Last time:
Clark
"Are you going to give it another chance?"
She chewed on her bottom lip. "I think so." She glanced up at Joe, who was sleeping against the window, his mouth slightly open. She smiled. "He's my best friend. He has been for a long time."
"I'm glad. He really does seem like a good guy."
"He is."
We talked for a while longer, laughing and joking quietly as the sky in front of us lightened. We were landing at nearly noon, Paris time, so it would be daylight long before we landed. Fortunately, for those trying to sleep, most of the shades were pulled.
Lana and Joe both began to stir at about the same time, as did just about everyone else as we started our descent into Paris.
*~*19*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I hugged the pillow to me and groaned slightly.
I was finally visiting Paris with a boyfriend who wanted to see if things between us could turn serious again and I had the flu.
At least the faculty advisors were a little more lenient than the ones in high school had been. As much as I wanted to explore Paris, I'd been there before – several times – and right then, my bed was much more appealing.
There was a knock on the door and I groaned again, getting up to answer it.
"Hey," Joe said quietly.
I raised one hand and turned back to the room. I flopped on the bed and he sat next to me.
"Feeling any better?" he asked brushing the hair off my face.
"A bit," I said, truthfully. "Not nearly as bad as I did this morning."
"That's good." He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "Any chance you'll be up to that dinner tonight?"
I nodded. "I may not eat much, but maybe."
"Good."
We hadn't had a chance to talk since we got off the plane. I grabbed his hand in mine. "I've thought a lot about what you said on the plane," I said, not looking at him.
"And?" he asked quietly. He sounded a bit afraid.
"I want to give it a shot..."
"But?" he prompted as my voice trailed off.
"There's a couple of things I want to be clear on first."
"Okay," he said, shifting so he could stroke the hair off my forehead as I continued to stare at his denim-clad thigh.
"No pushing me for sex. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it at some point in the not-too-distant future or about moving the boundaries we've had set for the last couple years sometime soon, but I know you're ready for that whenever I am and I don't want you to push me. And we never make any decisions about it in the heat of the moment or when we're not fully clothed."
"Deal."
"And..." I took a deep breath. This was the one that could be a deal breaker eventually, I thought. "If you break up with me at some point because I'm not ready for sex yet and you go out and date around a bit and scratch the itch or whatever, don't expect to come back to me like you have the last couple years. It's different this time." I still hadn't looked at him. "If we break up for other reasons and not that, then maybe if we can work those issues out, but you better not cheat on me or break up with me so you can go have sex with someone else and expect me to take you back. If this is a serious relationship, it's a serious relationship, not the on-again-off-again thing we've been for the last few years."
"Deal," he said without hesitation.
I finally looked up at him. "I mean it, Joe."
"I know you do." He kissed my forehead again. "Why don't you try to get some sleep and I'll meet you downstairs at eight? Leave me a message if you're not up to it, but if I don't hear from you, I'm taking you to dinner in Paris tonight."
"Well," I said with a smile. "It would be kind of hard for you to take me to dinner in Metropolis now, wouldn’t it?"
He laughed. "Yeah. That it would."
I smiled at him. "Love you, Joe."
"Love you, too." He kissed me – for real this time – and then stood. "Get some rest."
I closed my eyes as he left.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~~
I set my backpack down on the floor next to my chair. I sat where I could see the elevators because Lana was going to be coming off of one any minute.
Instead, I found myself distracted by Lois sitting next to me and hiding her face in my shoulder.
"Pretend we're in some kind of deep, romantic conversation or something," she hissed.
I hadn't seen her all day. Joe said she had a bit of the stomach flu, but she seemed fine. "What?" I whispered back.
"She can't see me." She tugged at my other arm so that my body turned and hid her a bit more.
"Who?"
"Dad's girlfriend."
I started to turn and look, but a quick shake of her head stopped me. "Don't look."
I could see her tracking someone with her eyes.
"Okay, now you can watch her. Blond, high heels, shiny pink shirt and white leather pants."
"I see her," I whispered.
"She's up to something."
"What?"
"I don't know, but..."
"She's leaving."
Lois whipped her head around. "Come on."
"What?"
"I'm following her. I'll explain later."
"Lois, I'm not following your Dad's girlfriend with you. I'm supposed to go out for dinner with Lana, and you're not exactly dressed for undercover operations."
She glared at me. "I'm going. Tell Joe I'll call him when I get back, okay?"
I groaned and grabbed my backpack as she practically ran across the lobby. "I'm coming, but we're not going to be gone long." I saw Tom, one of the guys in our group and asked him to let Lana and Joe know we'd be back in a few minutes and he agreed. Surely, I'd be able to talk her out of this before we got too far.
We ended up in a cab and followed a dark sedan to the airport, but not the main terminal.
Thanking the cabbie and paying him, Lois climbed out.
"What are you doing?" I hissed.
"Following her," she hissed back.
I could see the blond talking to someone who looked a bit... hinky but that didn't mean anything. Maybe.
The guy handed her a large briefcase and I slipped my glasses down to look into it.
Cash.
And lots of it.
There weren't very many reasons – legitimate reasons – to handle large briefcases of cash at night at a deserted part of a foreign airport.
A pallet was loaded onto an airplane and before I knew it, Lois was dashing through the shadows.
What on earth did she think she was doing?
When no one was looking, she nimbly jumped up onto the ramp and into the cargo hold.
Was she planning on flying with this stuff?
Were cargo holds even pressurized?
I sighed and hitched my backpack a bit higher and followed her.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I heard something behind me and a glance showed that it was Clark. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, but I was glad I wasn't doing it alone.
"Lois," he hissed.
"What?" I hissed back.
"We have to get out of here."
"In a minute." I tiptoed through the pallets, looking for another one to catch my eye – away from the loading hatch where we could be seen. Finally, I found one.
I tried to pull the lid off, but apparently, it wasn't budging.
Suddenly, Clark grabbed my arm and pulled me down.
"What?"
"Someone's coming." He held a finger to his lips as we crouched behind the pallet.
A couple of men climbed into the hold and fastened down the last pallet that had been loaded. As soon as they were done, they hopped down and the loading ramp began to close.
We looked at each other – wide eyed. "We have to get out of here!"
"Thanks, Captain Obvious," he whispered. "How?"
"I don't know. Are cargo holds pressurized?"
"I think so – they ship pets don't they?"
"Yeah."
I dug around in my jacket pocket and pulled out my iPhone.
"What're you doing?"
"Looking it up."
I was glad Daddy always paid for the best services and I had internet access on it even here. On the way to the cabin... it had been useless, but here I had service.
Clark's hand clamped over mine before I could connect.
"What?"
"Won't it interfere with the plane's electronics? And tip them off that we're here?"
"Does it matter if we die from exposure if we don't?"
He sighed and suddenly the whine from the engines changed and we started to move. I toppled onto him and we landed flat.
Fortunately, there were still a few small lights on in this area. We could hear footsteps above our heads and we stood up, looking for a way to get to the main deck.
Clark tugged his glasses to the end of his nose. I'd seen him do that a few times before, but had no idea why.
He grabbed my hand. "Come on." Quickly, he led us to a spot near the front of the plane, where, incredibly, there were a couple of jump seats.
He dropped his backpack to the ground and sat in one. I sat next to him. "I guess if there's seats here, we'll survive the trip."
His face looked grim. "It probably won't be real comfortable though. It'll probably be a lot colder down here than up in the cabin."
I rested my head on the bulkhead behind me and sighed. "I'm sorry."
He sighed, too. "I know."
"Joe was supposed to take me on our first real date since... well, you heard us talking."
"Yeah. So you were going to see what happened with him?"
"Yeah. I told him that there were two conditions and he agreed to them so..." I shrugged. "I thought I'd see where we went."
"What were the conditions?"
I didn't say anything for a minute. "Well, that he doesn't push me for sex and if he breaks up with me because I'm not ready and goes to some other girl, don't expect me to take him back."
"Good for you."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? You're not going to tell me in some sort of male bonding moment that I should just jump him next time I see him?"
He shook his head. "No. It's not something to take lightly."
"So how long did you and Lana wait?" I didn't look at him when I asked.
"We still are," he said quietly. "We decided to wait until we get married."
We were both continuing to scan the area, hoping that something would catch our eye for a way to get out of there, but we were suddenly pressed against the backs of our seats as the whine increased and we, apparently, took off.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I sighed. This so wasn't what I had planned. I should have been walking along the Seine or gazing at the Eiffel Tower with Lana and then asking her to marry me.
A plane on the way to – literally – God only knew where, wasn't on the agenda.
"So why exactly did you insist on following her?"
She shrugged. "I can't explain it. She... she's not above board. I know that. Daddy said she was going to see her family in Little Rock, Arkansas. She shouldn't have been in Paris."
"Ah." I didn't understand, but I knew Lois and the girlfriend didn't get along at all. I knew that she was the main reason why Lois hadn't felt she could move back home when she found out I was her roommate.
I dug around in my backpack and found a pack of gum. I held it out to her. "Here. Should help with the air pressure."
She nodded her thanks as she took a piece and popped it in her mouth.
"So what were you and Lana up to tonight?"
I shrugged. I wasn't about to tell her my real plans. "Walk along the Seine, see the Eiffel Tower at night, kiss at midnight, that kind of thing. You and Joe?"
"We were supposed to go to our favorite restaurant. Well, mine and Daddy's. It's where he proposed to Mom on a trip when they were in college."
"College sweethearts then?"
She shook her head. "High school. He proposed when they went on a trip to Europe over Winter Break their freshman year. They got married that summer and lived in the dorms on campus until he graduated from medical school. I came along about seven years after they got married and Lucy three years after that."
The similarities were eerie, though neither Lana nor I were planning on working in the medical field and I didn't think we'd wait that long to try to start a family.
We sat for a while, each lost in our own thoughts, until a while after we'd leveled out.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" I finally asked her.
"No," she sighed.
I'd tried to listen in to some of the conversation above us, but I didn't recognize the language and none of it sounded like the name of any cities I was familiar with.
She snapped her seatbelt off and headed towards the back of the plane.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"Checking to see what they've got loaded on here. We're probably going to be here for a couple hours, we may as well look around."
I lowered my glasses and could feel my face tighten when I saw what was in the crates.
She carefully walked to the last pallet that had been loaded and suddenly pulled a flashlight out of her pocket. "Can you help me open this?"
I shook my head. "We're not opening that."
"Why not?"
Because I already know what's in it, I tried to communicate to her without saying anything. And it's not something we want to get involved with.
She flashed her light around and found a tool box of some kind attached to the wall. She managed to open it and pulled a crowbar out of it.
"Are you really going to do this?" I asked her.
"Yes."
I decided I better help her. I could probably get it open so that I could shut it again later and no one would know that we'd opened it. "Here." I held my hand out and she glared at me. "I'm taller. I'll have a better angle on it."
She sighed and handed it over.
Carefully, I pried up one side enough that we could peek in.
She shone her flashlight into the crate and gasped as she realized what I already knew.
We were in way over our heads.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I needed to call Daddy.
Not to tell him what we'd found, but to have him send someone to rescue us whenever we got where we landed.
I scrambled back down and wandered towards the jump seats without really paying attention to what I was doing. I guessed Clark put the lid back on as best he could and then I heard a slight clanging sound as he put the crowbar back.
A few minutes later, he held a bottle of water out to me.
Boy Scouts had nothing on Clark Kent.
"What do we do?" I whispered.
"Try to get out of this alive," he said, his voice grim.
I nodded. "That's a good plan."
He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me to his side. "I won't let anything happen to you."
"Yeah. I know."
"Maybe we'll land in London or something and we can sneak off the way we got on when no one's looking."
"Somehow I doubt we're headed for somewhere nearly as civil as London."
"Probably not," he agreed, his cheek resting on my head.
"We'll figure something out."
"I hope so."
I giggled. "I figured we'd have to be seasoned investigative reporters before we ended up in this kind of situation."
He let go of me and rested his head against the wall behind him. "Somehow, I don't envision Lois Lane waiting for anything to happen to her. I think she makes things happen."
"Well, it would be nice if I had a clue what was going on. I saw that logo on some paperwork at home, but I have no idea what it was." I pointed at the snake coiled on the side of one of the crates.
"I think that may be a good thing."
I sighed. "At least we know what's inside and we can try to be prepared."
"As long as they don't use them on us."
"Right."
Because they could.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I'd seen when Clark got that lid off.
Guns.
Lots and lots of guns.
*****
TBC
