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Synopsis of Chapters 1 - 8 Missing Lois - TOC ***
Where we left off in Part 9...Clark thought about this. Why would Lois be having nightmares about Jason Trask? He thought that man was long dead and buried. “What do you think it means? That she’s dreaming about him?”
“He represents someone who tried to kill people near and dear to her. You, your family, and Superman. Perhaps he symbolizes the unknown, the boogeyman if you will, out to destroy what’s left of her happiness.”
Tempus he could see, like the dreams he had of him, before he reappeared as John Doe. But Trask?
A buzzer sounded. “Oh, Mr. Kent. My next appointment is here. This has been very informative.” Dr. Friskin held out her hand and he shook it. “May I recommend that you accompany Lois the next time we meet? Perhaps together we can rebuild those trust bridges. Shall I pencil you in?” She flipped open her black appointment book.
He stood up. “No! God, no. It would crush her, if she knew I followed her…”
Dr. Friskin looked at him. “I will not keep your appearance today a secret from her, Mr. Kent. She needs to know you are concerned about her. May I recommend that you reconsider?”
“I’ll think about it.” He swallowed. “I’d better be getting back to the office.”
“Good day.” She smiled as he left the room.
Clark put a hand to his head. Lois was going to kill him for spying on her.
***
Part 10Clark wrapped their new baby in a blanket and walked back to Lois. “Mommy, meet your son,” he said, showing his wife the puckered face of the newborn as he passed their baby to her. Their son had their dark hair. He yawned and then screamed. He had his big sister’s lungs. Clark chuckled, kissing his son’s head. Lois leaned over and kissed the baby’s head at the same time, feeling the immense love emanating from their child. The baby, feeling their intense love, calmed down almost immediately.
Then her husband kissed her dry lips. “I love you, Mommy.”
Lois gathered up her strength and pulled him back for another kiss. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Aww, isn’t this heartwarming?” said a familiar voice from the doorway. A man dressed in surgical scrubs and mask entered the room. He lowered his mask and pointed some sort of aerosol spray can towards them.
“Trask!” growled Clark, leaping over the table.
But the instant he moved, Trask pushed the button on the aerosol can and filled the air with a green mist. Clark began to choke, falling to the ground. “Lois,” he gasped, turning towards her, pleading. “Our son.”
Lois had just given birth. There was no way she could move. She held their son as tightly as her weak arms could, covering his face with his baby blanket.
“I’ll just be taking this,” said Trask, pulling their gasping son out of her arms.
“Daddy!” she called to her father, but Sam Lane just stood there shaking in fear, not knowing what to do.
“Good day, folks!” Trask called as he and their newborn son left the operating room.
“Lois!” Clark gasped, reaching for her before collapsing in a heap on the ground.“No!” Lois screamed. “Clark!” She was awake now. She pulled her legs up to her chest and cried. “Clark.”
He was in the bedroom a second later, still dressed in his Superman suit. “Lois, what’s wrong?” Clark asked, kneeling down beside her.
She held out her hand to him. “Clark.”
He took hold of her hand and pulled her into his embrace. “I’m here.”
Lois laid her head on his chest and cried.
Clark held her, wrapping her in his red cape. He sighed. He had promised himself he would never do this, because it was what the other Clark did. But when she cried out to him like that, changing his clothes was the last thing on his mind. It must have been the same for the other Clark. When she screamed in terror, everything else took a backseat. He had actually dropped a couple of criminals off at the nearest police precinct… outside on the steps, because he had heard her scream. As he told her before, he could only help the rest of the world when he knew she was safe. That still held true.
Her crying calmed down and he kissed her forehead. “Lois, we need to talk.”
His wife sniffled. “What about?”
Clark actually had to stop himself from chuckling. “What do you think? These nightmares.”
“I’m fine now. You can go.” She pushed away from him and went to lie back down.
“Lois.” He spooned her, so his front was pressed against her back. “Tell me about your dream. It’s not good to keep it bottled up. Something’s bothering you. Tell me what it is.”
She sniffled. “No.”
“Lois, please. Tell me about your dream.”
Lois was quiet for a few minutes and he wondered if she had gone back to sleep. “Trask kidnapped our newborn son,” she whispered.
Clark froze, stiff as a board. “We have a son?” He swallowed. She had had twins?
“In the dream, Clark.”
He relaxed. Right, the dream. “Oh.”
“In the dream, I had just given birth to the most adorable son with dark hair and eyes. Lara’s little brother. You brought him over to me and we bonded with him.”
Clark kissed her hair. So far, a good dream.
“Then Trask walks in, dressed in surgical scrubs, sprays you with a Kryptonite mist and steals our son, leaving you to die on the floor. I’m too weak to get up, let alone chase him.”
The rest of the dream was really, really bad, horribly bad. Clark cleared his throat. “It was just a dream, Lois.”
“I know.”
“Trask is dead,” he reminded her.
She sat up. “You don’t think I know that? I’ve searched the database, trying to figure out who this shadowy Trask figure is. He abandoned his wife and son in 1980, when the boy was three. The son is twenty, twenty-one now. A junior at Met U., English lit. major. He’s into theater and renaissance fairs. It doesn’t exactly scream vendetta psycho to me.”
Clark leaned on his palm staring at her. “You researched Trask’s family?”
Lois nodded. “These dreams mean something, Clark. I don’t know what yet. I’m afraid if I don’t find out soon, something real is going to beat me to it.”
“Real?”
“You’ll die for real, before I can figure out these dreams.”
Clark wrapped his arms and cape around her once more. “I’m not going anywhere, Lois.”
Lois placed a hand on his cheek. “That’s sweet, Clark. Not true, but sweet.”
“I mean I’m not planning on dying anytime soon,” he corrected with a snicker.
Elbowing him, she said, “Nobody plans on dying, Clark. It just happens, usually when you least expect it.”
“So, I die in all these dreams?” Nice.
“No. In the first one, you just weren’t there. Trask threw me out of the plane, only there was no Clark Kent, no Superman, and I just fell to my death.”
Clark swallowed, pulling her against his chest. “But I was there. I did save you.”
“Just a dream, Clark. Not a change in history.”
“Right.” He nodded. “And Trask was in all these dreams?”
Lois shook her head. “Most of them. The one I had after Bobby BigMouth came to dinner, Trask wasn’t in that dream directly.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re out at your parent’s farm, enjoying a warm summer’s day. Lara’s about three. Your Mom has made strawberry shortcake.”
“Yum!”
“But Kryptonite seeped into the groundwater, polluting your parents’ well. So, when your Mom made the lemonade in the dream, it looked green in the light. That’s how I knew something was wrong.”
“Kryptonite in the groundwater?” He shivered, just the thought…
“That chunk of Kryptonite you threw against that rock, while you were fighting Trask, remember?”
“Not something one forgets easily, Lois.”
“You said it shattered, pulverized by the impact, right? Well, what happened to all that Kryptonite dust? I cannot believe you fought Trask in that water and survived to tell me about it.” He can hear the disbelief in her voice.
“I’ll take soil and water samples the next time we’re in Kansas. I promise. We’ll send them to Dr. Klein for analysis. Put your worries to rest.”
“Thank you.” Lois closed her eyes and snuggled against his neck. “I’ve missed you.”
Did she mean him or Superman? Clark hated that this old question had come back.
Still, it felt good to have Lois so close, in his arms. The other night he almost wasn’t able to stop himself from getting closer, all the way closer. But every time he got close to his wife, desired her in that way, he wondered if she was really thinking about the other Clark, wanting him instead of her husband. Would she be pretending in her mind that he was the other Clark, like she had when she heard the Elvis music? Having her so close though, her scent was overpowering. There was always something quintessentially Lois about how she smelled.
She cheated on you, a voice inside him reminded him. But how close had he been to cheating on her as well? What if that pregnant woman at his folks’ farm
had been the other Clark’s Lois like his mom had told him? He had felt a connection to that other Lois when she had kissed him, even though it had only been two seconds before the other Clark burst through the door. If he hadn’t known she wasn’t his wife, would he have known? What if that pregnant Lois had taken him up on his offer to run away with him using the time machine and make love? And then turned out to be the other Clark’s girlfriend, instead of his own wife? True, Clark would have thought he was making love with his wife. But he would have been equally guilty of cheating as his wife currently was. Thankfully, the pregnant woman had turned out to be his Lois, his partner, his wife. And, either way, they had not gone off together.
Clark pressed his lips together. But Lois
knew the other Clark was another man, not her husband Clark, when she had slept with him. He closed his eyes trying to push these thoughts aside as he savored Lois’s sweet essence, but a picture of her kissing another Superman – as the other man laughed at him – flashed in front of his eyelids. He swallowed the bad taste in his mouth and opened his eyes. Clearing his throat, he murmured, “Lois.”
She sighed and withdrew, lying back down on the bed. Lois took one last look at him before closing her eyes. A moment later, they flew back open. “Hey!” His wife pointed at him. “You forgot to change. You’re in your blue suit.”
Lois hadn’t noticed. Really? Some of the ice around his heart cracked.
She smiled, reaching up to his cheek. “I love you, husband.”
And I love you, wife, he thought, kissing the palm of her hand.
Lois closed her eyes and murmured, “Always.”
He continued to lie next to her until she was fast asleep again.
***
Lois and Penny walked along the path to the auditorium.
“It was so sweet of Clark to volunteer to stay home with Lara, so you could come to this lecture with me,” said Penny.
Lois raised a brow. Penny had an annoying habit of describing her husband as ‘sweet’. “He and Jimmy are watching the game.”
“Still, if there was an emergency, he wouldn’t be able to leave.” Penny sighed.
Again, Jimmy was there, Lois thought, wishing she could defend her husband out loud. Instead, she said, “Really, Penny, you’ve got to stop believing this ridiculous notion that my husband moonlights in blue tights.”
Penny shook her head. “Right, Lois. Good try. I don’t know why you guys won’t just admit to me what I already know to be true.”
Time for a change of subject. “What interests you in Bruce Wayne?”
Penny sighed again. “You mean, besides the fact that he’s dreamy?”
Lois controlled the impulse to gag. “Did you tell Jimmy who was hosting tonight’s lecture?”
Penny blushed. “No. I just told him the subject ‘Women in Technical Fields.’ After that, I could have told him Brad Pitt was dancing a naked hula and he wouldn’t have heard. Did you tell Clark?”
Oh, definitely not. “Let’s just say the topic didn’t come up. What he doesn’t know, won’t kill him.”
Penny seemed surprised. “I thought you told each other everything.”
“He doesn’t really like Bruce Wayne,” Lois admitted.
“Really? Why not?”
Lois wished she could tell Penny it was because Bruce was a pig, but Clark had expressed dislike of the man before she even went on that sham interview. “That’s exactly what I’d like to know,” she finally replied.
“Bruce Wayne seems so genuine.”
Lois was beginning to wonder which screw in Penny’s head had come loose.
“Believe me, he’s anything but. A real slime ball. A tactless pig.” Lois shivered remembering their so-called interview. She was also curious. Curious why a man would order
I’m Sorry roses two days before meeting someone. Why wouldn’t he want her to like him, when he seemed to ooze charm for everyone else? Especially since she wasn’t the type of woman who men tried to repel. He must have a reason. Anyone who possessed Kryptonite expected to cross the wrong side of Superman. And anyone who crossed the wrong side of Superman should expect an expose written by Lois Lane to follow soon thereafter. So, what was Bruce Wayne hiding that he didn’t want Superman to find out? Did Clark already know Bruce Wayne’s secret? If Clark had found out what Bruce was hiding, why hadn’t he told her?
***
Lois stood up and picked up her purse from the floor.
Penny was still applauding.
The reporter in her had to admit, Bruce Wayne put on a good show. She would type up an article for Perry when she got home. Tugging on her nanny’s arm, Lois said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Penny’s face was flushed with excitement. Graduate school had better watch out. “I want to go introduce myself to Professor Hodgins. Meet me in the lobby?”
Lois waved her on. The reporter wondered when she had lost her youthful exuberance for knowledge. For a story, yes, but for learning new things in a classroom, no. It made her feel old. Maybe it was because she would hit thirty a year earlier than her birthday said she would. Everyone would be making twenty-nine year old jokes and technically, she would really be turning thirty. She sighed; some days she felt more like sixty.
“Lois? Lois Lane!” a voice called to her.
She turned and saw Bruce Wayne bearing down on her. Just what she needed; a headache in a suit. “Mr. Wayne.”
“Oh, come on. Why so formal? I apologized. Let me do so, again. I treated you horribly the other day and I’m sorry.” He held out his hand. “I’d really like us to be friends.”
Lois looked at his hand, but did not shake it. “Friends? Why would you want to be friends with me? We don’t exactly move in the same circles, Mr. Wayne.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said as a big grin slipped onto that chiseled face.
She raised a brow. Curious.
“And I insist you call me Bruce.”
“Well, Mr. Wayne, you want to tell me the truth now? If you want us to be friends, why order an apology bouquet two days before we met? A day before you even asked for the interview.”
If he was startled by her investigative skills, it didn’t show. He smiled. “You always impressed me with your intelligence, perseverance, and tenacity.” He coughed. “But I wouldn’t want to turn your head with my flattery.”
Lois scoffed. “Fat chance of that happening.”
Bruce’s smile grew as if that was exactly what he wanted to hear. So, he did not want her admiration. Good. He wasn’t going to get it. He rubbed his jaw. “Your husband is a jealous man.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I needed to prove to him I was a different kind of billionaire philanthropist than he was used to dealing with. Guarantee him that his wife wouldn’t be charmed by my handsome face and all my money. That he had nothing to fear from me on that front.”
Lois crossed her arms and stared at him, trying to figure him out. “Why all this interest in Clark? You’re Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy. He’s Clark Kent, hardworking family man. I can’t see why you would want to impress some average Joe reporter from Metropolis.”
“When you put it like that…” Bruce chuckled. “I admit it sounds strange, but I like him.”
“Clark is nice.”
“He is. A darn nice guy.”
They both looked at each other and shivered. That had been John Doe’s slogan.
Bruce continued. “Even when he burst into my office to tell me to stay away from you… he’s so admirable.”
“You obviously don’t listen well, do you?”
Bruce grinned. “I’ve always had trouble playing by someone else’s rules. But then so do you. You accepted my invitation, did you not?”
“What invitation?” Lois asked.
“To the lecture.”
“No. A friend invited me.”
He glanced around. “A friend?”
“Aww. Were you planning on abducting me?” Lois yawned. “It’s been so long since I’ve been kidnapped, I’m beginning to feel that the bad guys don’t care anymore.”
Bruce chuckled. “You’re funny. No. I’m not going to abduct you, Lois. Really, I’m one of the good guys.”
Lois saw Penny from across the lobby and waved. She turned back to Bruce with a shake of her head. “Good guys don’t have to tell people they’re good, Mr. Wayne. They demonstrate it with their actions.”
“Thanks for the constructive criticism, Lois. I’ll work on that… Well, hello, there.” Bruce grinned at Penny, giving her the full once over.
Penny stared in shock to be standing so close to him.
“Penny, Bruce Wayne. Mr. Wayne, my friend I mentioned, Penny Barnes.”
Automatically Penny held out her hand. Bruce took it in his and instead and shaking it, kissed it. “Enchanté,” he said in French.
Penny surprised both of them by replying in perfect French.
Bruce responded in kind and then switched back to English. “Lois is having a hard time following our conversation, Penny.” Then he got a curious expression on his face. “Penny?... Where have I heard?... Jimmy!” For the first time all evening Bruce Wayne looked shocked. “No.” He shook his head. “There is no way that cub photographer caught you on his own. I don’t believe it.” He studied her, then glanced at Lois with a slightly worried expression.
“Actually, I caught him,” Penny replied, smiling.
“That I can believe, but why?” Bruce Wayne actually looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth.
“Jimmy’s a great guy,” Lois defended her friend.
“You could say he’s
almost super.” Penny bubbled. “Ninety-seven percent super in fact.”
Bruce glanced at the two women in dismay as they burst into laughter.
After a minute, Lois said, “Private joke.”
“It’s really a funny story…” Penny started.
Lois put her hand on her arm. “Bruce Wayne isn’t interested in how you and Jimmy met.”
“Actually, I could use a good laugh,” he corrected her.
Penny glanced at Lois, who shook her head, slightly. She smiled at Bruce. “Another time perhaps.”
Forward, thought Lois, especially for someone with a steady boyfriend. Then Lois glanced at Bruce for his reaction.
“I would like that.” He smiled.
No. No. No. No. No. That wasn’t good.
“Shall we go, Penny? The boys are probably wondering where we disappeared off to.”
Penny was staring at him as much as Bruce was staring at her and she didn’t hear a word Lois said. Definitely not good.
“What do you do, Penny?”
“I’m…”
“In graduate school,” interrupted Lois with a sharp glance at Penny, who was clearly oblivious. “She’s studying computer programming.”
“Beautiful, talented, and intelligent, a trifecta. Do you study here at Metropolis University?”
Penny slowly nodded. “I start in the fall.”
“Did you ever consider University of Gotham? Our computer science division is one of the best in the country.”
“Don’t even think of stealing Penny away from Metropolis, Mr. Wayne,” Lois warned. Lara loved her and she would hate to have to replace her so soon after finding her.
Bruce glanced at Lois. “Of course. A woman like Penny belongs among the sunshine and flowers of Metropolis. Gotham City would eat her alive.”
Penny seemed annoyed that they spoke as if she wasn’t there. “I'm from Gotham City, originally, you know, Bruce. Did my undergraduate work at Gotham City College.”
“And how did we lose you to Metropolis? A job?”
“Well, yes. Diticom did offer me a data entry job, but…” Penny blushed. “I came here after a man.”
“Diticom? Are you the Penny Barnes that single handedly brought down Garret Grady, CEO of Diticom?”
“He brought himself down,” Lois mumbled. “With a little help from Superman.”
Penny nodded. “Anyone stupid enough to try to blackmail a superhero deserves any punishment he gets handed.”
Bruce grinned, taking her arm. “I completely agree. Shall I give you ladies a lift home?”
“We’ll manage, thank you,” said Lois, taking Penny’s other arm and tugging. “Goodbye, Mr. Wayne.”
“Yes, thank you for the invitation,” cooed Penny. Lois gave her a sharp look. So, that’s what happened to her ‘invitation.’
“Lois, please, wait,” Bruce followed after them, but then pressed his lips together as if he really didn’t want to say what was on the tip of his tongue after all. Glancing at Penny, he took Lois’s arm and moved her away from her friend, lowering his voice. “Is everything… Is he okay?”
“Who?”
Bruce took another step forward, lowering his voice again. “You-know-who.”
Lois turned to walk off. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s canceled all but a handful of his public appearances in the past two months.”
She froze. He was talking about Superman.
“And over the last three weekends, he’s only rescued that oil tanker in the Gulf and the people of Fuji when that volcano exploded. The rumbling on the streets is growing. I have to know. This doesn’t have to do with my pinball lesson, does it?”
Lois laughed; she couldn’t believe this guy. “Self-centered much, Mr. Wayne? Why would he care one way or another what
you do?”
“He cares about you,” he murmured.
“My
husband cares about me,” she reproached. “Superman and I are just friends.”
Bruce stepped closer. “Look, Lois, I know you don’t trust me, but please know that I’m not out to hurt you. I heard about that incident between you and Superman…”
“Of course, you did. You bugged my corsage.” Lois glared at him.
He plowed on, ignoring her statement. “Once I heard that you hadn’t been covering him at the
Daily Planet since our interview, I did some investigating of my own. I also heard that Clark walked out on you during your romantic weekend in Memphis and took alternative means of transportation home.” He raised a brow.
Penny gasped, covering her mouth.
“You seem extremely too well informed, Mr. Wayne, for an innocent bystander.”
“I like to keep an eye on my friends.” He smiled. “So, I wanted to make sure that he didn’t blame you for my inexcusable behavior.”
Lois ground her teeth. “My husband trusts me. He knows that there isn’t a single person in this universe who’d even tempt me away from him, especially your charming face,” she said, not so lightly patting his face.
“So, he doesn’t think you have a cape fetish, then?” Bruce chuckled.
Her brows came together. What was he talking about? “I didn’t realize you wore a cape, Mr. Wayne.”
Bruce waved off the comment.
Not taking her eyes off him, Penny took hold of Lois’s arm and started to move away from him. “Let’s go, Lois.”
“You’re right, Penny. This conversation has gone on too long.”
Bruce took a few steps to keep up with them and asked Lois point blank, “So, Clark didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Lois wanted to know.
He dodged her question by replying with a vague, “What we talked about when he visited my office, of course. It wasn’t important.”
As she and Penny headed towards the door, Lois heard Bruce comment to himself, “Interesting. Very interesting.”
Lois winced. Clark had found out something about Bruce Wayne and hadn’t told her. What other secrets was he keeping from her?
*** End of Part 10 *** Comments
