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Great chapter. I'm glad that we'll now be seeing Clark move forward in his life and I can't wait to see what he does now with his new knowledge of Lex. The conversation between Clark & Lois in the cafe was great.
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Will there be an update soon? Pretty please.............Comment
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Now that Trouble is completed, will you continue with this one?Comment
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I'm glad you liked the conversation between Clark and Lois. As for what Clark is going to do about Lex, we'll see.
Sorry, I've kind of been going where my muse has taken me, but I hope to update soon.
I will continue, I'm just not sure when. I'm working part of this weekend at our version of Comic Con so I'm not sure how much writing I'll be able to do.Comment
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I'll be here whenever you are ready!Comment
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Just a little bumpy, in case you feel like updating..................Comment
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*push*Comment
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Thanks for the little nudge. I'm hopefully almost done with one story so I can get back to my other ones. Sorry, I know it's been a while since I updated but I have been really stressed lately, which hasn't helped. Plus I've given up my job - which was the cause of most of my stress.Comment
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Sorry to hear about that^. Here's hoping things settle down for you. RL sucks sometimes.Comment
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Well, I'm going to be starting a new year in a new place - I move in in early January, so hopefully things will be much better on that front. I haven't forgotten this story, I'm just working on Luthor & Luthor. I thought I would have been finished by now, but it's up to over 110,000 words and I'm still not done.
You're right Sherry. Writing is definitely therapeutic.Comment
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And just in case you've been wondering: There is at least one other user lurking in the shadows waiting patiently for updates.
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^^yep ditto over here! Got my fingers crossed that all works out for you Leanne, New Year, new beginnings. Cheers to you mate.Comment
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Chapter Five
“Okay, Clarkbar, you’ve been fidgeting like you’ve got ants in your pants for the last hour. What’s up?”
Clark frowned at Chloe. They normally met up for a quiet dinner once a week, if possible, or if not, when they could. Today, she’d chosen a small diner outside of the city. It had a reputation as being a rough place, since it was more or less a truck stop, but Chloe had always been fearless and she never worried about such small details.
“That sounds like something your dad would say,” he said.
“But true, nevertheless. What’s going on? I know you went to see Perry yesterday about a job, but ...”
He shook his head and lifted his coffee cup, taking a small sip, grimacing. The coffee was stone cold. He glanced up toward the counter but the sole waitress was busy with another customer.
“Clark, don’t avoid the subject.”
“It’s not about the job, Chloe. It’s ... well, what if you heard something that you know could very well hurt another person, but if you don’t tell them you’ll be doing them just as much of a disservice?”
Chloe frowned.
“Are we talking a hypothetical situation or ... no, it wouldn’t be would it? I guess I’d have to say it depends on what you heard.”
He sighed. He’d known this was going to be a dilemma. He’d been debating in his head all through their dinner whether he should say something to his friend. After all, she was Lois’ cousin as well.
“I can’t tell you,” he said finally. “It’s just ... well ... someone will be hurt if I tell them what I heard. But they’ll be hurt just as much if I don’t tell them.” He knew he'd basically just repeated what he'd just said, but it was worrying him.
She chewed on her lip, then picked up her own coffee cup, scowling as she sipped.
“This coffee’s cold.” She waved it in the air. “Excuse me,” she said loudly. “Could we get a refill?”
“Chloe, don’t,” Clark said softly. “It looks like the waitress is on her own tonight.”
“So?”
He shook his head and sighed. “You and your coffee addiction.”
She grinned unrepentantly. “I’m not addicted,” she said. “I just happen to like coffee.”
“And a lot of it,” he muttered.
“Well, not all of us can get our wake-up juice from, you know, other means.”
The waitress came over, looking extremely apologetic.
“I’m so sorry. Our other waitress is out sick. Let me refill those for you.”
Chloe beamed at her, then looked back at Clark with a shrug. The waitress took away the cups and returned a minute later with fresh coffee for them both.
“There you go. Can I get you anything else?”
“You know, I think I’ll try the pie. Clark?”
He shook his head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll give it a miss.”
Chloe wrinkled her nose. “C’mon Kent, live dangerously.”
“Words to live by, I’m sure,” he sighed, settling back against the worn and cracked leather.
Chloe sipped her coffee and studied him for a moment.
“It sounds to me like you’ve got a bit of a catch-22 situation. If you tell Lois what you know, she’ll get upset. If you don’t tell her she’ll be even more upset.”
Hadn't he just said that, he thought.
“How do you know it’s about Lois?”
“Because I know you, Clarkbar. You wouldn’t be this upset if it involved Nell. She’s a lot tougher than that.” She pursed her lips. “Of course, you may not be giving Lois enough credit either. She’s a lot tougher than you think.”
“Well, being raised by an army general, I guess she’d have to be,” he said. “I still don’t know.”
“Clark, do you remember when I found out the truth about you?”
“Yes,” he said cautiously, wondering where she was going with this.
Chloe had found out the truth about him by accident about a year before he and Lana had got married. She’d witnessed him using his abilities when he’d had no other alternative, but hadn’t told him immediately. Instead she had dropped hint after hint until he’d finally realised what had happened.
“I just about went crazy trying to keep it under wraps,” Chloe was saying. “I finally talked to Lois.”
“You ...”
“Relax. I didn’t tell her what I knew. But I asked her what she would do if she found out something about someone that could potentially hurt them. She told me that it was my decision whether I told you or not, but in the meantime I should go out of my way to be supportive.”
He nodded. He could understand that, but the two situations were completely different. On the one hand, Lois would definitely be upset with him if he didn’t tell her, but on the other, if she knew that Lex was the one behind her father’s disappearance, she could get seriously hurt if Lex decided to do anything.
It was late by the time they left the diner. Clark helped Chloe put on her coat.
“So, I hear Lex has been sniffing around,” she said.
“Uh, yeah. He wants to buy the farm.”
Chloe looked worried.
“What? Clark, that’s all you have left of your parents.”
“I know. I’m not going to sell to him, Chloe.”
“Still, I wonder what he wants with it.”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“Are you looking into it?” she prodded.
“I was going to do a bit of digging and see what I could come up with.”
“Well, if you need any help in that arena, let me know.”
“Thanks, Chloe, but you’re busy enough with your own work. Besides, I don’t have time right now. I have an appointment tomorrow morning.”
“For what?”
“Perry gave me an article to write. It’s not much, but it’s a step.”
“Well, good luck,” she said, hugging him and kissing his cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you too. Sure you don’t want me to come with, make sure you get home okay?”
She grinned. “You know I love taking a walk on the wild side now and then.”
Clark decided to walk instead of taking the bus back into town. It was a fairly warm night for early spring and it was quite pleasant. He often took long walks as it gave him time to think. Nell and Lana had often teased him for the way his mind seemed to work faster than a normal human’s and it was nice to just slow down.
He still had no idea what to do about Lois and her father when he made it back into town shortly before midnight. He was passing the Lexor Hotel when he saw someone running on the roof. He zeroed in on the figure. He couldn’t see the face but what he did see worried him. It was a man dressed in what appeared to be a form-fitting outfit. The man was very agile, able to leap across the gap between two buildings without any problems.
He picked up the sounds of people shouting and what seemed to be panic from the penthouse suite of the hotel. It sounded to him like someone had just been robbed. He could hear Lex trying to calm the situation, without much luck.
Clark again looked for the man on the rooftop, wondering if he’d had anything to do with the robbery, but he was nowhere in sight. Sighing, he continued on home. As much as he wanted to pursue it, the last thing he wanted was to give himself away to someone who could very likely tell the wrong people about him and that would be all she wrote.
He’d had nightmares about it when he’d been little. They’d started to disappear after a while but when his parents had been killed, they had returned full force. Nell had told him that for months afterwards he’d wake up screaming about how ‘they’ were going to come for him. He had sometimes wondered if perhaps the crash that killed his parents had not been an accident after all, but the coroner’s report had assured him that it was indeed an accident.
Still, the fears remained and he chose to hide in the shadows, never giving himself away, if he could help it, and only going to the aid of someone if there was little to no chance of being seen.
He found himself walking past Lois’ apartment building and glanced up at the window where he had first seen her. She wasn’t there and the windows were dark. Either she was in bed or was out somewhere.
***
“Lex, aren’t you going to call the police?” Lois asked, frowning at the bald billionaire.
He shook his head.
“There’s little point. The robber is long gone and it was merely a bauble. Nothing worth getting upset over.”
“I suppose your insurance would cover it anyway,” she said cynically.
He wrapped an arm around her waist.
“I don’t care about that,” he told her. “I care more about the fact that you could have been hurt.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. After all, she’d been the one wearing the necklace that had been taken.
She had reluctantly agreed to accompany Lex to the charity fundraiser, knowing the only reason he was even involved was to impress her. Not to mention the huge tax breaks he would get for hosting the thing, she thought darkly.
Lex had loaned her a necklace which she assumed was worth a great deal of money. Again, it was supposedly something he’d used to show her how much he liked her. Lois was in no doubt about that but a big part of her couldn’t help wondering if he was really just trying to butter her up so she wouldn’t investigate him. She was used to straight talking, but knew empty flattery when she heard it.
“Is everyone all right?”
Lois looked up at the tall blond, giving him a small smile. He was rubbing the back of his head and grimacing.
“We’re fine, Oliver,” Lex said coolly. “What’s wrong with your head?”
“Robber must have hit me on the way in,” he said, wincing. “I was on the balcony, just enjoying some fresh air. Next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor. I heard you got robbed. What was taken?”
Lois frowned at the man. He seemed genuinely concerned, but she couldn’t help noticing an air of hostility between him and Lex. It appeared the two men shared quite a history as well as mutual business interests.
Lex continued to assure the man that everyone was fine and no one was hurt. He seemed to shrug off Oliver’s own apparent injury.
The blond looked at her.
“Please excuse my rudeness,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Oliver Queen.”
“Lois Lane,” she smiled.
“I must say, Miss Lane, I’m surprised to see you at one of these stuffy old things. Such a beautiful woman must have a bevy of admirers willing to wine and dine her.”
She pulled away gently.
“Well, Lex promised he would get me an interview with a couple of people for a story I’m working on,” she said.
Oliver arched an eyebrow.
“A story? Are you a reporter?”
“She happens to be a top investigative reporter at the Daily Planet,” Lex interjected. “And she works for me.”
“I see,” the Star City billionaire said tightly.
Clearly no love lost, Lois thought. She figured it was time to make a graceful exit.
“Uh, I really should get going, Lex. Early deadlines. You know how it is.”
He smiled and kissed her cheek.
“Of course. I’ll get my driver to take you home.”
“Not necessary,” she replied. “I’ll just catch a cab.”
“You won’t find one easily at this time of night,” Oliver commented. “This neighbourhood isn’t exactly safe either.”
“I was raised by a four-star general, Mr Queen. I think I’m perfectly capable of getting home safely.”
She turned away from the two men, gathering her things together. As she moved to the exit, she overheard Oliver remarking to Lex.
“Well, she’s a breath of fresh air.”
“Hands off, Queen. Lois Lane is not someone you want to tangle with.”
“That your way of saying she’s yours, Luthor?”
“I mean it, Oliver.”
They had to be close to the door as she continued to hear them even as she waited for the elevator.
“Heard you the first time, Lex, but let me tell you something about a girl like Lois Lane. She’s way too much woman for you to handle.”
The elevator doors closed before she could hear Lex’s response. Lois sighed. The last thing she wanted was to be the pawn in Lex and Oliver’s games of one-upmanship.
She hailed a cab, which was waiting outside the lobby for her, and sat in the back of the car, thinking about the evening. Lex had got her the promised interviews but other than that he had never left her side all night. She found it annoying to say the least, but the last thing she wanted to do was piss Lex off. She supposed she could handle his possessiveness. She could even handle the false niceness and the fake smiles.
Lex wanted something from her, but she had no idea what it was. The only thing she could do was keep playing his game until he showed his hand.
She found herself thinking about Clark Kent. At the dinner the other night, he had clearly been out of his league. She had seen the expression on his face when Lex had been talking to him. He had no idea what Lex really was, but for all that, she could tell he wasn’t fooled by Lex’s charms either.
Clark seemed like a very nice man who, on the surface, appeared to be everything a boy brought up in a small town would be. If Lois hadn’t known better, she would have said he was just a shy boy from the country. Yet, deep down, she could see a man who was still hurting from the loss of his family, even if he kept most of that pain to himself.
Lois had meant what she had said to Clark. She had no time for relationships. Yet, she found herself wanting to get to know Clark Kent better.
***
Clark looked up at the four-level brownstone, steeling himself. Even when he’d been working with Chloe on her stories for the Smallville Torch, he had had difficulty talking to people. His parents dying had made him shy away from most people. At least being Lana’s foster brother had protected him from most of the hazing that had gone on in high school, even if he hadn’t been totally immune to it. Mostly he’d just kept to himself.
He nervously rang the buzzer to the third floor apartment.
“Yes?”
“Mrs Thompson? I’m Clark Kent. From the Daily Planet?”
“Oh! Please come up,” she said. There was a buzzing sound and he opened the door, making his way up to the apartment.
The woman who answered his tentative knock was petite; at least a foot shorter than Clark, who was just shy of six four. His research had told him she was aged about thirty-two, but she appeared to be much older. Her face had lines which had clearly been etched in her grief for her husband.
He offered a gentle smile and she smiled back.
“Please come in Mr Kent.”
“You can call me Clark,” he said.
She nodded. “Louisa.” She turned toward what he saw was the kitchen.
The apartment was small and shabbily furnished. It was clear she wasn’t earning much of an income, but from what he could see of the photographs on the wall, she focused more of her energy on her family.
“Would you like a coffee, Clark?” she called from the kitchen.
“Thank you. That would be nice. Uh, cream, two sugars?”
“Sure. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring the coffee out.”
Clark sat on the threadbare couch, glancing once again at the photographs on the wall. One caught his attention. A blond man in what appeared to be a marines uniform, standing alongside a tall, olive-skinned man in a similar uniform. They were both grinning cheekily. Two jokers, hamming it up for the camera.
Louisa returned carrying a small tray.
“You have a beautiful family,” Clark told her.
“Thank you. That’s my husband,” she said, pointing to the photo that had caught Clark’s attention. “He was a marine.”
“How did you meet?” he asked.
“We met in high school. I was fifteen, he was seventeen and he’d just moved from California. His dad was based there. His mom decided to move them to Smallville when his father was killed serving overseas.”
“His dad was a marine?” Clark asked, ignoring the fact that she mentioned Smallville for a moment.
Louisa nodded. “Jack looked up to him. He was devastated when his dad died. As soon as he turned eighteen he joined up.” She peered curiously at him. “You’re from Smallville too, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yes.”
“I remember your parents. They kept to themselves mostly, out on that farm, but they were good people. I was sorry to hear about the accident.”
“Thank you.”
Clark decided to steer the conversation back to the interview.
“I’m very sorry ... what happened to Jack, I mean. Can you tell me what happened?”
She took a deep breath.
“Jack and my youngest son, Francis, were out by Crater Lake. Francis ... we call him Frankie, wanted to go swimming, but Jack told him not to. Frankie’s always been a little headstrong. He reminds me so much of my little brother at that age. Well, he went in anyway and became caught. Jack dove in to pull him out and became trapped in the mud.”
Clark stayed another couple of hours, talking with the widow. They were interrupted occasionally by the baby needing attention and the children coming in from school. Clark had the sense that young Frankie, who was barely seven when his father died, felt tremendous guilt for what had happened a year earlier.
That afternoon he pulled out his laptop and booted it up. The computer was old and slow, but he couldn’t afford to get anything else. Nell couldn’t afford to pay him much and what she did pay him was barely enough to keep a roof over his head. He supposed he could have used what little funds had been in trust for him since the land had been sold, but he’d promised Nell he’d use it for his education.
He stared at the small screen for a few moments, trying to think of a way to write the article that would pull in the reader. He’d mostly written up cafeteria menus while Chloe had tackled the harder stories, although she’d often said that a mark of a good writer was to take something dull and make it into something interesting.
He thought about the things Louisa had said. She’d spoken of her husband’s bravery. It wasn’t just that he was a marine. Bravery was something that couldn’t be taught. It was something innate. He wondered sometimes if he could ever have that courage without his powers.
Back in high school, there had been a boy who had somehow managed to leech his powers. For a couple of days, Clark had enjoyed that sense of freedom from the huge responsibility that rested on his shoulders, until he’d realised that the other boy was totally out of control and needed to be stopped. Still powerless, Clark had gone after Eric and got them back. Even Nell, who hadn’t always been encouraging when it came to his abilities, had told him it was about the bravest thing she’d ever seen.
Lana, of course, had thought Clark had been reckless and stupid in going after Eric in the first place. She’d been terrified that Eric would tell the authorities about him and someone would come to take Clark away. The ironic thing was, Eric had told the authorities and they’d dismissed it as the ravings of someone who was mentally ill.
Clark had taken Lana’s words to heart and was more cautious about using his abilities. He was sure Lana would have preferred it if he’d not used them at all and while he’d tried, he’d known there was no way to stop using them completely. They were a part of him. He’d known as soon as he’d learned the truth about himself that he would never be normal.
He sighed and turned back to the computer, his fingers poised on the keyboard. Just as he started typing, the phone rang.
“Clark Kent.”
“Clark, it’s Lex. I was hoping you might be free for dinner.”
Clark bit his lip. Lex was clearly not going to let things go at this rate.
“Uh, Mr Lu ... I mean, Lex, thank you, but I’m afraid I ... I’m not free. You see, I have a story to write for Pe ... Mr White.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I appreciate the offer though.”
Part of him wanted to go to dinner, in the hope that Lex might let something slip about his true purpose, but he had a feeling that Lex was far more clever than that. It just wasn’t in the man’s nature to let something slip unless it was by design.
“Another time, then,” Lex was saying.
“Sure. I mean, yes, that would be great.”
***
Lois marched into Perry’s office.
“Chief, have I got a story for you.”
The older man glowered up at her from his desk.
“Lane, can’t you see I’m in the middle of a meeting here?”
She glowered back, then realised that Clark Kent was sitting opposite the editor-in-chief.
“Oh, Clark. Hi. Didn’t see you there. About this story, chief ...”
“Lane! Great Caesar’s Ghost, when I say I’m in the middle of a meeting, I’m in the middle of a meeting!”
“But, this is important!”
“So is this!” Perry told her, waving a sheaf of papers under her nose. “This is the fluff piece I asked you to write.”
She glanced once more at Clark, recalling that the man had volunteered to write the story instead. Maybe she was a cynic, but she didn’t think Kent would do it in the end. Not that she thought he was incapable. There was just something that told her he was holding himself back.
“Well, listen to this,” Perry said, beginning to read out loud.
Louisa was just fifteen when she met Jack Thompson, describing their meeting as hardly inauspicious. He was the new kid at Smallville High and had already seen tragedy.
Louisa would like to say that she felt sorry for the young man she would eventually fall in love with but she was one of the popular girls and he was considered one of the outsiders.
Being seen with an outsider, even in a small-town high school like Smallville High, was not the way to win friends and influence people.
Lois rolled her eyes as she kept listening. Okay, she thought, so his prose is good, but it all seemed such flowery nonsense. That was why she hated doing fluff pieces. She zoned out until Perry got to the final paragraph.
Maybe Jack never won any medals, but to Louisa, he is still her hero.
“Kid, this is the kind of gumption we need around here. Your writing’s a little rough, but I think you’ve got a lot of potential. What say you, Lane?”
She sighed and straightened up from the doorframe where she’d been leaning.
“Yeah, sure, I mean, if you like that sort of thing.”
“Good. Kid, welcome to the Daily Planet.”
Clark looked stunned.
“Mr ... Mr White?” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Now, it’s only an internship, and you’ll need to keep your grades up with your college papers, but I think with Lane here on your case, you’ll fit right in.”
Lois stared at her boss.
“Wait, what?”
“I’m making Kent here your responsibility. Show him the ropes.” He grinned and leaned back casually. “Now, what is it you wanted to tell me?”
“Oh, the story,” she said, eyes widening. “Well, Lex’s charity function was robbed last night.”
Perry frowned. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“Yeah, well, Lex didn’t bother calling the police. Besides, the only thing that was taken was a necklace, worth about a quarter million dollars.”
She’d almost freaked when she had heard exactly how much the necklace was worth. What had made it even worse was the necklace had been stolen in the first place, long before Lex had gotten hold of it. When she’d been researching the necklace, she had discovered that it had been taken from a museum in Prague about two years earlier.
It was not the only valuable item taken from museums only to suddenly turn up years later. She had found an article about an urn which had been reported stolen from a museum in Provence five years ago, only for it to suddenly show up on the curator’s doorstep.
“So any idea who the robber was?” Perry asked.
“All I saw was a man in a green hood,” she told him.
“You were there?” Clark asked, staring at her.
“Yeah. Lex invited me. Said he could get me a couple of interviews for an article I’m writing.”
“Oh.”
Lois chewed on her lower lip, wondering why Clark seemed so crestfallen.
“Well, why don’t you two see what you can find out about this hooded man?” Perry said.
“Chief?”
“Out! Get to work!”Last edited by phoenixnz; 01-23-2015, 09:16 PM.Comment
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