Almost Lois (Chapter Thirty)

Smallville. She'd heard the name before. She'd had flashes of it. She knew she'd been there. She also knew that thinking too hard on it gave her a headache. Linda said they'd been there to visit their cousin. She felt there was more to it. Why else would the thoughts cause her such pain?

She took a sip of her chardonnay, trying to hold back the pain. There wasn't even a medical explanation for the headaches. Her primary physician said it was stress. She was working too hard. On what? Clark had the big lead and she hadn't seen him popping aspirin like it was candy. She knew they had something to do with Grady and the blanks. And his email had only confused her more. She'd asked for this, apparently.

She'd tried to locate him. She wanted answers. She wanted all of it cleared up. If Grady had a method of wiping moments, places, people... She just wanted to know. And she'd be stupid if she didn't put together that Lex Luthor was missing eight years and he'd been seeing Grady, too. ...never dealt with your particular situation... Only did what you asked... What did it all mean?

"Smallville," she repeated, forcing herself back to the conversation at hand.

"There's more to the town than you'd think. Your cousin knew. I have archives full of her work from her school paper. Some of it seems far-fetched to me, but who am I to say?"

"Well, I'd appreciate a look."

"I'll definitely get that to you. I'm sure you'll want to go on from there. I'd just like you to keep me up to date on anything that has to do with me. You don't spend so much time in one place without leaving more of a mark. But my old staff, my old employees, my father's employees... So many just disappeared. There was talk of corruption and... Maybe I was part of some of it, but... Well, I just can't remember. Do you have any idea how it feels to be shut out of your own mind?"

She knew too well. But he didn't need to know that. "What makes you think I can dig up more than you could with your employees and resources?"

"People don't exactly want to sit down over coffee and pour their hearts out to me. Your skills in that direction could get you information all my money can't get me."

"I can try, but..." She drained her chardonnay. "I still can't promise much." And the thought of going there... Why did it make her so nervous?

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Clark put on his awful matador suit again, speeding through it. He wished he didn't have to tie the stupid neck cloth. But without it, someone could see the blue. He dropped the boots and sped toward the lit area of the garden. He winced as he passed one of his "doubles." He was chatting up a tall redhead.

"You know they call Superman the Man of Steel, right?"

He rolled his eyes and hurried past. He didn't even want to know where that conversation was going. He had to find Lois. It was his second ditch of the night and she was probably fuming. What would he tell her? It certainly wouldn't be that he'd had to stop a suicide.

It was after another false alarm that he'd found him on top of the water tower. Some boy with dark makeup and some strange ideas about how to be remembered. He'd taken him to his parents and, hopefully, they'd get him help.

He shook it off. It was the only way to deal with people and their messed up lives, skewed priorities, even stupid pranks. He'd had to get one kid down from a school's flagpole last night.

He shook that off, too. If he spent too much time dwelling, he'd never have time to just be Clark. He needed that sometimes. Just time to be normal... as normal as he could be. He rushed through the room, scanning the crowd, scanning through some, looking for that St. Pauli Girl who wasn't a waitress. He found her at the bar. She was sitting with an overweight Queen of Hearts and Luthor was still near. He was even joining in some of their conversation. Part of him wanted to toss Lois over his shoulder and run out. Didn't she know she was cozying up to the devil? He shook his head. Of course she didn't, but he did. He had to do something.

He settled for tapping her on the shoulder. She turned. She was smiling, but it quickly fell away. "Well, look who's here. I see you didn't get my wine that you were saying you were going for, but then you didn't get."

"Well, you're at a bar." Was she drunk?

She snorted and slapped him on the shoulder. "Like you knew that. You big old labrador... No wait." She giggled and the woman beside her joined in.

"It's matador, Sweetie. But he certainly is a big one." She looked him over and winked. She had to be his mother's age. He smiled politely and held back a shudder and glanced at Lex.

"Mr. Luthor," he said, nodding. He turned back to Lois. "Lois, maybe we should..."

"In a second, Clark." She turned back to the Queen of Hearts. "I just can't believe he gave her your pearls."

"And they were my grandmother's," the woman answered. "I couldn't believe it."

"I would have flipped."

"I almost did."

Lois was... drunk. He'd seen it once before and, to be honest, he didn't have much empathy for the condition, never having felt it himself. "Lois, why don't we..."

"Shhh! So, what did you do?"

"She's fine." He suddenly found himself being pulled aside by Luthor. "She's just getting her story. That's the ex-mayor's ex-wife."

He turned to Lex. He didn't care if she was the reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt. Lois was drunk and in the presence of a Luthor. This was horribly wrong.

"Besides, I wanted to speak with you, Kent." He let Lex pull him to the left, too confused to protest. "I was speaking to Lois about Smallville and about some of the intricacies of the town."

"What about it?" Clark asked warily.

"It's a hotbed of strange paranormal activity, if you believe the writings of... Well... Lois' cousin used to write on them and I..."

"I know of her cousin."

Lex suddenly stared hard at him. "That's right. You went to school with her. Didn't I see your name on that high school paper?"

"The Torch?" Somehow, it felt wrong that Lex was reducing all of Chloe's work as if it was only "that high school paper." It was a high school paper, but still... "Yes. I knew Chloe Sullivan." He could barely contain himself. Was he seriously supposed to maintain any kind of civility with this man? He'd effectively killed Chloe Sullivan.

"Being from Smallville, you probably know more about it than I do."

"I wouldn't say that. I mostly kept to myself. My family farmed."

Lex smiled. "Quite a leap to move to the city, then if..."

"Excuse me," he cut in abruptly. He could not, would not, stand here and exchange plesantries with Lex Luthor. He started away. If Lois wouldn't listen, that was her problem. He felt Luthor behind him before he heard him.

"Wait. Kent."

He turned, taking a deep breath. "What?"

"Listen, I don't know what I did to offend you. To be honest, my time in Smallville is a mystery to me and I can hardly find any info, even from old periodicals or anything. It's all just a blur that I can't clear up." He shook his head, then looked back to Clark. Clark knew why information was so scarce. It had been Oliver's doing. At Linda's insistence, he'd wiped websites, libraries, almost as clear as the minds that Kevin Grady had a hold on. Mind's like Lex's. He allowed himself to look into Lex's eyes. They seemed almost as open and guileless as they'd been so long ago. But they'd only seemed that way. Inside Lex was a monster. It had been there then and it crouched inside him still. He didn't believe there was hope. The more he dug, the more Lois dug, the worse things would be for both of them.

He had a mind to find Grady, ask him to finish Lex off. A man like him would never rest.

"Listen, Kent," Lex began. "Being from Smallville, I think you could be a great help to me and to Lois."

"To Lois?"

"Yes." Lex smiled. "She's agreed to help me unearth some clues to what happened over these last years. However much you... keep to yourself," he said, in which Clark detected a sly note. "Well, I'm sure you know much more than I do. You could be of some help. And I'd, of course, compensate you for..."

"Excuse me," he repeated. This time, he moved. He strode to Lois and pulled her barstool away with her on it.

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"Clark!" The man had her stool and she felt him lift her off it and set her on her feet. She stared up at him. He was a little stronger than she'd thought he'd be. "What's with the..."

"We need to talk," he said. He looked tense and angry. She knew he didn't like Luthor, but she'd just got a ton more dirt on the ex-mayor and it was thanks to Luthor.

"Can we talk later?" She gestured to Elizabeth "Bitty" Green. "I'm kind of in the..."

"We need to talk now." And now he was doing it again, dragging her off. She'd find out what had his shorts in a wad, but after that, she was done with the he-man act.

She twisted around. "I'll be right back, Bitty." She stumbled after him. He wasn't off to the dance floor this time. It was toward the gardens. She huffed as he stopped near a stone bench. "Okay, Kent. First you ditch me twice, now you're in my face. What the f..."

"What are you thinking?" he hissed.

"Excuse me?"

"You want to work for Luthor? You're actually going to..."

"Where the hell are you getting that idea?"

"He said that..."

She batted a fake blonde curl out of her eyes. "Luthor can think what he wants. I'm not working for him."

Clark let out a deep breath and sat on the stone bench. "So you aren't going to Smallville?"

"Of course I am."

He was up like a shot. "What?"

"Think of the Luthor dirt I could dig up. I could go in there, lend a sympathetic ear to all the yahoos he's screwed over and Perry would flip for it. I mean, the paranormal angle is just batty. Maybe Lex has a bit of the Howard Hughes nuttiness. You know these billionaires. They...

"Lois, you can't do it. It's... the town..."

Her eyes widened. So that was the problem. "Okay, Clark. I get it. It's your town. But if you wanted to do a story on it, then you should have done one in the first place."

He looked... hurt. "You think this over a story?"

"Isn't it? You have the big piece and you're Perry's golden boy and I'm just... That girl who once got a Superman interview." She sank to the bench as a guy in a Superman suit walked into the hotel. "It's not like he's easy to catch. Stories like that don't come along every day. Is that really my last great byline?"

She found Clark sitting next to her. "Is that what you want? Another interview with Superman?"

"Well... Superman's not the point, though I guess he's got a lot to do with it. The point is..." She hated being tipsy. Points just got away from her. "Well, he's around and stopping all the bad guys and, though I shouldn't want there to be bad guys, the reporter in me wants her story and..."

"What? You want Superman to stop saving..."

"No. That's not the point either." She threw her head back and groaned. "There's just nothing going on in Metropolis." She turned to him. "I mean, you have the only good story in this town right now. And I hate to sound like a bitch, but it brings out my competitive streak."

"I thought I wasn't any competition for you."

"I didn't think you would be." She stared at him. He actually wasn't what she'd expected at all. She thought he was a country mouse who'd run away from the big, bad city after a month. She sighed. "And now I sound like a bitch again."

"No," he said quickly, turning into her. "You just... your job is a large part of who you are. I mean, working at The Planet." He smiled. "You have all you ever wanted."

She tilted her head. "How did you know that?"

"I... I just sense it, I guess. I'm not here to step on your toes. It's the opposite. I just want to..." He was leaning in.

She could hardly believe it. He was leaning in. Or was she? She was drunk. There was no other explanation. This was all a hallucination brought on by too much wine. Country mice did not sit next to her on stone benches in lush gardens and lean.

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