I'm finally here for a bit of feedback....
And she knew they’d flown. It had all happened so quickly, but she knew the man hadn’t been running. There hadn’t been the jostling, up-and-down feeling of running. It had been swift and smooth, the only prevailing sensation one of wind whistling across her face and through her hair. And then there had been the deafening explosion, and she’d felt him hold her tighter, felt him protecting her with his own body before gently setting her down a safe distance from the building. Still, Lois might have doubted her own senses had he not then taken off into the air after the helicopter that had presumably carried Antoinette Baines to her own fiery death. But there was no room for doubt: She’d seen a man fly. Seen him just slip away from the earth’s gravity under his own power and take to the sky, his cape fluttering behind him.
I love this description. Of course Lois would doubt that her saviour had really flown, and she would need to explain to herself why she believed - no, why she
knew - that he had indeed flown, no matter how impossible it seemed.
“What were you doing here tonight, Ms. Lane?”
“I was...” She looked at Jimmy and decided his injury had earned him a place in the story. “We were investigating the Messenger explosion. We had reason to believe the shuttle was sabotaged, and we came here looking for proof.”
“Did you have authorization to be here?”
“Um, not exactly.”
“Not exactly,” he repeated.
“We sneaked in,” she admitted. “We needed evidence, and it was obvious we weren’t going to get what we needed through official channels.”
Hah! I love that Lois has to confess to the police that she had been breaking and entering, albeit for a good cause.
“And did you find this evidence?”
She glanced at Jimmy, then back at the policeman. It went against the grain to give her story away before it was printed, even to the police, but she knew this had gone far, far beyond being just a story. “Yes,” she admitted. “When we got here, we realized that the shuttle in the main hangar wasn’t the Messenger. I’d seen the Messenger two days ago when it was first brought in. The whole left side was ripped out. The shuttle we first saw tonight wasn’t like that, and we realized that someone at EPRAD must be trying to cover up evidence of something.”
“And how had you happened to see the Messenger two days ago?”
“I, uh, sneaked in then, too.”
“But you weren’t blown up,” the policeman noted, nodding in the direction of the smoldering buildings. “How do you explain that?”
“I, um, can’t, exactly.” Lois admitted. “A man saved us. I don’t know how he did it, but he saved us.”
“A man?”
Duh, Lois. I have a feeling that this is only going to go downhill.
“A man in a blue bodysuit and a red cape.” She winced slightly, knowing full well how it sounded. But it was the truth, damn it, and there was nothing else she could say. “He snapped my restraints, grabbed me and then Jimmy and flew us to safety.”
The police officer’s expression changed for the first time. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open slightly before he caught himself and pasted the cool look of disinterest firmly back in place. “He flew you?”
“He flew us,” she said firmly. “Look, I know how it sounds....”
Ugh. Ouch.
“Were you injured, Ms. Lane?” The man sounded genuinely concerned. He shifted from one foot to the other, and she heard the creaking sound again. “Perhaps a head injury like your friend here? Should we get the paramedics to...?”
Let's hope you're only suffering from a concussion, eh?
“I don’t mean that you imagined it. Just that...well, you did say he flew."
“I said it because it happened. But he wasn’t an angel.” There was something – something teasing the edges of her consciousness – but it stayed frustratingly out of reach.
Your saviour was
Clark, Lois, okay?
Just behind him stood Clark, looking utterly shaken. She fully expected a lecture from him, but instead, he came forward and opened his arms, and she stepped into them, little caring that Perry was standing right there watching.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled into his shirt front. His arms were around her, secure and sustaining, and it felt so wonderful that she wanted to stand there, just like that, for the rest of her life.
Awww aaawwww aaaawwww! *waffy shivers*
“I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said softly. “I’m so glad you’re all right. Lois, if anything happened to you....” His voice broke and he stopped and heaved a shuddering sigh.
“I know.” She saw it then – saw the thing they had found in one another stretching out into the future, saw all that it could be...all that it already was. It had almost ended that night, cut short by a fiery explosion, and she knew suddenly that she wanted it as much as he did. She wanted to see all that promise fulfilled, one day at a time. “I know,” she said again.
And this is
wonderful. “The real story is that I was rescued by a flying man,” Lois said belligerently. She didn’t like the idea of Henderson and Perry talking about her behind her back – not one little bit. It smacked a little too much of the old boy network for her taste. “I wouldn’t lie to the police, Perry, and I wouldn’t lie to you, either.”
“Honey...” he began.
“Don’t ‘honey’ me,” she said. “I know what that means! You think I got hit on the head or had a hallucination or something. But I didn’t. And there’s no other way I could have gotten out of that hangar. I was tied up and couldn’t budge, and Jimmy was out cold. So if the flying man hadn’t saved me, I’d....”
I love that "Don't 'honey' me".
She turned to him. “Do you believe me?” she asked.
“I....” He swallowed hard. “Um...yes. I believe you. I’m just grateful to...him, whoever he was.”
Tell her, Clark. Tell her sooner rather than later.
His hand went to his glasses and then dropped quickly back to his side, a nervous habit she found endearing.
Yes, take off those glasses and show her, Clark! Only not in front of Perry. I loved how Lois thought that Clark's seeming fiddling with his glasses was a nervous habit.
“Would you, uh, know him again if you saw him?”
“Would I know him? Of course I’d know him! He wore a bright blue bodysuit and a red cape...and he flew! It would be kind of hard to confuse him with someone else.”
So you didn't get a good look at his face, then? Or you did see his face, but your mind just can't accept the idea that the flying man could be Clark?
“Do you really believe me?” she asked.
“I...Lois, I....” He raked his fingers through his hair.
“You don’t,” she said flatly. “You were just saying that to be nice.”
“No! It’s not that. I do believe you, I swear. I just wish I could...make this right somehow. I want to...to...do something, but I’m not sure...what’s the right thing to do.”
She gave him a little smile. “You don’t have to do anything, Clark. None of this is your fault.”
He looked, if possible, even more miserable
Look at the bright side of it, Clark. Lois may have become a laughingstock, but at least she's alive, thanks to you.
“Lois, could we go somewhere?” he blurted, reaching up to brush his fingers across the spot where her lips had just been. “Somewhere where we could be alone?”
“Oh, I’d love that, and I know we were supposed to have dinner tonight, but I really can’t.” She gave him a regretful look and hoped he could see how sincerely she wished they could spend some quiet time alone together. “I need to get this story written, and then I really, really want to get out of these smoky clothes and take a long bath. Could we do it tomorrow, maybe?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and stepping back, putting distance between them. “I guess...tomorrow will be fine.”
I
hope tomorrow will be fine, Lois. Why do I have the feeling that Caroline has some additional evilness planned for you?
Well, great chapter, Caroline! I'm eagerly looking forward to more.
Ann