Visitation
Lois & Clark Fan Fiction
By Scarlett Burns
4/12/2009
Rated: PG-13
Author's Note: A huge thank you to Iolanthe for taking on the task of beta-reading this story!
~*~
Chapter 2His face must have paled considerably because her eyebrow inched up even higher as she shot him a sly smile. “So, can I come in or are you hiding an alien in that box you call a room?”
Still a bit shell shocked from her words – and embarrassed to boot – Clark blinked slowly, opening the door wider to let her in despite all common sense telling him not to.
Entering, she took all of three steps before finding herself in the middle of the room. Turning back towards him, she seemed eager to get to the point. “Well?”
Closing the door he couldn’t help but be a bit shocked that this woman had managed to render him speechless in seconds. He turned to face her, opening his mouth to speak, but, having no idea where to start, abruptly shut it. Instead, he opted for a thoroughly confused – and silent – gaze.
To her, it must have looked like she’d spoken Klingon to him.
“What? Are you a mute?” she asked sarcastically, glancing around the tiny room with a small grimace.
She clearly didn’t think much of him, having already made her judgment in a few second’s time. But why should she? Here he was looking tired and disheveled, staying at possibly the most disgraceful hotel in Metropolis.
“Alien?” he finally managed, feeling like he’d arrived late to the conversation.
Her wandering eyes returned to lock on his, and he swallowed heavily, willing himself to calm down. Her scrutiny was causing sweat to begin beading on his forehead already.
She didn’t – couldn’t – possibly know… could she?
No one knew.
“Yeah,” she answered after a moment, her face all business. “Word on the street is you know where I can find an alien.”
She didn’t know; not about him. It was a relief, even if the origin of her tip was still worrying. He had to force himself from breathing out an audible sigh, and he could feel his tense body relax a little at the revelation.
“What street?” he asked, attempting to reflect a little sarcasm back. With a small amount of satisfaction he watched her lips twitch, as if holding back an amused smile.
The mask was back in place a second later. “Cute, but I’m not buying. My source is solid and unless you’re unusually warm on this cool autumn night…” She gestured to his perspiring forehead. “You’re nervous.”
“Well it’s not every day a complete stranger barges in at eight o’ clock at night and accuses me of harboring an alien. I don’t suppose you have a name?”
This woman was doing her best to interrogate him, and he didn’t even know who she was.
He offered his hand, and she took it after only a moment of hesitation. “Lois Lane.”
Clark stiffened; the dwindling nerves he’d been feeling before kicking back into high gear.
Oh, he’d heard of Lois Lane, star reporter for the Daily Planet. He quickly dropped the handshake before he found himself squeezing too tightly.
He wasn’t star struck. Rather, if she had a source that pointed to him as having knowledge of an alien, that was bad news. She would be relentless in her quest for information. Worse still, she’d caught him when he was tired and unprepared.
No doubt she knew this based on his appearance alone and was planning to use it to her full advantage.
Becoming aware of the awkward silence that had settled between them after dropping her hand, he introduced himself. “I’m Clark Kent.”
No recognition on her part, which was no surprise. He was a small time hack in comparison to her… hell, in comparison to any respectable big city journalist for that matter. It wasn’t like he’d spent the years after college making a name for himself.
“Now that the introductions are out of the way, are you going to answer my question?”
Clark stepped away from the door, opting instead to lean against a bare wall a few feet away. He forced a calming breath, knowing it was crucial that he seem honest and confident in his answers, otherwise she’d latch on to his discomfort and never let go.
A jolt of sound cut into their conversation and whatever else she was starting to say. Clark couldn’t help but wince at the assault to his senses, and his face contorted in pain.
Hands instantly to his ears he quickly excused himself, barely registering her confused and concerned features as her eyes followed him as he left the room and made his way toward the bathroom down the hall.
He was in too much pain to be thankful that the bathroom was currently unoccupied, and closed the door behind him, leaning against it heavily.
He tried to concentrate and force his hearing back to a normal level. Unfortunately something major was going on nearby in Metropolis – though what exactly he couldn’t make out through the bombardment of sound – and a piercing alarm dominated everything he heard.
He slid down the door slowly, coming to rest on the floor with his ears covered and eyes closed. His efforts to thrust out the bombardment of sound were thwarted by the stress of his travel and exhaustion.
'Come on, you’ve been able to do this since you were eleven,' he thought, frustrated with his inability to control his own body. When he was in Kansas and his powers developed he’d taught himself how to suppress them almost instantly; he’d had to.
All the mystery surrounding the strange alien visitors made everyone paranoid, edgy, and searching for any answers they could find. The aliens, still faceless beings that were undoubtedly present, yet hopelessly invisible.
They committed malicious acts against the human race and performed experiments on fellow townsfolk… so what would people think of a boy who could pick up his dad’s tractor and start a grass fire with his eyes? Hiding had been a matter of survival.
He’d almost succeeded entirely.
“They’ll dissect you like a frog, you know.”God, how he hated remembering the older man say that. Eyes suddenly open; they didn’t see the dirty bathroom around him. Instead, they saw a memory that haunted him whenever he let it.
He’d been fourteen and caught red-handed; a little baby raccoon had been his downfall.
Standing in the thick mud embankment that dropped into Cattle Creek, a downpour of rain soaking him through as he clutched a drenched and shivering creature close to his chest and watched the strong current rush by. This season had been unusually wet, and the past week even wetter. Never had he seen the creek have more than three feet of water, yet that depth had doubled with this last storm; one which showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
No doubt, the quick rise in water had been responsible for the tiny raccoon becoming stranded on a precarious log in the middle of the flooded creek, and when the log had finally broken loose from whatever had kept it in its spot Clark had acted without thinking.
Except he still wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done.
Within a few seconds he had managed to get across the torrent of water, retrieve the raccoon, and find himself back on the embankment.
Logically, he knew it made no sense. He should have been caught up in the powerful rush of water, or at the very least fighting against the current toward the raccoon. Yet here he was standing in the exact spot he’d been seconds before, with only one difference; now he had the shivering and soaked baby raccoon in his hands.
Breathing heavily, he stepped back unconsciously, stumbling over a rock as he did so. A steady hand righted him before he fell, and he looked up into the face of the neighbor whose land he was currently trespassing on… in the middle of the night.
Clark’s eyes widened as he rebalanced himself and moved out of the older man’s grip.
Mr. Irig hadn’t seen what he’d done to get the raccoon, had he?
The answer was written on his face. Wayne Irig looked shocked, but what chilled him to his bones was the other emotion he saw… fear. He’d never forget that look.
Wayne Irig quickly diverted his eyes to the raccoon, and then motioned for Clark to hand it over.
Stroking the creature’s head once, Clark handed the animal over, then looked back up at Wayne uncertainly.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Wayne said, turning his back to him and beginning to walk away. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
Not knowing what else to do, he found himself following Wayne back to his old blue pick-up truck parked a few yards away, still running.
The shiver that ran down his spine had absolutely nothing to do with the cold wind and pouring rain.
Once they’d gotten inside the truck, Wayne wrapped the wet raccoon with a spare sweater in his cab before returning it to Clark’s care, and starting back the Kent farmhouse.
The drive back started out silent, and there was a thickness in the air that couldn’t be contributed to Clark’s trespassing in the dark of night; he’d often found himself on the Irig property in the past and Wayne never complained before. He never did any damage on the property, and usually only went to explore the old creek.
Daring a peek at Wayne, he noticed the tightness of the man’s face before turning his gaze to the road in front of them, barely visible in the rain. Clark wiped a dripping wet sleeve against his glasses; a weak attempt at wiping away the raindrops on his lenses that obscured his vision. Needless to say, it did little good but create long streaks where the spots were previously.
“Clark,” Wayne finally said, his voice oddly heavy. “Whatever you did out there tonight… people ‘round here wouldn’t understand. They might even… well, they might even be frightened.”
His eyes didn’t start to tear up until he heard Wayne say, “I am,” under his breath. It was so quiet, he was sure he wasn’t meant to hear, and Wayne had no idea that he had.
Clark swallowed hard and looked down at the raccoon. The creature was looking up at him, its eyes big and scared.
Wayne continued, seeming a little choked up. “They’ll dissect you like a frog, you know? If… if they found out.”
Clark said nothing, still looking at the raccoon to hide his teary eyes. What Wayne had said wasn’t a totally foreign thought to him, but to hear it out loud from someone else made his heartbeat quicken and hope of any sort of acceptance of his powers seem like impossibility.
Sighing, Clark closed his eyes again, this time from the pain of the memory and not pain from the sounds that had assaulted his system.
He didn’t know if he was an alien or not – he certainly hoped the answer was the latter – but he
was different. In this paranoid world that was enough to be his undoing.
At least the memory had distracted him from the siren, allowing the sounds to once again fade into the city. He sucked in a lungful of air, and noticed that his ears were ringing as his senses still reeled from the overload.
Of all the times for this to happen, while an information-hungry reporter was in his hotel room was not one of the better moments.
His grasp on control had slipped during his brief stint in New York. Even now he couldn’t say why, though he was sure he could think up a few reasons if he put his mind to it. At the time he’d chalked it up to the events, the unaccustomed noise of the big city, and ever-mounting weight of the secret he constantly hid from the world.
Back under control, he stood, turned on the tap and splashed his face with cold water. He stared at his face in the mirror – his entire appearance screamed exhaustion and depression – and wondered how much longer he could do this before suffering a nervous breakdown, or simply losing his mind altogether.
Clark patted his face dry with a paper towel and tossed it in the overflowing trashcan beside the sink. He had to get back to Ms. Lane before she started to get suspicious of his peculiar departure… provided she wasn’t already.
Opening the door, he found a man waiting in the hall who didn’t look happy.
“Hey man, trip in your own room, will ya. Other people have to use the can, ya know?”
Clark frowned at the man’s assumption but stepped aside silently and let him have his turn, before making his way back to his room.
He really had to move to another hotel, even if it was on his own dime. This was ridiculous!
Reaching his room he tried to open the door, noticing the resistance immediately. He’d locked himself out. Cursing himself for not grabbing the key in his rush out the room, he knocked feeling embarrassed once again.
The door opened with a quick jerk, and there stood Ms. Lane, squawking beeper in hand. She shut it off, and then looked at him almost reproachfully. “I’ve got to go.” Her look softened, almost unperceivable in the dim light of the hotel, and Clark wondered if he was just imagining it. “You all right? You look pretty pale.”
He nodded. “Migraine,” he said by way of explanation, hoping she left it at that. He figured it wasn’t a total lie; his head was still pounding.
“Must have been a whopper. Look, I have to run but...” she stepped around him and out into the hall. “This isn’t over, Kent!”
A weary smile passed over his lips. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She paused for a moment, and then frowned. “I want to know what you know.” She took out her wallet and pulled out a business card. “Call me. If you don’t, I’ll find you anyway!”
Then she was gone. Damn. That woman was like a typhoon. If her focus hadn’t been trained on him, he’d be admiring her determination now rather than drowning in worry.
No doubt there was a big story that caused her to run out like that, and it probably had something to do with what he’d heard a few minutes earlier.
He should go too. But instead he dropped his tired body onto the bed, thinking of Lois Lane and her mysterious tip.
The fact that she’d come here looking for an alien was concerning… very concerning. It seemed like she hadn’t known who he was until he’d introduced himself, which meant she most likely was just given his location. Also, she’d only accused him of knowing of an alien, not being an alien.
But who had told her he could lead her to an alien, and why?
His glasses slipped up above his nose as he rubbed his eyes wearily. Is that really what he thought of himself? Just because he could do things others couldn’t didn’t automatically make him an alien, did it?
There were other explanations…
Yet there was a nagging, persistent voice in his mind that insisted that that was one of them, and it was the explanation he feared the most.
Shouting could be heard from the adjacent room as he closed his eyes in thought, and it was loud enough that one didn’t need super-human hearing to be aware of it.
He groaned; by morning he was out of here.
Another knock on the door made him wonder if he’d ever get any sort of peace tonight.
Answering, he found the clerk that had checked him in.
“You got a call.”
Clark glanced at his phone, realizing it probably couldn’t receive inbound calls. Nodding, he followed the man to the front desk and picked up the offered receiver. “Hello?”
“Kent!” His editor, naturally. “I had Eddie plant a little seed for you.”
Eddie was the office gopher, which made Clark wonder what exactly Eddie could have done to help his story. “What?”
“You can expect a visit from Lois Lane soon. Heard of her?”
Realization dawned quickly, and he gripped the phone as tightly as he dared while he scowled into the receiver. “You didn’t.”
“She thinks you got some inside track on finding an alien,” he chuckled. “With any luck and some creativity on your part, you should be able to get a great story out of her. It will be a good opportunity for you to show me what you’ve got in you, Kent.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you are.”
Clark’s relief at the source of the “tip” was stamped out by his editor’s actions and demands.
“She has contacts, is familiar with the city and has undoubtedly done a mountain’s worth of homework. Besides...” his editor paused, then said a little quieter, “it’s not as if it’s a total lie, is it?”
Clark suddenly felt as if the hotel lobby was tilting and swaying, and he put one hand on the reception desk to ground himself. “W-What?” he stuttered.
“Use it. Make me proud.”
His editor hung up. Clark felt sick to his stomach. His editor knew… something, and clearly wasn’t above blackmail if it meant getting a great story.
Was this really the type of paper he’d signed on to? The thought of stealing Lois’ story, and using all her hard work to get a headline was appalling.
He hung up the receiver; needing desperately to think. It was too bad his mind felt so clouded and jumbled from the day’s events; he doubted he’d come up with any answers in his current state. Perhaps sleep was what he needed – something he hadn’t done in over three days.
Just as he was heading up the stairs, the lights went out.
“**** !” the guy at the front desk said angrily – the loss in power apparently interrupting his television experience.
Clark would have chalked up the outage to faulty wiring in this hell-hole of a hotel but for the complete darkness outside as well. He walked over to the storefront windows in the Apollo lobby and peered out. There was no light up or down the busy street, except for car headlights. It seemed that the entire block was out.
Another ambulance siren went off nearby. He cringed instantly, but this time the siren kept itself at a respectable decibel level, neglecting to set off his sensitive hearing.
Something big was going down.
He rushed up the stairs and back into his room, grabbing a notepad, pencil, and disposable camera. After changing into something a little more professional than his casual traveling clothes, and cleaning himself up a little, he set out to find out just what that big thing going down was.
Sleep would have to wait a little longer.
