Hi everyone! Sorry this chapter has taken a little longer coming out--today was my first day back to college and everything, and so I've been a bit overwhelmed. But there we are. I'm back, and here's chapter 29.
This is kind of a slower chapter, but I hope it will still be acceptable. As always, thanks for the reviews, and a shameless bit of begging right now for more...
<gets down on knees> Please?
There. Now that that's done...enjoy.
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Chapter 29: Intrepid Investigative Reporter
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Lois Lane kept busy. It was perhaps the only thing that kept her from breaking—the only thing that kept her from thinking to closely on Superman, and on the memories.
Mad Dog Lane. It was the maddest mad dog that even Perry had ever seen, and it was she who came into work day after day, restless and heedless in pursuing her prey.
The first week back she uncovered the murderers of the imprisoned soldiers and Logram—a police officer and a fellow prisoner of the men that had been imprisoned for a bank robbery—by Superman himself, as it was. Of course, it had taken some bending of the breaking and entering rule to figure them out, but that didn’t stop Lois Lane.
It never had, and it definitely wasn’t going to stop her now.
The murderers had their faces slapped on the front page and all over the news, but they didn’t know who had hired them, or didn’t dare own up to it. They’d been paid in cash, and the officer had been blackmailed by some illegal drug dealings he had been facilitating near the docks, and they wouldn’t talk.
“Better in jail than dead,” the officer muttered during Lois’s interrogation of him. Even if he didn’t know who he had done the deed for, he understood the Boss’s reach. Perhaps better than anyone.
Lois ran all over the city. The grey warehouse that she had been kidnapped at was completely empty and dusted down to look unused—even the phony reception area was stripped down to nothing—and then she found nothing of interest, just as the police had before her. But she had stopped for a time in a certain room, chilled as she saw the great crack and dust from where something hard and heavy had crashed into the wall.
Superman.
There they had both been caught. There was a faint spattering of blood in the dust, and Lois smeared it away into nothing. She didn’t want anyone testing it and finding something about Superman that they didn’t want them to know.
There was still no sign of him.
If the police were overwhelmed and Lois was on a killing spree, the paparazzi was having a hey-day. Cheap papers exploded on the street, crying despair—that Superman was dead, killed by this once-believed-futile threat of kryptonite.
Even the criminals seemed to pick up with the sudden rage. A failed bank robbery brought in three hoodlums, to find that they had green crystals stuffed into their pocket. Upon research, it had been discovered that it was nothing but cheap dyed glass, but it still made Lois go cold.
His weakness was out there and known. Adults walked a little faster, glancing up at the sky with a sad sort of fading hope that they tried not to let anyone else see. Kids cried as they saw computer-altered or artistic portrayals of Superman—lying dead and bleeding amidst glowing green rocks—and the Star’s front page’s bold headline: “MAN OF STEEL MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD.”
It made Lois feel sick, even though she wouldn’t allow herself to think that he might not be well. His short letter to her never left her pocket, and was creased and dirty from her holding it and reading it over and over again. He was safe, for now.
But whoever had been dealing with Bureau 39 did have kryptonite. It was still out there.
So she worked on, determined to make the world a little safer for him.
She didn’t sleep well, still. She woke up more than once during the night, sweating and cold and alone. She had made it a practice to go outside and stand on her balcony after finding that it was impossible to go back to sleep, and calling his name.
Her heart was always bleak when she went back down the stairs to her apartment.
He had superhearing, didn’t he? Maybe he could hear her, now. Maybe he would understand how much she needed him, and come to her.
But he couldn't, or he didn't.
She was hot on the trail of the big boss. Though dead end after dead end opened up beneath her feet, she could almost smell him now—even if she wasn’t sure exactly where he was, the investigation was going forward.
She was going to find him, come flood, fire, or storm.
Friday night came. She hurried home to dump off her papers for the weekend—even though she wasn’t going into work on Saturday, nobody was going to get her off this story even for a day of rest. Since she had started she had lived this investigation—eaten it, breathed it, sleeped it. And she wasn’t leaving it until it was solved.
Lois struggled to open her door between the armful of files and her purse, but with practiced grace she managed it without dropping a single piece of paper. She clomped inside her apartment and dropped the whole mess on the table with a grunt.
The too-tall pile slipped sideways, and Lois hurried to catch most of the papers before they ended up in an even bigger mess all over the floor.
The papers she didn’t catch, however, slid from the table and scattered all over linoleum.
Lois swore, tempted just to kick the papers, stomp on them, and maybe even do a strange sort of savage dance over them. Maybe that would awaken some spirit that might help her on this.
She declined the temptation, however, and instead began gathering up the scattered notes and dumping them back on the table.
Lois picked up the last one, and rolled her eyes to herself as she recognized that nonsensical packet of Clark’s on Lex. She glanced at the clock. There was still an hour until she had to be to that blasted shrink for that cursed appointment. She grabbed a microwavable dinner, warmed it up, and kept the thick packet of paper as she went to sit down on her very uncomfortable couch to eat and…relax.
She was tired after the long day, and it might amuse her to read what sins and horrors Clark Kent was trying to pin on Lex Luthor this time.
No wonder the packet was so thick, Lois mused as she flipped through it. It stretched back months—probably to the very day that Clark Kent had met Lex Luthor for the first time.
Silly man.
Ah. There it was. A very large fund that Clark had circled, and beside it he had penned in the date—not long before their first collaborative story had hit the front page. “Prometheus Project.”
Lois shook her head. She remembered him ranting about that. Something crazy about Lex tampering with the space station in order to get a boost on the market himself. A very large assumption, after only meeting the millionaire once.
But there were other things. Circled things—withdrawals, transfers to overseas banks…It was all quite illegal for Clark to have record of, Lois was sure. Clark really did have something against Luthor, if he was willing to bend his rigid rules for it.
Lois just shook her head at most of them, though she didn’t understand all the notes that Kent had made.
Illegal experimentation. O.D.
Bank robbery in NY.
Why in the world would Lex want to rob a bank? He was a billionaire already. Clark was clearly delusional.
$$ from S.A. (I.I. Gold)
C.O. of MP murdered.
MP? Metro. Physics? They were a competitor for some of Lex’s labs, but they had always been small. Besides, the police hadn’t found any evidence of dirty work around the C.O.’s death, if Lois remembered right. The man had been old, anyway.
Clark didn’t really think Lex was a killer, did he?
Inhumane research on stray cats. W.W.P.
Stray cats? Talk about grasping at straws, Kent! Where in the world did he get such an idea?
Failed tsunami warning. Tampered?
The date marked was from a couple months ago, and Lois remembered vaguely something about a tsunami near New Zealand. But Superman had been on the job, so no one had been killed and there was only minor property damage. What would Clark know about failed warning systems for tsunamis anyway? And besides, this was in New Zealand. What in the world would Lex have to gain from a couple failed tsunami warning buoys?
M.T. murdered in Hobbs. Drugs?
Lois flipped a couple pages forward, pausing to take a bite of her dinner. This really was just too much.
Toasters.
Lois chuckled, remembering the pyromaniac group from a story only some weeks ago. She turned another page over. By Clark’s account, it seemed that almost every problem that Metropolis had seen since he got there—and other parts of the world as well—could be traced back to Lex’s hands. It was ridiculous.
Terrorist attack in Iraq. 102 dead.
Lois laughed out loud at that one, though the subject matter wasn’t to laugh at. Now, really! Why in the world would Lex have a hand in terrorist attacks in the Middle East? He was a philanthropist raised from nothing. A bit annoying, at times, in his over-trimmed way, but by Clark Kent’s estimation Lex Luthor would have to be the greatest criminal mastermind of all time, or something close to it. The epitome of evil itself.
She turned to the last page, growing a bit tired of her past time. But then she stilled.
Clark had circled a long column in red, and drawn a line out to the margin where he had written in small, but clear letters.
B. 39.
He wasn’t serious.
He couldn't be serious.
Now Lex was behind Bureau 39 as well?
Jealousy had driven the poor farm boy mad.
She tossed it onto her coffee table and grabbed her plate to finish off her dinner without interruptions.
If that’s what Clark did to Lex’s budget reports, Lois would love to see what he did with Lex’s P.R.s, or his self-published life story.
He probably rewrote the whole thing, beginning with Lex’s birth:
Lex Luthor was created in Hell, and is commonly known among his peers as the oldest son of Satan, also known as Lucifer…
Lois snorted into her lukewarm microwaved mashed potatoes.
It felt good. She hadn’t laughed since Kal-El had disappeared.
She grew quiet, sitting back in the uncomfortable cushions where he had lain for the greater part of his few days here.
She could almost see his face before her, even now. It had never left her.
Her timer went off, startling her from her thoughts, and she looked at the time with a curse. She was going to be late. Not that she really cared, she thought as she grabbed her purse and made for the door, but she wouldn’t put it beneath Perry to call the psychiatrist’s office and make sure she made it her appointment.
So she locked her door firmly behind her, ran down the stairs, managed to flag down a cab and was across town within a half an hour. She paid the fare and stepped out of the cab to look at the nice-looking building. The whole thing seemed to be created to reflect a non-threatening air. Tall trees not often seen around Metropolis gave some pleasant shade to the grass in front of the warm-colored front, and the flower beds were beautiful.
Lois hated it upon sight.
She walked in boldly, ready to tear into the place and show them just how not necessary this was for her. She was Lois Lane. She was unbreakable. She went through these sort of things all the time. She was a pro.
Still, she hesitated as the door shut behind her, making her heart go cold. She shivered involuntarily, a shadow passing over her features as she pushed herself forward.
She was fine. Nothing was going to happen.
The receptionist was a younger woman, and she looked kind and open--fittingly so, for this clinic.
“My name’s Lois Lane. I had an appointment for 7:00 with a”—she checked the note to herself—“a Melinda Helmerson.”
Eerie. It seemed so familiar. If she was directed to room 42 she was going to make a bolt for the door.
She gritted her teeth to herself. If she saw one person in a white lab coat, or saw even the slightest trace of a gun…
She wasn’t going to call for him. She’d rather die, rot, and fester before calling for him again…bringing him into a trap like that one.
“She’s waiting for you, Miss Lane. Go on in. It’s just the room on the right at the end of this hall.”
Much more friendly and casual than that fake tax bureau. Even so, Lois didn’t like it one bit.
She walked down the hall, her shoulders squared. She stopped beside the door and knocked boldly.
Dr. Melinda Helmerson, it read on her nameplate. Lois thought she might be sick.
The door opened.
Lois blinked. The woman that had opened the door wasn’t much older than herself, she would guess. She had shoulder-length auburn hair and a somewhat scholastic air, but an open expression like a mother just waiting to listen. She was smiling kindly and opened the door fully, speaking before Lois got a chance.
“You must be Lois Lane. Come on in. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Lois hid a shudder and marched in, glancing around the room quickly. It was more roomy than she would have expected, and one side of the room was taken up by a large glass window. There was no sign of the infamous shrink’s couch, only a couple of normal couches settled comfortably against the wall.
“How are you today? Is it all right if I call you Lois?”
No, it wasn’t all right. But if Lois said that it wasn’t all right, then who knew what sort of messed up psychological reading the shrink might get from a sharp rebuke.
“That’s fine,” she said stiffly. “You must be Dr. Helmerson.”
“Please, Lois, Dr. Helmerson is my father-in-law. You can call me Melinda. We’re pretty laid back here. Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
Lois sat on the very edge of the couch, wishing that perhaps she had worn her stiletto heels…just in case. This woman seemed too nice to be true.
Logram had seemed a nice kind of guy at first sight too, and look at what he had done.
“I am very pleased to meet you, Lois. Of course I’ve heard of you, but it certainly is a pleasure to meet you in person. Would you like some coffee?”
Lois felt herself softening a bit…but no. That was the woman’s intention. Fire and iron, that’s all she had to be.
“No, thank you,” Lois said. “I wouldn’t be here if I had any real choice. My editor was being his usual unreasonable self. I am quite capable of dealing with experiences that others may found troublesome or scarring, Dr. Helmerson. It’s a part of my line of work, and I am only here because it was a requirement of my editor.”
“Ah, yes. Perry White,” the doctor said, sitting on a couch across from Lois and leaning back. “We lived in the same neighborhood for a while, before he bought his current home. I was just a kid, going to college you know. He’s quite a character. Had enough Elvis stories to fill hours of neighborhood meetings.”
Lois felt a smile tugging at the sides of her mouth and quickly banished it.
Fire and steel. Stainless steel.
“So you are used to life and death situations, Lois?” Apparently Melinda Helmerson realized that sweet-talking her was not going to get her to loosen up.
“It’s a part of my job,” Lois emphasized. “It’s not my fault, and it just happens every once in a while. You know, I’ve been shot at, kidnapped, and threatened, and I’m used to it. I’m good.”
“Perry told me about what happened with your copyboy at the Planet.”
Oh. Darn that Perry. “I know kung fu,” Lois said, folding her arms. “So a week in the hands of madmen made me a little jumpy, but that’s natural. It’s that sort of thing that keeps you alive, you know.”
Dr. Helmerson smiled gently. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Lois said with a nod. “I mean, I didn’t mean to hurt Jimmy, but he was sneaking around and all. It was perfectly natural!”
“But you feel bad for hurting Jimmy?”
“Of course I do!” Lois said, glaring at her. “Jimmy’s a good guy. It was just an automatic reaction, and Perry freaked out about it. I mean, I’m not going to turn into some violent basket-case or anything. I was just defending myself.”
“Defending yourself? Did you feel threatened by Jimmy?”
“No!” Lois said, drawing herself up in defense. “Jimmy’s just a kid. Couldn’t hurt a fly, except for maybe causing it to crash into a wall after flashing it blind with that camera of his. Besides, it’s not like I’m afraid of being hurt or anything.”
Melinda glanced up at her cheek, where a fading bruise was still visible. “Did Bureau 39 hurt you, Lois?”
Lois brought her hand up to the bruise in defense. “Not really. I just tried to make a break for it and it didn’t end too well.”
Trying to protect Kal-El.
But it hadn’t worked very well at all, that time.
He had almost died.
Melinda sat back, looking at her kindly. Lois stared boldly back, not letting her thoughts shake her. They sat there in silence for a minute before the doctor spoke again. “I’m not here to interrogate you, Lois. Is there anything you feel like talking about? Anything that is troubling you? We can’t help you unless you let us.”
“I told you, I’m just here because I have to be,” Lois said, growing frustrated. “This is a waste of time. I’m on a story, you know—to track down the person responsible for this. Logram, the soldiers…everyone I saw during my imprisonment is dead, but the big guy…he’s still out there, and every minute I waste in here is a minute longer that he gets to walk around free. Not to mention Superm—” She cut off sharply. Superman was none of the doctor’s business, and if she hadn’t been so strung out already Lois would have never made the mistake of bringing him up. She went still, glaring at the doctor as she felt a chill pass over her arms.
“Superman?” Melinda finished. “What about him, Lois?”
“Why are you so interested in Superman?” Lois demanded, bristling at that. She drew herself up, though her hands shook slightly as she gripped her purse. She should have brought a brick in the bottom of it, just in case.
The doctor looked a little confused at that. “Well, I guess everyone is, especially seeing as he’s…missing.”
Missing. Hearing it again made Lois’s heart ache.
Her heart hadn’t seemed to have stopped aching. Not since he left her.
“I don’t know anything, all right?” Lois said, her voice shaking a bit. “I mean, I know he used to save me a lot and all, but that’s it. It’s not like I have any connection or anything…I’m just another person he’s saved. That’s all.” Was that all? He had always seemed so much like a god—untouchable, and above everyone, even while he cared enough to come and save them. It was that visage of him that Lois had first thought herself in love with. Now, she loved the man beneath…but was she just being a fool? He didn’t need her now. He would get his powers back, and soon be flying around the world again. Who knew how quickly and easily he was able to put aside what had happened?
Was he just up there, somewhere, already forgetting it all, while Lois Lane broke down into a million broken pieces?
He saved strangers all the time and expected nothing in return.
But Lois wasn’t a stranger. She was his friend.
But he was Superman. He could have anyone—anything. Why would he want her—messed up, crazy Lois Lane who had to see a shrink?
Why had he left her?
Was she just being ridiculous? She hadn't even known if he ate, or slept until their time with Bureau 39. She had hardly known him, and he hadn’t been exceptionally open in sharing his life’s story with her, even as it was.
Did he look at her like…some sort of pet? Some sort of stray kitten, always getting into trouble and needing to be pulled out?
Melinda’s eyes had taken on a slight light, as if she had realized something. “So…you’re disappointed that he didn’t save you?”
“No!” Lois denied fervently, wringing her purse-strap in her hands. “He’s Superman. If he could have, he would have.”
“So you’re worried about him.”
Yes.
“No!” Lois repeated.
“You are worried about him. And you’re the one who has had all the interviews with him. Was he a…a friend?” She sounded a bit awed at that, even though Superman had been around for some months. The man was untouchable, and any connection—even the slightest—was a bit awe-inspiring. And this was Lois Lane.
“No!” Lois said. “I…I hardly knew…know him.” The whole past tense thing was starting to make her twitchy.
“But he was a friend, wasn’t he? What with your articles and everything.”
That was the problem. Everybody already did know.
“Why would you deny it?” Melinda wondered, looking at her with a slightest frown. “What happened, Lois?”
Uh oh. Practically the whole city knew that Lois Lane had a thing for Superman. If she suddenly turned and started denying it she might rouse suspicion.
She deflated slightly. If she let a little worry for Superman creep through, it would probably actually make it more realistic. She had to be normal, like before. No one could know that Superman had been there, with her.
But somebody knew. The cameras, the tapes—everything had disappeared.
The person who was the most danger to both of them knew it all.
But who was it? Where was he? Where was Superman?
She tired of suspecting everyone, tired of being afraid, tired of not knowing.
That weariness sunk down to the bottom of her heart.
And the woman looked so nice. She had the same eyes as Clark’s mom, though she was considerably younger. There was no harm telling just a little…
She was so tired.
“I…” Lois said slowly, looking down at her clammy hands. “I’m guess I am…a bit worried about him. A little.”
“Oh?” Melinda lifted her eyebrows at the sudden change of attitude and complete turn around of her words.
“I…I don’t know where he is,” Lois admitted, though her soft voice held a thread of iron still. She looked up into Melinda’s eyes challengingly. “I…I thought we were friends, or something, but…he left me…” The note seemed to burn in her pocket. “He couldn’t save me, but…I…I can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t know how to stop it.”
That was the truth, and perhaps the one reason that Lois felt like she was going to break.
I need him. I can’t live without him, but it’s killing me that I can’t stop thinking about him.
“Do you think he’s…?” Dead. That was the word that she was going to say, and she sounded sincerely worried about it. Everyone was worried about it.
“No,” Lois said, cutting it off before she could say it. She didn’t want to hear it. “No. He’ll be back. He’ll be fine. But…he’s always there, right in front of me, but I can’t reach him. I can…I can hear him speaking, and when I’m working I just…I see him, even when I’m talking to others. I see things and think of him. I can’t stop it…”
Melinda’s gaze was sympathetic. “You thought of him a lot during your captivity.”
All the time. “Well, yeah,” she allowed some sarcasm to drip into her words. The story went that she had been captured and questioned about him, so the question was more than a little bit inane.
He had been her only reality. And now he was gone.
“Have you taken a break since you’ve been back?”
No. Lois was beating herself into the ground and she knew it. Her sleeping schedule had become haphazard at best, and what little sleep she did get was restless and filled with nightmares of white rooms and Superman…caught, trapped, and alone.
If she stepped back a minute to rest it would give a whole new connection to "taking a break" and "having a break down."
“I told you I don’t have time,” Lois reiterated. “The best thing for myself and Superman is to track down whoever was funding the madhouse of Bureau 39 and hang them up so everyone can see that such…such racism will not be tolerated!”
"Racism?" Melinda was honestly befuddled, and it took a moment before it cleared. "Oh! You mean because he's an...well, I guess because he's not from Earth? Because he's an...alien?"
Lois winced at that. Alien. And they thought it mattered so much.
But it didn't matter. Not really. Not to her.
When Lois left a half an hour later, she was feeling surprisingly better. That woman was good. After breaking the ice with some mention of Superman, Lois had ranted to her the rest of the time—of everything from Bureau 39 to how Jimmy had accidentally spilled some coffee on some of her notes that morning after returning from his day off…whatever that had been for. And though she wasn’t particularly happy about it, Melinda had told her that Perry had arranged for no less than four more appointments, though they could be spread out over the next few weeks.
Lois left with surprisingly little complaint. Oh, of course Perry wasn’t going to be hearing the end of this, but it had turned out that Melinda was a rather good listener, and besides, she had a stash of double-fudge chocolate bars that she seemed willing enough to share. So Lois figured she could deal with it, though that didn’t mean she was going to take it quietly.
TBC...
