Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Nighttime in the Daytime, 2/?

An AU story about Nightfall

From Chapter 1:
Rita Ross was at that very moment adjusting a wedding dress on a soon to be blushing bride in the Designer Bridal Gown store in Wichita, Kansas. “There, Emily, that fits better. Don’t you agree Mrs. Koon?” Rita glanced at the bride’s mother to see her smiling widely at her daughter.

“That is just perfect, Rita. You made it fit just right. You have a real talent as a seamstress.”

Shrugging it off, Rita replied, “Oh, I made my own clothes all through High School and even some for my brothers. Boy, were they tough on clothes.”

Mrs. Koon laughed. “I know what you mean. Emily was just as hard on her clothes as her brothers. We were all into horses and riding. That is real wear and tear!”

+*+*+*+*+*+

Chapter 2. “Rock Chalk Jayhawk”

Pete was sitting at his desk in his basement office in the Department of Physics and Astronomy on Wescoe Hall Drive. Clark had just flown them back from Antarctica to his old farm in Smallville, where he stored the equipment from their recent expedition to view the amazing total eclipse of the sun, the only total eclipse for this entire year. Clark still owned the farm and leased the fields out. Pete’s father had been the executor of the Kent’s will and administered the farm until Clark had emancipated himself. Now visiting the original Kent farmhouse only infrequently, Clark hadn’t been there for some time since he moved to Quantico and now Metropolis. But he had freshened the place and stored groceries in preparation for the Antarctic Expedition, as they were now calling it.

After a quick meal, Clark, holding Pete at his side, had flown on to KU, landing in Marvin Grove. Marvin Grove, a thick stand of trees, was conveniently across the street from Pete’s office building. It was after sunset and really dark amidst the trees, despite the lights in Memorial Stadium on the north side of the Grove, where a football game was in full swing.

Swiveling in his desk chair, Pete looked over at Clark and was surprised to see a wistful expression on his face. He could read his brother like an open book and hoped that Clark was more careful in his FBI job. He couldn’t understand the expression until he, too, heard the roar of the crowd at the game and the excited cries of “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” as a touchdown was scored. Clearly Clark had heard the rallying cry much earlier, and was also probably listening to the announcer at the game.

“Miss it, hunh,” Pete said sympathetically.

“Yes, no, maybe, sometimes.” Clark shrugged, shaking his thoughts away. “Got to move on in life. You can’t live in college forever.” Then he paused and quirked a smile at Pete and said, “Well, maybe you can.”

“Hey, I’m a poor penurious associate professor. I can’t afford to move on. I even live 20 miles away in Baldwin City because I can’t afford housing in Lawrence. I don’t go to things like the White Orchid Ball hosted by the fabled Lex Luthor.”

That made Clark think of Lois and his expression smoothed out and he even smiled slightly.

‘Oh boy, Clark’s found somebody,’ Pete thought. ‘Well, good for him. I really hope it works out.’

“So to business, here, Clark. I asked you here for a serious reason. I didn’t want to bring this up out in Antarctica. That moment was special and priceless to me –and even to you, I think.”

Pete took a deep, calming breath. The news he was about to impart was literally deadly. “You may or may not know that for a long time EPRAD has been monitoring the path of NEOs – Near Earth Objects. They are looking for potential threats to Earth. The dinosaurs were a long time in the past and Earth may be ready for another impact. The problem is what can we do about it? We never did build a missile defense shield against the not-mourned Soviet Union, so we have nothing with which to protect ourselves. I want to play a video I received over the secure – I emphasize secure- EPRADnet. I don’t know how many clearances you have, but I suspect they are higher than mine.”

Clark shrugged one shoulder slightly and his expression smoothed out more.

‘Aha, he does know how to control his expressions,’ Pete thought, turning to his computer and motioning Clark to look over his shoulder. “I got this message yesterday,” realizing they had both lost and gained a day on their trip, he waved his hand, “or whenever, before I left. It’s from Stephen Daitch who has been in charge of the NEO program at EPRAD for several years. If he has sent out this call for ideas, this NEO is a serious danger to Earth. Here it is.” Pete pushed play on his secure system. The standard security logos were shown, followed by the classification level, and then the lean gray-haired figure of Daitch appeared, earnestly addressing his audience.

“Just recently the NEO program has detected a new asteroid coming out of the belt area and headed most directly toward Earth. Since it is still approximately two months away, the data on its path is not certain, but it bears watching. We have alerted the extensive network of amateur astronomers, but not really told them why we are concerned.”

“We have named this particular NEO ‘Nightfall’, which hints at its possible threat. Our estimates at present are that it is close to 1.7 miles across. It is traveling close to 47-thousand miles an hour or 13.3 miles every second. At its present distance, we can’t tell the shape, but if it is spherical, the Yarkovsky effect could increase its probability of impact as it approaches closer to the sun, particularly if it is in retrograde spin.”

A video appeared on the screen, showing a dot of light moving against the background of stars.

“This is what we have for now from the telescopes at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. They are currently tasked with tracking the orbit. We a looking for ideas on how to deal with this problem once it is closer to Earth. The more data from our fellow astronomers we can get, the more accurate our estimates will be. That is all for now. We will update with new information on this channel periodically. Anyone with ideas, please respond immediately. Once it passes the moon, it will be here in a little over five hours. I repeat, it will collide somewhere on Earth within five hours of passing the Moon’s orbit. That is not a lot of time to mount any kind of defense even if we had anything.” With a solemn expression, Daitch ended the transmission.

Pete turned off the computer and looked up at Clark. His face was in shadow since the only light was Pete’s desk light and a corner light. He watched Clark turn and sit back down in the old comfortable chair dragged from their childhood home to his office.

Leaning toward Clark, forearms on his thighs, Pete said conversationally, “You took physics and astronomy. You know about Meteor Crater in Arizona and the hundreds of craters in Patagonia, ranging from 300 feet across up to nearly one third of a mile. The Arizona crater is three hundredths of a mile. This thing is the size of…”

“Twenty-five football fields, I know.” Clark said. “It is estimated a meteor 6 tenths of a mile across would decimate a region on Earth. Something like the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. This is three times that. But what do you want me to do?”

Pete shrugged and said lightly, “Move it out of the way? A little shove?”

“Yeah, but the Earth is going to be in total panic and be prepared for doom before I can do anything. Nobody is going to wait until the last hour to panic. This is eventually going to have to go public.”

In a seeming non sequitur, Pete asked, “So how did you get to the Moon?”

Clark looked at him like he was nuts. “I flew.”

“But what did you wear?”

“My dive wet suit and my 80 cubic foot air tank. I don’t need much air, but I do need some.”

“Seems to me that might work here. When it gets closer we may be able to find leverage points and figure out where to push it. We’ll have a lot more data on the orbit around the sun and the momentum vector then. Actually, we’ll have months of data. It’s 70 million miles away now. And we want it to go around the sun, all happy and alone. What we don’t want is Earth getting in its way. And we certainly can’t move the Earth, so the other choice is to move the asteroid.”

Clark nodded briefly, noncommittally, moving his face into the light. “So what do we do about the panic?”

“Find somebody the public can trust. And I don’t think a black dive suit will do it. We don’t want a Batman-wannabe running about.”

Realization dawned across Clark’s features. “You,” he pointed at his brother, “have something already in mind.”

Pete smiled in response. “Oh yeah. The world needs a hero, and,” he pointed back at Clark, “you need to keep your life. I propose a costume!”

Clark sputtered. “Like Batman?”

“No, Heroman.”

“So who would make this fabulous costume?”

“How about Rita? She’s a dress designer and can sew up a storm.”

Clark raised both hands in protest, “My sister is not measuring my inseam!”

“Relax, Clark. She can measure your wet suit. That’s snug enough, right?”

Nodding, Clark appeared appeased, at least on that issue. “So what’s next and you are going to have to explain to me why this costume thing is a good idea and how it will calm the panic.”

“Well, first we have to get the world to know and trust Heroman. So he’s the one who goes up to divert the asteroid and the powers that be don’t get the half-baked idea to throw nukes at it. That would just make the fallout worse by breaking it up and scattering it over a wider area.”

“Heroman, hunh. What, rescuing kittens out of trees? And where would I do this stuff to attract enough attention?” On the thought, Clark buried his face in his hands and mumbled through them. “Oh, God. Attention is what I’ve tried to avoid all my life. I don’t know if I can do this! Physically, yes. It’s the mental part that has me worried. Facing crowds of people…” He muttered off into a funk. “And where should I do this that gets sufficient attention?”

Pete was sympathetic to his brother’s plight and distress. He had watched him be so careful to not reveal his abilities to anyone. Pete had not found out about his abilities himself until Clark had decided to become an adult at 16 and travel the world after graduation from Smallville High. Clark had taken him back to the farm and demonstrated his amazing powers to him, then said goodbye and left right then and there. At that point he was the only one in the family who knew.

Clark came back a more assured person. He was now clearly a man and not a boy anymore. He had joined Pete at KU and lived with him for a while, since dormitory life was a little too public for him. Pete had learned about a dormitory fire that had been mysteriously put out and other small incidents around the campus told him Clark was at work using his abilities. Flash floods had roared through the area the miserable wet winter of Clark’s sophomore year when Clinton Lake overflowed, but the KU campus had received minimal damage. His brother would come home muddy and drenched; then Pete realized that Clark was helping as only he could help.

“Well, you said you were working at the Daily Planet in Metropolis as a cover for an investigation. It seems to me, Metropolis would be the ideal place. Also, being at its premier news outlet, you might be able to put the right spin on it to make sure Heroman is portrayed as a hero and not a danger. We need the public’s trust on this to minimize their fear.”

“And then it is still going to be dicey,” Clark finished the thought for him.

“Another advantage is that EPRAD is headquartered in Metropolis, so you will be at the heart of the action, so to speak. It’s those people that are going to be tough to convince you can do the job. Is there anyone else you could use as an ally? Someone high up you know from the FBI side?”

Clark paused on the thought, and then slowly shook his head no. “I don’t think it would help, but there is someone, maybe. I don’t know.” He looked over at Pete.

“So are you going to call Rita and propose this idea? If so, I’ve got to go to Metropolis and do something like work for a day. So let’s make it the day after tomorrow, which is…” Clark glanced at his watch, which was still on Metropolis time, “Wednesday morning.”

“Sounds good. Now this mere human needs some sleep after our Expedition and I have a class Wednesday morning, so make it afternoon.

“Sounds like a deal. I’ll drop you off at Baldwin City tonight and pick you up at noon local Wednesday.”

*+*+*+*+*+*+

It was a somber Clark who walked into the Daily Planet newsroom Tuesday morning and looked around. The place was busy with activity. Perry was in his office and Jimmy was hustling around. None of these people had a clue about what could be in store for them. What bothered him most of all was what would happen to Lois. He suspected that he would survive, but those he loved would be gone and what kind of life was that? Very, very lonely, he assumed.

He had wandered the earth after graduating from Smallville High and enjoyed his visits to many cultures, and he had a wonderful time at Quantico, but he felt the closest to a home, here, in Metropolis at the Daily Planet. Quantico had been fun and actually pushed his abilities to do and to not be detected. Now the concept was to go out and lay it all out before the public. But what was a little stage fright compared to the lives of his friends, not to mention perhaps all of humanity? Who knew what kind of damage Nightfall would really do?

Clark walked slowly toward his desk near Lois’, looking carefully at his pretend coworkers. Even though he was here undercover, he had become friendly with many of them.

As he approached his desk, he looked at its surface and became confused. It was full of stacks of file folders, like someone else was using it. Had someone else been hired? He almost gasped. ‘To work with Lois?’ He looked over at her.

Lois turned and smiled at him. “Welcome back, cowboy. How was your extended weekend back at the ranch?”

Sitting in her guest chair, Clark corrected, “Farm. It’s a farm, Lois, not a ranch. And I’m not a cowboy.”

She shrugged, elegantly nonchalant. “What’s the difference?”

“More acreage and a lot of cattle. Which I don’t have.” He gestured to his desk. “What’s with my desk?”

Lois reached over from her keyboard and laid her hand on top of his hand lying on the desk. Clark felt the electric shock from her touch. Lois looked him in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Clark. I’ve been using your desk too on our joint research project.” She lifted her left eyebrow in a knowing look and Clark relaxed. He was too tense, but no wonder with what was going on. Lois’ touch had magically made his worries decrease and his optimism increase. Pete’s plan would work. It had to.

Their joint research was, of course, Luthor. He couldn’t believe he had actually forgotten Luthor. Somehow his doings paled with what Clark now knew. But that event was months away.

Lois saw Clark relax and smiled wider. ‘Oh, yeah, he still has feelings for me.’ She still didn’t understand why he had cooled off the romance. Maybe he had three rules. But she had patience for some things. “So, did you have a good time?”

“Yeah, I took my brother Pete on a trip for his birthday.”

“Oh, great! Where did you go?”

“Down south.” He couldn’t suppress a smirk. It was nice talking to Lois again. It always made his day much more enjoyable.

“So how was Florida?”

Clark felt confused. Antarctica was way further south than Florida and around the globe. But it was better she not know that, and better to let her assumption ride. “Fine, just fine. Not too warm for this time of year, though.” His smile increased.

“Well, I need to bring you up to speed. Let’s go to a conference room.”

“The small one is vacant.”

“How do you know? It was in use last time I looked.”

Oops. The truth was the conference room in question was behind her back and he had just looked into it. Better she not know that now. “I just saw somebody leave and the door was open.”

“Great,” Lois said, rising from her chair and taking a file out of her locked drawer. “Come on.”

They walked briskly to the conference room and entered. Lois turned and locked the door.

Clark stood right behind her, so she turned into him as she headed for the table. He raised his right hand to cup her cheek and neck and looked into her eyes. “Before we start, Lois, I just want to say how sorry I am for shutting you out these last few weeks. I had my reasons, but right now they seem silly.” He smiled ruefully. “Can you forgive me?”

Lois put her free hand on the wrist of the hand touching her. “I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought maybe I had scared you off with ‘take charge Lois.’”

“I don’t scare that easily. Can I kiss you? I really, really want to kiss you.”

She leaned in until her breath puffed on his lips. “Yes.”

Clark gratefully closed the miniscule distance to her and began to kiss her like a drowning man getting his first taste of water. The folder crunched between them and Clark grabbed it, held it in one hand and put both arms around her as he intensified the kiss.

Lois responded eagerly, moving her lips enthusiastically over his and teasing his upper lip with her tongue. Clark moaned and opened his mouth. Lois responded with a “Hmmmm” purr in her throat. Clark backed up until he was partially sitting on the table and opened his legs so she was between them. Finally after some time, he began to end the now very long kiss, placed the folder on the table and held Lois by the shoulders, touching her forehead to forehead.

“You are the most tremendous kisser in the whole world, Lois.” Clark drew a deep breath. “I really needed that. It gives me hope.”

“Hmmm? Hope? Why do you need hope?” They pulled apart and looked into each other’s eyes. Lois saw a new pain in Clark’s eyes. “Things not going so well in your other job?”

‘Yeah, my third job,’ he thought. Seizing the opportunity for an excuse for possibly getting more comfort, he smiled. “You caught me. Yeah, that’s it.”

“Well, cheer up, farmboy. I’ve got good news.”

His eyebrow quirked at the term ‘farmboy.’ “Farmboy? What happened to cowboy?”

Lois smiled. “You said you didn’t have cows. That it was a farm. So…farmboy it is. As I said, I’ve got good news.”

Oh, and pray tell, what is that?”

“First let’s sit and you take a look at that folder.”

Clark seized her hand and they sat down at adjacent chairs at the table before he reluctantly let her hand go to pull over the folder and open it. He saw the note with his writing giving the license plate of the black SUV that had tried to shove them off the road. Then he saw a photo of the outside of a non-descript warehouse, probably near Hobs Bay. At the next photo, he exclaimed, “The SUV!”

Turning to Lois, Clark grabbed her hand again and enthusiastically kissed it. He just really enjoyed kissing any part of her. “How did you find it?”

“A snitch of mine tipped me and I reported it to Henderson. The forensics team went over it and found nothing, nada, zip. It’s a rental fleet vehicle, but there is no record of anyone renting it that evening or since. Interestingly, I think, the warehouse is not too far from where the Toasters did their biggest work.”

At her mention of The Toasters, Clark’s expression turned sappy.

“What?”

“I’m just remembering our undercover assignments at the Metro Club.”

On the statement, Lois’ expression turned soft too. “Yeah, I liked Charlie from the get-go.” She leaned over to him and whispered, “But I like Clark better.”

Clark took the hint and responded with another soul-shattering kiss. As they slowly emerged from the kiss, Lois looked at him with her huge brown eyes. “Maybe we could have dinner tonight – together?” One look at the regretful expression on Clark’s face as he closed off from her told her that wasn’t going to be possible.

“Sorry, the other job calls.”

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Clark was hating the evening meeting even more as he filed into the basement vault of the FBI building in Metropolis. The white noise dampers were on and the cheesy elevator music played in the background as they all took their seats. They had deposited their cell phones and Glock 23’s along with their backups-of-choice in lockers before stepping through the metal detector. Well, Clark didn’t carry a gun, which was unusual, but he didn’t need it and felt freer without it. So he only had a cellphone and keys to lock up. In spite of not carrying regularly, Clark was a crack shot and had aced the rifle and handgun training at Quantico.

His reflexes had earned him praise during the Hogan’s Alley exercises, simulating urban search and rescue of hostages. He had been embarrassed at the praise, since he was using his abilities.

With the busy future in front of him, he had really hoped to spend the evening with Lois Lane. Instead, he was sitting in one of the many observer chairs along the wall. The big people were at the table in the plusher chairs. Everyone was dressed in casual clothes, but he could pick out his Special Agent in Charge, the Metropolis Assistant Director in Charge, and amazingly, the Director himself down from Washington, D.C. He also noticed several military types who, though dressed in mufti, wore their rank with their haircut and bearing. At the head of the table was a tall, rangy man Clark hadn’t seen before.

Clark’s SAC, Bob Bernadacki, was playing host, since it was their facility. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry for the late night meeting, but we have astonishing new intel. To brief us, I would like to introduce Admiral Sam Lane, head of the NIA office in Metropolis.”

Clark almost gasped aloud as tall, rangy dude began to talk. His mind did blank as he realized he was spending the evening, not with Lois, but with her father.

“Thanks, Bob. As you all know, we have been trying to zero in on this huge gun running operation that is feeding almost all the serious hot spots in the world. Really, it is more than a gun running operation in that it is all types of weapons for close combat, such as Stingers, Dragons and even Predators. Along with that come the usual Uzi’s and AK-47s in very large numbers. The source of all this covert traffic is right here in Metropolis.”

Suddenly, Clark wished that Nightfall would hit Metropolis. But innocent people would be wiped out as well. Too bad there was no way to separate out the bad people of the world. But he supposed that was exactly what he was doing and what everyone in this room was doing.

Admiral Lane made a gesture and a picture of a gray haired elegant man appeared on the wall behind him. “This is Nigel St. John, formerly of MI-6. The British has disavowed any knowledge of his new doings and cashiered him over ten years ago. He seems to have set up shop in Metropolis and has become a very powerful underworld figure. He took over many of the people from the Metro Gang that are not currently in jail.” He gestured again and a picture of the black SUV appeared on the screen.

Clark did gasp out loud. It was the SUV and the picture he had seen this afternoon.

The Admiral continued. “We found this vehicle stashed, abandoned, in a warehouse in Hobs Bay, near the former Toasters territory. We want all eyes, ears and surveillance on this area to see if we can pick up any leads to the stashes of weapons. Activate all your snitches. We have rumblings overseas that new shipments are expected within just months. We don’t know if that is by air or sea.”

Once Admiral Lane had stated the severity of the problem, the Director of the FBI stood and delineated the roles of the agency in Metropolis, the US and overseas to support eliminating the new threat. The Admiral sat in an alert posture, but Clark sensed that he wasn’t paying that much attention to the roll call of duties. He was a “get it done” guy, not so interested in how it got done.

The meeting was concluded about an hour later. The Admiral had stayed throughout, looking alert the whole time. Actually, that was an indicator of the seriousness of the issue at hand. Many leaders in Clark’s experience simply left after their introductory remarks, leaving the details to the underlings. Lane wanted to know the details of the how and where and his mere presence was a sign of the importance.

As Clark was filing out of the room with the other agents, Bob Bernadacki, called out “Kent, wait up.”

Clark stopped by him and Admiral Lane walked casually over to the two of them.

Bob said, “Admiral Lane, this is Special Agent Clark Kent. He was the one chased by that black SUV.”

Clark turned to Lane, unconsciously squaring his shoulders. He found a pair of piercing fighter jock’s eyes staring into his eyes. Clark didn’t blink and looked back calmly. The Admiral thrust out his right hand, “Pleased to meet you, Kent.”

Clark accepted the offered hand and felt the very firm handgrip. He made his grip firm, but less pressure than the Admiral’s. A message sent and received.

Clark smiled one of his best smiles. “I was very happy to escort your daughter home safely, sir. And it has been a pleasure working with her at the Daily Planet. She is a very brilliant and talented woman.”

Another message sent and received.

Bob looked startled. He had no idea that Kent was working with the Admiral’s daughter.

+*+*+*+*+*+*

tbc

Artemis