Surprise! Been a while since I wrote L&C fic... 😅
Written for Queen of the Capes's
Location Challenge. Not beta-read; all mistakes are mine.
Have fun reading!
**
There’s something to be said about the blue of the sky in this city. A clean, intense azure, not a cloud in sight. The city below may be drowning in the smog that weaves around its graceless buildings, but up on this hill, it’s like you’ve broken through history to meet the gods in their celestial home.
No, wait, that’s Olympus.
“Where’s Olympus?” Lois whispers to Cindy, pulling her from the arm.
“Uh —” Cindy stumbles a couple of steps backwards on the rough gravel, following Lois’s lead to put some distance from the rest of their group. She looks helplessly around, to the mountains surrounding the three edges of the basin in which Acropolis sits pride of place. “I don’t think it’s anywhere near here? It wouldn’t be so close to a major city. It should be somewhere far away and mysterious.”
Lois nods thoughtfully at that.
“We can ask the tour guide afterwards, come on —”
“Oh, spare me.” Lois has barely listened to an entire sentence of the tour guide’s dronings since they started the tour half an hour ago. Classical architecture and thousands-years-old history are not her thing, honestly. There are no dodgy politics and scandals to be uncovered — or if there are any, they’re more the job of the archaeology majors.
Cindy rolls her eyes and goes to catch up with the group, leaving her best friend behind to stare at the mountains in the distance. Whichever way you look at it, Lois has always enjoyed a view from the top.
“It’s about two hundred sixty miles from here.”
Her head whips around.
“Mount Olympus.” It’s a man who’s spoken — tall, handsome, bespectacled, about her age. His small, sideways smile comes off unexpectedly confident. “Two hundred sixty miles to the north.” He gestures forward — to where north is, presumably.
“What are you, a travel agent?”
“No, I just visited last week.” He shrugs. “When in Rome.”
“I’m pretty sure Rome is much further away than two hundred sixty miles from here.”
The quip pulls a small laugh out of him. He’s got a nice laugh; it sounds genuine. “Right. But it’s closer to here than my hometown.”
“Where’s your hometown?” Lois asks, without even knowing why. The journalist in her, probably.
“Small town in Kansas. You wouldn’t know it.”
She gives a small scoff and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I wouldn’t.”
“And you?”
Her eyes stray over to the view ahead of them again, and she takes a moment to ponder her response. “Metropolis,” she admits eventually. “I go to Met U.”
“What are you studying? Not geography, I presume.”
It’s a good jab, but he can’t be allowed to let that go to his head; so she narrows her eyes at him. “Funny, aren’t you. No, I’m studying journalism.”
“
That’s funny,” he says, although he’s not laughing. “That’s the exact reason I’m here.”
“You’re studying journalism?”
“I graduated last year, actually, and now I’m building my portfolio. I’m writing a series of travel features for a magazine based in Salonica. That’s closer to Olympus,” he adds in what would pass as a deadpan manner, but Lois doesn’t miss the twitch of his eyebrows.
She lets the joke slide, this time, but still has a reason to wave his words off all the same. “I’m not into that kind of fluff pieces. No offense.”
“What do you hope to do after you graduate?”
“I’ve got an internship lined up at the Daily Planet. My goal is investigative journalism.”
He whistles, impressed. “Bold.”
“Well, that’s me.”
His gaze remains on her, slowly shifting into something easier, more cordial. The dorky glasses and warm brown eyes really seal the look. A moment passes, then another one before Lois’s brain registers the intensity in the atmosphere. It’s dangerous, and she doesn’t have time for it.
“I’m sorry, I lost track of time,” she says, with a small shake of her head and a wan smile. “I need to go back to my group, or they’ll go into the museum without me.”
“Do you —” he starts, but she’s already stepping away, with a wave of her hand that’s as polite as it is final.
“Nice meeting you!”
She strolls down the path to where her classmates are gathered, the smile — small as it is — never fading. Cindy is already waving her over frantically; the part about the museum wasn’t a lie. The building stands at the far end of the hill, below the level of the antiquities, in a flat, rectangular shape and dressed in stone that matches the colour of the ruins; a discreet presence among the majestic, ancient temples.
“Who was that?” Cindy whispers into Lois’s ear as they trail inside after the tour guide.
Lois shrugs. She didn’t even get a name — not that it would mean anything. Spring flings with tourists were never on the schedule of this field trip. She’s not the person to enjoy a casual relationship, and her life is too chaotic — trips abroad, final papers, exams, an upcoming internship — to allow space for a stranger from Nowheresville, Kansas.
“Mount Olympus is two hundred sixty miles to the north,” she tells Cindy.
Last edited by Anna B. the Greek; 05/12/26 05:23 AM.
And I'm sure he remembers every mile he flew over, lol
❤
Michael