“Inspector? She’s here.”
Henderson looked up from the pages of documents spread out on the tables at the officer who had interrupted them. “Who is?”
“Ms. Lane. You left instructions to be notified when she arrived.”
Right, he remembered now, he had. His last conversation with her had left him concerned for her wellbeing and he’d left himself a reminder for this evening to stop by if she hadn’t come in for her belongings. He excused himself from the rest of the team, still working on the Luthor case, and walked to the front desk. He spotted her, or at least the back of her, as she nervously paced from one foot to another, looking at the waiting room full of people. Bill sighed. The combination of Metropolis’ possible biggest crime lord dead, and Superman’s disappearance, resulted in petty thieves crawling out of the woodwork. For now, he was thankful major crime hadn’t quickly escalated, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before the various gangs were competing to fill Luthor’s void.
“Lois,” he called loudly. As she turned to glare at him, he could see the fire had returned to her eyes, a good sign that she was recovering from her ordeal, and he was pleased, and relieved, to see she was looking well.
“Henderson! Can you help me. I just want to sign whatever paperwork I need to so I can get rid of those bags. I don’t want them; I don’t want to see them. Then, Clark and I have some questions for you.”
“Clark? He’s here?” Bill listened long enough to hear Lois complain about parking, and that he was driving her Jeep before he raced through the precinct doors. He stopped, looking about, trying to spot Clark or the silver Jeep, hoping Lois hadn’t followed him outside. Bill spotted Clark strolling towards him, smiling. Part of his mind recognized Clark looked good, no signs of the burns he had received, but he approached Clark with a sense of urgency, rather than relief.
“Clark, what are you doing here?”
“I came with Lois, and then we were wondering if we could ask you some questions.”
“Not here. You can’t come inside.” Even as he spoke the words he wondered how ridiculous he would sound if he was wrong.
Clark frowned. “Why?” He asked as he took another step forward.
Bill reached his hand out and placed it on Clark’s chest, a motion he had done hundreds of times to discourage a person from moving forward, a motion that didn’t put any real pressure on the person, instead a sign of warning. Clark stopped, and looked down at Bill’s hand, perplexed. Shocked at his own action, Bill snatched his hand back. This was the most powerful being on the planet, his gentle warning wouldn’t discourage Clark from doing anything he didn’t want to. Instead, Bill turned and began to walk away from the precinct, away from the people smoking, waiting for rides, and hanging around at the entrance, relieved as Clark followed.
“Look, Clark, you can’t go in there. You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
“Is it Lois? Is everything ok?”
“She’s fine.”
“What’s going on, Bill?”
When they were speaking in a professional capacity, Clark always called him Inspector, or Henderson. At some point over the last year, Bill had told Clark to use his name when they weren’t on the clock, but Clark rarely used it. Even when they ran into each other at various events, Clark continued to not use his first name. He was never offended by it, he understood habit and comfort levels. To hear it now, was disconcerting, especially as he still wasn’t completely positive Clark was Superman. Bill paused for a long moment. If Clark was Superman, he’d taken great pains to keep his alter ego secret, and Bill had no desire to unearth that secret, or have his suspicions confirmed, but he couldn’t risk Clark walking near whatever that cage was made of, and reacting in the precinct with hundreds of witnesses.
“It’s in there, you can’t go in there.”
At Clark’s look of utter confusion, Bill knew he couldn’t be vague. He had to spit it out, and hope he wasn’t wildly off his suspicions.
Very quietly, he reluctantly whispered, “the cage.”
Instantly, Bill received his answer as Clark went white, his eyes widened, and he staggered a step, before regaining control. He watched as Clark’s face reacted, he assumed in fear of the cage, not from his revelation, before being schooled back to a neutral position. As he’d done many times over the last week, Bill wondered what Luthor had done to Superman, to Clark, to cause him injury, and to elicit such strong reactions in a man that always seemed to have a firm hold on his composure.
Clark turned to face him, concern and worry etched into his expression, and Bill could see he was struggling with what to say. “Do you know the old brick city hall building, the original? It was converted into apartments about twenty years ago. I live there. Tonight, say 1am, could you ask Superman to meet me on the roof? I’ll explain everything.”
Bill watched as Clark numbly nodded, while more colour returned to his face. “Go get the Jeep, I’ll let Lois know you are waiting for her.”
As Clark turned to walk away, he stopped, and turned back. “Uh, we were wanting to talk to you about the Luthor case, get some quotes.”
“Quotes?”
“Yes. We’ll need something for the Daily Planet’s headline next week.”
Bill beamed at Clark’s words, he couldn’t help himself. “That’s good to hear, Clark. Give me about an hour or so and I’ll call. You’ll be…?”
“Home, just call my home number. We won’t be working out of the office for a while yet.”
Bill nodded and returned to the precinct, slipping into through the rear entrance, the one he’d snuck Superman in one week ago. He shook his head as the events from that day began to fall into place. Clark hadn’t been missing, and Luthor had imprisoned Superman. He still didn’t know why Luthor had tried to kill Superman, but he doubted Luthor had known the truth. If he had, there was no doubt in Bill’s mind that Clark wouldn’t be alive. Pushing his new knowledge aside, he informed an officer that he was unavailable to meet with Lois, and to let her know her partner was waiting in her vehicle, before rejoining his team.
****
“Great, we go down to the precinct to talk to Henderson and he’s suddenly too busy to talk. Except to you. For you he bolted out of the building to find, but has no time for me.” Lois realized she was grumbling but had no urge to stop. Henderson running away from her and then suddenly being unavailable was frustrating. She’d claimed her bags, filled with clothes suitable for a honeymoon, signed them over for donation and waited for Henderson and Clark to join her. Instead she’d been informed that Henderson was unavailable and Clark was waiting for her in the Jeep. She’d left the precinct, spotted the Jeep immediately, and after climbing in the passenger seat, had given Clark the silent treatment long enough for them to get onto one of the main roads heading downtown.
“Lois, he said he’d call,” Clark said quietly.
“Oh? He’d call? Is that what he had to run and tell you? Is there some big nasty truth about Lex that you both don’t want me to know, because trust me, I’m ready for just about anything now. Well, what was so urgent that he had to tell you?”
“It’s… I can’t…”
“Was it about the investigation?” She prompted.
“Please, Lois…”
She stared at him as he broke off, realization dawning on her. It had to have been about whatever happened between Clark and Lex, and he was clearly traumatized by the memory. She remembered seeing him that night, shocked at his injuries, frustrated because no one would tell her what had happened. In the days immediately following, she’d seen the fear, witnessed the panic attacks, and through their heated exchanges, heard his un-Clark like frustration and anger slip out. She wouldn’t push any further now, but someday…
Someday? Would she want to hear someday how someone she had been willing to marry treated her best friend? Trying to settle her restless stomach as her imagination began to run wild, she placed a hand on Clark’s knee, trying to be reassuring. “It’s ok, Clark. I understand.”
There was several minutes of silence and Lois realized she had no idea where they were going. Clark was driving, and she had assumed he had a destination in mind. “Where are we going?” She laughed at his startled look. He clearly had just been driving and not paying attention either. “Why don’t we go to my place, start figuring out what we have, and what we need, to write this story?”
“Sure, that sounds good.” Clark turned the Jeep.
“We still need to talk to Henderson though,” Lois said cautiously, unsure how Clark would react. “I mean, we can make a good start, but we’ll have to come back and… hey, where are we going?”
Clark had turned the Jeep sharply, exiting the main road. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Henderson said he’d call, but he’s going to call my number. We’ll have to go to my place.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” Lois didn’t mind. She’d seen far too much of her apartment in the last week and it would be nice to be somewhere else, especially Clark’s. It would be like the last few weeks hadn’t happened, working together in his living room.
Once at his apartment, Clark made some coffee and Lois busied herself with her notepad, digging around in her purse for one of the half dozen pencils she knew were in there somewhere. She could feel her heart hammering away in nervousness, and judging by Clark’s complete attention being given to the making and serving of coffee, she suspected he was feeling a little unsure too.
They sat at the table, in the same spots as they had earlier that week. Lois remembered how Clark had flinched when she reached for his hand, and how they’d ended up fighting. She knew they would be treading on some raw territory with their investigation and series of articles, which involved both of them being hurt, physically and emotionally. How did Clark want to proceed? Would it be business only, or would he want to talk first? He had been so reluctant to tell her anything about what had happened to him, she couldn’t see that changing, and how much did she want to tell him?
She jumped, startled, as Clark set a stack of papers on the table next to her.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What’s all this?”
“Notes. Everything from Perry, Jack, Jimmy and myself, as we investigated the Planet’s bombing.”
She stared at him in disbelief, reaching for the top file. “I thought you gave everything to Henderson?”
He shrugged, a ghost of a grin on his lips. “I made copies.”
“See! I knew you’d learn something from me!” She exclaimed gleefully while Clark laughed, and visibly relaxed. “Ok, where do we begin.”
Comments
