attention and led her to look over the back of the sofa to inspect his purchases. "These are nice. Pretty basic... basic black, mostly," she added, as she sorted through the small pile. She turned to smile at him. "Wasn't that one of the outfits you had on board -- a black suit, with the S on your chest?"
He chuckled. "It's not an S; it's the Kryptonian symbol for the house of El. I brought one with me, actually."
"A souvenir?"
"Something like that, I guess. The house line ended with me, so..."
She grinned. "Oh, not necessarily. Baby Allison can carry on the traditions."
He hadn't looked at it that way. "I guess she can. Sort of, anyway. The context will be completely different."
"We'll make do with what we've got," she told him. "Isn't that a very New Kryptonian attitude?"
Kal laughed. "Yes it is, actually."
"There ya go, then," she concluded, glancing down at the clothing again. "So, you want lunch?"
"Sure. What've you got?"
"I'll have to go check," she said, suiting action to words. "I'll be right back."
While he waited for the results of her food investigation, a burst of music reminded him that the television was on. Now, they were talking with a field reporter. "--won't tell us exactly what's going on, but they have said there's some trouble with a satellite, and this gathering of astronomers and other experts is studying the problem."
The studio anchor replied, "Bob, isn't that a lot of intellectual firepower for a satellite malfunction?"
"Yes, Dana, it is. But for the moment, it's all we know."
"Okay, thanks, Bob. And now, let's check in with CeeCee over at our sports desk--."
Kal turned the TV off, no longer hungry. The chances were getting greater that he was going to have to do something. He'd like to be prepared, too, just in case. He'd seen a sporting goods store that morning, which might have the air tanks he'd probably need... but he knew it would upset Lois. Well, he didn't have to tell her just yet.
"You know what, Lois?" He tried to make his voice sound normal. "I, um, forgot something this morning. And I'm not really that hungry, so I'll just dash out to the store to pick up the, uh, thing." He winced inwardly, knowing he was doing an incredibly poor job.
She frowned at him from the kitchen. "Are you okay? You're kind of nervous."
Oh. Darned bond. At least there were limits to what she could sense.
"It's just something I meant to get, earlier, but then I forgot." He wracked his brain trying to find a suitably innocuous item to name.
She took a few steps toward him, concerned, then suddenly stopped. A look of enlightenment crossed her face, and she smiled a little, leaning against the door jamb. "Don't tell me there was a limited supply."
"Actually, I think there is. They might run out."
A smile played around her mouth. "You'd better get going, then. I'll be here for a little while, then heading over to my office again. The number's written down by the phone."
"Okay -- I'll be back soon, I'm sure." He didn't know what she thought he was going to do, but he appreciated her willingness to play along. She seemed to be enjoying this just a little too much, in fact.
"Happy shopping," she said blandly.
"Thanks. Um..." For a moment he hesitated, then walked over to give her a quick kiss. He stepped back again before her kiss totally distracted him, and let himself out of the apartment. "See you soon!"
He decided he really didn't like lying to Lois. Which was just as well, he figured, as he seemed to be spectacularly bad at it. Well, at least she knew he was lying. That made it seem better, somehow.
****
Francine looked up from her desk at the sound of someone coming in the building. She waited, counting footsteps, wondering idly if the person was headed for her office or Lois's. If it was a member of the public, they probably wanted Lois; the only people who came into the theater's back office were delivery guys.
"Francine? Brenda?"
Well, that answered that question. "In here."
A woman's head appeared in the doorway, followed closely by the rest of her. She was tall and seemed scrawny, though it was hard to tell, given that she was dressed in an over-large, ill-fitting dress.
Francine supposed the style could, charitably, be described as 'vintage' -- but it must have been a very bad year.
"If you want to audition you'll have to come back later," Francine said, though there was no way Brenda was going to hire her.
The visitor scowled. "I'm not here to audition. I'm here to talk to you." She paused, probably waiting for Francine to recognize her. And she did seem vaguely familiar, but... "I'm Kari Shankenberg." She paused again, but to no avail. "Melanie's friend!"
"Oh, right!" Francine sat up straighter, wishing Brenda was here. Kari had visited once before, some weeks ago, and she'd already been told the cover story. It hadn't seemed to satisfy her.
"I want to know where Mel is."
"Look, the last I heard, she was perfectly happy and not interested in coming back. To Metropolis."
"Yes, but you never said where she went!"
"I told you, we were held on a ship of I don't know what country. So she fell in love with a sailor, and went with him back to wherever."
Melanie had always been into crystals, universal transcendence, whatever that was, and similar screwy notions, Francine thought. When she'd got the chance to live on an alien planet, she'd jumped at it -- well, she probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for her falling for Zak like that, but it was a big plus, in her mind, that she'd be going to another planet.
But Francine couldn't very well say any of that to Kari.
"But don't you even know what country it is? How would you ever be able to get in touch with her?"
Francine shrugged. "She knows how to contact us, if she needs to."
Kari frowned. "Unless she's in one of those backwards societies where women aren't allowed to drive or go outside unless they're covered from head to toe!"
Well, if total coverage was the ideal, they'd love Kari. "No, it's not that bad. It is kind of a backwards society," she said, remembering some of the darker aspects. "But they're trying to modernize, and Mel's in good hands. Zak loves her, and the, uh, queen of the place was personally going to look out for her." Kal had said he'd made Zara promise that, before he'd left. "The king, too," she added before Kari could object.
"It still sounds fishy to me," Kari objected, crossing her arms. "And I don't like the way you just wave it off, like she's not important. Anything could be happening to her!"
"Look, sweetie, anything could happen to her here, too." Like being kidnapped as a concubine, for instance. "Trust me, she traded up."
This didn't mollify Kari in the slightest. "I have no reason to trust you. Melanie never liked you, and from what I saw, you didn't like her, either."
Francine shrugged. "Things change. We got to know each other a little better, is all. Heck, just look at me and Brenda -- I couldn't stand her, before. And now we share an office. Oh, and Brenda and me leaned on Zak pretty good, to make sure he'd take care of Melanie. Look, I didn't have much time for her before -- I thought she was a silly kid -- but did you ever hear her say I went out of my way to be nasty to her?"
"Well, no." Kari bit her lip. "She wasn't a kid. She was twenty-two."
"Still is, as far as I know," Francine pointed out. "But at my age, Kari, anyone under thirty seems awfully young."
Kari looked frustrated at that reply, but was clearly struggling to come up with anything to say. After a moment or two, she calmed herself down and said, "Okay, Francine, say I trust you. I still don't have the foggiest idea where Melanie went. I'm sure that you do, but you won't tell me. So that means you don't trust me."
Francine groaned inwardly. "It ain't that simple."
"No, really -- I think it is." Kari drew herself up in righteous indignation, and said, with a tremendous effort at dignity. "Thank you for your time."
"Aw, come on, Kari..." Francine started. She did sympathize with the girl. There just wasn't anything she could tell her.
Kari pretended not to hear her and sailed back out the door. The outer door thumped closed with unusual force.
...tbc...
