Clark watched as the last of his student newspaper staff filed out of his room, their early-morning meeting complete, and then tidied up his desk. The familiar tapping of high heels came closer, and he smothered a laugh as he looked up and saw Lana cross the hall from her classroom to his.
“Spill,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her. “I want every detail.”
“We have homeroom-”
“We have twenty minutes. Don’t bullshit me.”
Clark laughed, knowing there would be no deterring her.
“What do you want to know?”
“You went to Metropolis? You surprised her at work?”
They weren’t actually questions, but he nodded anyway, confirming.
She looked at him pointedly, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I went to Metropolis in June. For a weekend. You know that part. It was…amazing. But it was platonic. Sort of. I mean, we both… We had feelings, but we weren’t acting on them. She had been so clear about not wanting a long-distance relationship, that we needed to stay just friends. But it was… When I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It took me a week before I broke down and started writing her letters. I sent her letters and postcards for the rest of my trip. They were…not platonic. She couldn’t write back, so I had no idea how she was feeling. If she…”
He trailed off, unsure how to even describe that time. Lana nodded, then sat on a desk in the front row and waited for him to continue.
“On the way home, I took a later connecting flight. I told her my flight was overbooked, but…” He shrugged, offering up the half truth, as honest as he could be with Lana. “I went straight to her work. I didn’t even know if she would be there. I didn’t know if she would be happy or horrified to see me. I didn’t know anything except that I had to see her.”
“And she flew into your arms,” Lana said.
He furrowed his brow, wondering how she knew that.
“I heard her,” she said with a laugh. “When you brought her to the Cloverbud booth and Sophie jumped into your arms.”
The memory surfaced, and he laughed. “Yeah, she flew into my arms. And before I left, I kissed her. It was….” He trailed off again, unable to put into words all the emotions he had felt that day.
“And then you invited her to the Corn Festival and didn’t tell me?” Lana prompted.
“It wasn’t like that. We didn’t make plans right away. I don’t think either of us knew what it meant or what we were doing. School wasn’t in session yet, so I had all this free time. We were talking all the time. And then school…and football…and life just got busy. And then I called her over Labor Day weekend, and…she was so sad, Lana. She said she missed me.”
Lana’s face turned tender, and he nodded. “It was breaking my heart. She wanted me to come there for Fall Break. But then when I told her Fall Break wasn’t until October, I thought she was going to cry. I just…invited her. I didn’t even think she would come. Why in the world would she want to come to the Smallville Corn Festival? But she didn’t even hesitate. The second I mentioned it, she said she would be here. That was just a couple of weeks ago. It was all spur of the moment.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me,” she said softly. And he knew for all her bluster, she was hurt. She was his best friend. His almost sister. She told him all her secrets. Always had. Guilt ate at him for the secrets he had always kept from her.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, letting her see his regret. “I should have told you. I thought about it a million times. But things were so…undefined between us. I really wasn’t sure what to expect when she came. I didn’t know how to answer all the questions you were sure to have. I didn’t know how to talk about it.”
“And now?”
“Things are…a lot more defined,” he said with a smile.
Lana’s face broke out in a wide smile, and her eyes looked suspiciously shiny. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “She’s wonderful.”
“She’s…yeah,” he said. “She’s amazing.”
“You bailed on fireworks,” she said, raising an eyebrow curiously.
He shook his head. Of course she noticed. “We were having dinner at the farm. We were having fun and didn’t want to leave, so we decided to skip it.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. “I’m glad it went well. Apparently my mom called your mom to tell her Sophie won Corn Princess, and she was too busy freaking out about some fancy new recipe she was making to talk for long.”
Clark laughed, remembering the carrots and his father’s reaction to them.
“So that’s it? You stayed for dinner and then went home….” she trailed off suggestively.
Clark hesitated, then decided to tell her. “After dinner, I took her out by the pond to look at the stars.”
“Oh?” she said, obviously impressed with this plan.
“Yeah,” he said, unable to hold back his smile. He let his memory drift back to that night under the stars. The taste of her skin. The sound of his name on her lips. The feel of his hand sliding under her dress.
“So….” she said with a wicked glint in her eye. “Did you two…”
“Lana!” he said, appalled.
“What?” she said with a laugh. “It’s okay. You’re consenting adults.”
He sighed. Unsure how to talk about any of this. Unsure if he should be telling her any of this. “We didn’t.… We’re not.… I don’t want to rush this, Lana. I have one chance. I’m not going to screw it up by pushing her…. I want to do this right….”
Her suggestive smirk slid from her face, replaced by a look of awe. “Oh,” she said softly. “You’re in love with her.”
He held her gaze, but said nothing, neither confirming nor denying feelings he hadn’t yet put into words himself.
“What’s next?” she asked gently, all teasing gone from their conversation suddenly.
He shrugged, suddenly nervous. “I sent her flowers.”
“Good boy,” she said, and he rolled his eyes. “What did you write in the card?”
“Lana,” he said, astounded as always by her lack of boundaries.
She just looked at him, waiting.
He shook his head, aggravated. But he wanted her advice, and he knew this was the price he would have to pay to get it.
“When we were…under the stars, I quoted the opening stanza from She Walks in Beauty. So, I put that on the card.”
Lana let out a slow breath. “Damn. Okay.”
“That’s…good?” he asked, suddenly nervous. “That was a good choice?”
Lana laughed. “How did she react when you recited poetry to her under the stars?”
“She…liked it,” he said, remembering Lois’ sweet laughter, her hand on his cheek, her claim that he could not possibly be real, that he was a dream come true.
“Yeah,” Lana said, laughing harder. “I bet she did.”
“What do I do next?” he asked softly. “I want…. I won’t see her for a month. I don’t want….”
“She’s not going to forget about you,” Lana reassured him quietly. “I know you think Pulitzer winning reporters from Metropolis don’t fall in love with English teachers from Kansas, but Clark…if you could see the way she looks at you…. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Whatever it is…it’s working.”
“Thanks,” he said, and Lana squeezed his arm and gave him a smile before striding smugly from his room.
He swallowed thickly, trying not to let the fear settle in his chest. Trying not to listen to the voice in his head that said he didn’t deserve her, that he wasn’t good enough for her. That she wouldn’t want to be with him if she knew the truth.
He closed his eyes and let his memory drift back to that night under the stars. To that moment before he kissed her, before she whispered his name as his hand slid under her dress, before she begged him not to stop. To the moment when she looked at him, eyes solemn and guileless, and told him that she thought that if there was life out there in the universe, that it was “just like us”. And for the first time, he let himself believe that he could love someone, and they could love him – all of him – in return.
It was a future he had never allowed himself to contemplate, never even allowed himself to dream about. But she made him brave. Made him bold. Made him want to believe. His heart, guarded so heavily for so long, was ready to dream. And it was dreaming of her.
*****
“All right, people. What have we got?” Perry asked, looking around the conference room table.
Lois tuned out the updates from other staff reporters, outlining their progress on their assignments already in progress. She had arrived extra early and spoken briefly to Perry, telling him she had a major breakthrough and needed to update him. There hadn’t been time before the morning meeting, so they were going to meet after. Which left Lois with nothing of any importance to discuss during the meeting.
She cast a longing glance through the window to her desk, where her files were waiting for her. These meetings felt like a waste of time under the best of circumstances. Today, sitting here listening to Ralph talk about his source’s claim that the mayor and his wife were members of a swingers club made her want to tear her hair out.
Last night, after taking a cab home from the airport, dropping off her stuff, and making a quick call to Clark to let him know she made it home safely, she had headed straight to the newsroom. It had been a ghost town at seven o’clock on a Sunday, and it hadn’t taken any effort at all to lose herself in her research. Only her growling stomach had finally dragged her away from her desk two hours later.
She had taken a thick stack of folders home and poured over them again as she ate a frozen dinner and a bag of microwave popcorn. It had been nearly two in the morning by the time she finally fell asleep, and she was back in the office before eight, hoping to catch Perry before the morning meeting.
Her story was nowhere near the writing stage yet, but the investigation was finally moving. So far she had found at least one link to Luthor in each of the six companies who had been victims of the new Toasters. She would need to drill down on each of those and see if she could determine which were simply coincidences and which might signify something more sinister.
The door to the conference room opened, and Cat slithered in, wiggling her fingers in a wave at Dan from Sports, and Lois curled her lip in disgust. Perry ignored Cat’s tardiness, and jerked his head at the only empty seat left at the table. Cat sauntered over and slid into the seat, almost directly across from Lois.
When her gaze found Lois, her face lit up, and she raised an eyebrow and mouthed, “Kansas?” expectantly.
Lois rolled her eyes and focused her gaze, if not her attention, back on Perry.
Cat made a scuffling, furtive motion that Lois caught out of the corner of her eye, and she realized Cat was waving a notebook at her from across the table again. When she saw that she had succeeded in getting Lois’ attention, Cat held the notepad still. Despite her best intentions, Lois couldn’t help but read it.
“Did he make a woman out of you?” she had scrawled lengthwise across her reporter’s notepad.
Lois gave her a disgusted look and turned away again. Every time Lois started to feel something akin to affection for the woman, she went and did something to remind her why their relationship never quite made it all the way to friendship.
What was that question supposed to mean, anyway? As if her womanhood was defined by the men she slept with. Not that she had slept with Clark. Obviously. But Cat didn’t know that. Of course she would assume….
Lois’ imagination provided a slideshow of exactly what Cat was assuming. What was it she had called him? Take-me-under-the-bleachers-and-have-your-way-with-me hot? There hadn’t been any bleachers, but he had taken her under the stars and…. Well, not exactly had his way with her, but….
Her mind flashed back to that night – his body on hers, his hand under her dress, his mouth…. There had been a moment – more than just a moment if she was honest – where she had considered throwing caution to wind and ignoring her desire to take things slow. If he could make her feel that much with just his kisses and few chaste touches, imagine what he could make her feel….
Cat’s curious smirk brought her back to the present. She was blushing, she realized. And given the trajectory of her thoughts, she could only imagine the look on her face. Of course, Cat missed nothing, and Lois had no doubt she had a better than good idea of where her thoughts had been just now.
“Okay, let’s get to work,” Perry said, concluding the meeting. Lois breathed a sigh of relief, eager to escape Cat’s inquisitive gaze.
The staff filtered out of the room and back to their desks, and Lois followed Perry into his office.
“How was Kansas?” he asked as soon as the door was closed.
She froze, caught off guard, by both the question and the fact that he knew where she had been. She was certain she hadn’t mentioned it before she left. She had intentionally been vague about her vacation plans, simply saying she was going to visit a friend.
Perry laughed and sat down behind his desk. “I didn’t get to be editor because I can yodel,” he said. “You really didn’t think I knew which friend you were going to visit?”
Lois felt her cheeks warm again. “It was…wonderful. But I’m back now, and I have an update on the arsons.”
Perry raised an eyebrow at the abrupt change of topic, but nodded at her to go on. She filled him in quickly, outlining her epiphany, the link to the original Toasters investigation, and the connections she had made so far between Luthor and the various victims.
“It’s Luthor, Perry. I know it. I know it in my gut. It’s just like before.”
“All right. All right,” he said, holding up a hand to stave off any pleas for his support. “You’ve got a good start here. I’ll hold off on any daily assignments for now unless something big breaks. You can focus on this for a while.”
“Thank you!” she said, standing. “This could be big.”
“You itching for another Pulitzer already?” he teased.
“You’re only as good as your next story, right?”
Perry laughed as she headed for his door.
“Hey, Lois,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. She turned to face him, hand on the door knob. “You didn’t spend the whole time you were on vacation working on this did you? You know…there’ll always be another Pulitzer….”
She smiled fondly at him, thankful for his concern. Their relationship had never been strictly business, and she often thought of him as the father she wished she’d had.
“I didn’t work at all while I was on vacation,” she said softly. “Well, not until the very end anyway. It was…a really great weekend.”
“That’s good, darlin’,” he said with a grin.
She hesitated, and then decided to just go ahead and say it. “Just a heads up, I’m going to put in for a few days off next month too.”
His eyebrows crept up. “Is that so? Heading back to Kansas already?”
“He’s coming here,” she said. “I’ll…go there again in November.”
“Good,” he said softly. “That’s real good.”
“I should….” she said, tilting her head toward the door.
“Yep,” he said. “You get back to work. Keep me updated.”
“Thanks, Perry,” she said, grateful for both the professional and personal support.
She slipped out the door and made her way back to her desk, weaving around her coworkers as they rushed off to assignments. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of Perry’s questions and his obvious approval when she mentioned visiting Clark again.
Clark. Her mind drifted back to their weekend, and her smile widened. The whole thing had so far exceeded any possible expectations she might have had. She’d had so much fun with his family and friends, and had so enjoyed his friendly little town. And as utterly charmed by him as she had been in Miami and Metropolis and in his letters and phone calls, in Smallville, he was…so much more…just Clark.
“Hey, Lois!” Jimmy called, startling her out of her reverie. “So…Kansas went well?”
She squinted at him in confusion, not sure what he could have possibly heard that would make him grin at her with that self-satisfied smirk.
“I take it you haven’t seen your desk?” he teased. He gave her a gentler smile, and waved a hand toward her desk.
A large bouquet in beautiful fall colors sat on the otherwise clear surface, and Lois smiled immediately, raising a hand to her mouth shyly. Of course he sent flowers. Of course.
She heard Jimmy laugh as she picked up her pace and made a beeline for her desk, arriving just a second too late to prevent Cat from plucking the florist’s card from where it was tucked behind a yellow rose.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Lois said, not even joking this time.
Cat skimmed the note, raised an eyebrow and handed it over.
“I’m not kidding,” Lois said. “Knock it off. This is…”
She trailed off, her attention shifting to the card in her hand. Four words in, she recognized the quote, and inhaled sharply.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
I miss you already.
– CK
“He quotes Byron?” Cat said.
“You recognize Byron?” Lois replied automatically, sliding the card back into the envelope and examining the flowers. Red, yellow, and orange roses tangled with another flower Lois didn’t recognize, some sort of miniature lily in red and yellow along with stalks of greenery. It was a beautiful arrangement. She leaned close and breathed in the heady scent.
“Who’s Byron?” Jimmy asked from behind her.
She straightened and looked back and forth between Cat and Jimmy, and then turned and sat at her desk, trying to ignore them.
Jimmy dropped into the chair beside her desk and looked at her expectantly. “So… The flowers say it was a good weekend?”
“The card says it was an excellent weekend,” Cat said with her trademark grin.
“It was….a great weekend,” she confirmed. “I had a really wonderful time. I had a lot more fun than I expected to have in Kansas. His parents are really-”
“You met his parents?” Cat asked immediately, obviously taken aback.
“We had dinner with them one night,” Lois confirmed. She could see Cat reevaluating her assumptions about the weekend.
“He took you to meet his parents…and then he sent you flowers and poetry?”
Lois nodded, a giddy smile creeping across her face.
“Poetry?” Jimmy asked, and Lois gave up on holding out on him. She picked the card up off her desk and handed it over. He read it quickly and handed it back, grinning. “Must have been a pretty good weekend if the first thing he does on a Monday morning is order flowers.”
Lois’ smile widened silently as a kaleidoscope of memories flashed in front of her eyes. His hand on her back as she ate dinner with his family; his arms around her on the dance floor as he promised he didn’t want to dance with anyone else; the look in his eye when he told her he wasn’t seeing anyone else and didn’t want to see anyone else; the ache that throbbed through her when he whispered her name against her kiss-damped skin under the starry sky.
“So?” Jimmy prompted.
She looked at him, confused.
“Was the weekend flowers-worthy?”
She laughed and gave into her desire to gush about the weekend. “It was…yeah. It was the best weekend I’ve had in… ever,” she said with a laugh. “It was the best weekend ever.”
When she left for Smallville four days earlier, she had been excited but conflicted. She couldn’t wait to see him, to feel his touch, to kiss him again. But she hadn’t been sure this was a good idea. Any of it. He lived so far away. She had a policy against long-distance relationships. No matter how much she cared about him, it just seemed like a recipe for disaster. But now, after four days with him, her heart was all in.
From the moment she had met Clark in Miami, Lois’s heart had been begging her to give him a chance. A real, true chance. A chance to make all her dreams come true. She had fought it so hard. She had tried first to let him go after the conference. And when she couldn’t do that, she tried to contain their relationship to friendship. But now she was done fighting what her heart so obviously wanted.
She still didn’t know how they would manage the logistics, how often they’d be able to see each other. But it was only five weeks until his Fall Break visit. And the rest of it…well, they would figure it out. They had to. Because it didn’t matter whether this was a good idea or whether this fit the rules Lois had set for herself – her heart had made its decision.
Her heart wanted Clark Kent.
The End
