She was strange, sort of shaky. They'd finished up, side by side, on his computer. Hers was on loan from The Planet, newer and faster, and it did a much better job snaking a wireless signal from his neighbor's network. But she insisted it was acting up. He wasn't too into sitting close. The back of his shirt was wet from many splashes of cold water just to keep things under control. But she didn't try anything, just sat next to him, jittery, trying to combine what they'd both written into something coherent.
Then she'd gathered her things and started out the door, saying something about how she was so beat when she didn't seem it, not at all. Lately, she seemed either sullen and silent or buzzing right out of her skin. He couldn't make heads or tails of her. He'd seen her on a story before and usually there was this barely contained excitement. A sort of glee that didn't seem a part of her now.
"Lois..."
"I think we have something good," she said, moving back to the sofa for her purse.
"Lois..."
"We can talk tomorrow about how we might approach the interview. I mean, we'll have to get it done by Saturday, no matter what and..."
"Lois..."
She whirled at the door. "What?"
"Your car's still at the Planet."
She took a deep breath. "Oh. Then let's get it."
"Maybe I could just drive you back. Ollie said I could use the Porsche for a few days, considering my..."
"No. I want my car. I have... things in it that I need so..."
"But if you're too tired to drive..."
"I'm fine!" she snapped. She shook her head and sighed. "Could you just give me a lift?"
"Yes. Fine." He moved to get his suit jacket with the keys, jerking it on. "Of course you're fine," he muttered. "You're always fine."
"What's that?"
He turned to her, jingling the keys in his hand. "I think this story's going to turn out just fine," he said.
She was sullen and silent again as he drove into The Planet's underground lot. She got out, not even a goodbye, but he waited until she was in her car. She stared at him then, from the driver's side window, with an exasperated look. He pursed his lips and turned around, driving out. He didn't know what he'd done. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He wasn't sure how much longer he could go on like this. Since the rest of them had come to town, something had changed in her. Maybe even before that. He couldn't pinpoint exactly when things had become so strange and...
He would laugh if it was at all funny. As if things between them had ever been normal.
*******************************
"This is silly, La... Lois." Pammie buckled her seat belt. "I told you I could meet you wherever you wanted. Even at your old place if..."
"It's packed up."
"Oh." Pammie sounded mildly disappointed. "Well, it sounds funny, but I nearly thought you two would be there afterward, just right down the street and we could all have a laugh about this with you and... Clark? Is that right?"
"Yes. Clark. But Clark and I don't exactly cohabit." Lois put the car in drive and pulled away. She was finding it increasingly hard to be around Clark at all. Always this strange need to touch him and the irrational anger that just seemed to bubble up and fizzle into this silence that stretched. She half-wondered if the anger was just her being petulant. It wasn't like he was in any way obligated to sleep with her. Just because he did, over and over for days, didn't mean he had to... Or even wanted to anymore. He probably got his fill of her, the lousy...
"Well, are you considering it? Is that what you wanted to talk about?"
Lois turned to Pammie as the gate took its time opening. "Huh?"
"Moving in together," Pammie explained. "You could do worse. He's very good looking. And not a bad cook. That shepherd's pie was..."
"Clark and I aren't dating, Pammie. He's just my partner and... just on this story." Would she see him at all, outside of work, once this was done? She hardly knew anymore. She went back and forth on whether she was angry at him, at all of them. Whether she could stomach being in the same room. On the surface, she was a woman, a reporter, who happened to have some specially-abled friends. Underneath... God, she was afraid to even scratch at the surface. It seemed so nearly insane.
"Yes. Partners. You said that, but... Well, you can tell me. I mean, after what I told you, you could tell me nearly anything."
She chuckled bitterly as she moved past the gate. "Oh, Pammie. Don't say things like that unless you mean them." Lois sighed. "Anyway, I wanted to pick you up because I'm sure you don't want to leave your car in the city overnight."
"Well, of course I don't. I need it in the morning and..."
"And I'm sure you're going to need a cab home." Lois stopped at a red light just before the freeway. "You're going to need a drink, Pammie."
"Well, I can handle a drink or two."
"Can you handle six? Because you might need to."
Pammie leaned back in her seat and stared at Lois. "Okay. I'm listening."
"Not yet, you're not. Because I'm not talking yet."
Pammie seemed slightly impatient, nearly bouncing in the car, then in the booth at O'Neal's Pub. "Are you talking yet?"
"In a minute. Are you hungry?"
"Well... Now that you mention it I could go for some nachos. Especially if you mean for me to drink, which I..."
"Yes. I mean for you to drink. And I'll be joining you." Lois felt oddly calm as the waitress came to them. "Hi... Debbie," she said off the name tag. "Can we get nachos with everything, two ice waters and four shots of tequila?"
The girl nodded. "Sure. What kin..."
"Doesn't matter," Lois said with a wave, then faced Pammie.
"Tequila? Are you sure because I don't usually drink..."
"Trust me."
"I'm trying." Pammie narrowed her eyes slightly. "Okay. We're here so..."
"In a minute." Lois reached for her bag and pulled out her laptop... Well, not hers. This was just the Daily Planet-issue laptop she was using. Hers was still wherever those disks and papers from Luthor were, something she still hadn't figured out. She placed it on the part of the table near the wall and powered it on.
Pammie let out a breath and leaned back. "Well... I haven't had this much intrigue since my early twenties. Not that we had this kind of technology, but there were a few shady things happening in booths and... you're not a dealer on the side or anything, are you?"
Lois folded her hands in front of her. "Not a dealer. No. But there's, apparently, a little more to me, even than I knew."
"You're kind of killing me." Lois heard Pammie's foot tapping against the floor. This wasn't a loud place, after all. "Can you tell me one thing?"
Lois shrugged, tired. "Depends on the thing."
"Why me? Is it just a secret trade, considering you have one of mine or..."
"That's part of it," Lois said thoughtfully. "I think the rest of it is..." She closed her eyes. "I don't know. You're about the only friend I have that's... new."
Pammie tilted her head. "What's wrong with your old friends?"
"Still trying to figure that out. The ones that seem to know me well are... somehow strange with me. I have some other friends at work." She thought of Doris, Perry, Jimmy. A sort of family to her, but... "Yeah. I'm not exactly sure they wouldn't put me on some kind of mental health leave if I told them this. And my old friends..." So strange and so familiar and so quiet around her at times. "I'm not sure they would even listen. And, to be honest, I keep going back and forth on whether or not they'd lock me in the booby hatch as well."
Pammie huffed and slapped a hand on the table. "Okay. Where are those drinks?"
When the waitress finally came with their tray, Pammie ignored the nachos and took one of the shots in her hand. "I still don't think I need this, though you seem to think I do. We got through mine just fine with only a hot dog."
Lois licked her wrist and poured some salt on it. "This is bigger."
She passed the salt to Pammie, whose eyes were wide. "Okay, then." She poured some salt on her wrist and stared at it. "Well, this takes me back."
Lois licked off her salt and took the shot quickly, grabbing a lemon from the small plate between them and biting down. She took a deep breath, then saw Pammie was still staring at her shot. "Bottoms up, Mrs. Sharp."
Pammie quickly licked her wrist, then threw back the shot, grimacing. Lois pushed the lemons toward her and she took one, sucking on it as her eyes teared up. "I can't believe I used to think this was fun." She took several breaths and fanned her face. "Please tell me we don't have to take the other one now."
"Only if you need it."
"No, thanks. I'd rather know what's so huge I need to swallow liquid fire before even hearing it."
Lois suddenly felt less than calm. Her hand was shaking. She wouldn't have noticed it except she still clutched her empty shot glass and it clattered against the table.
"Hey." Pammie covered her hand. "It's okay. I'm not judging you."
Lois closed her eyes and leaned back. "When you remember something, what is it... like for you?"
"I don't know." She opened her eyes as Pammie paused. "I guess it's like a home movie, maybe something filmed on those old super eights, I guess I see it that way, sort of shaky, but there. Just a little skewed. As if I'm filming."
Lois leaned forward. "It's not like that for me. My memories are words, they sort of echo in my mind, giving me facts and times and places and people that I just can't see. The earliest picture I had was a year ago, something like that..." She rubbed her eyes. "It's like I couldn't go deeper, not even on stupid things. I mean, even movies... I know I saw the Wizard of Oz. I even feel something when I think of it, as if I must have seen it over and over, but when I try to imagine myself as a kid with a bowl of popcorn on a Sunday night, there's this..." She took two deep breaths. "Maybe I'm not saying this right." She turned her laptop to her and typed in the password. She clicked on a folder, just labeled "New Folder." She'd never known what to call it, but it had been growing this week. There was supposed to be more to it, but the disks from Luthor, the articles he'd given her, they were all gone now. She only had what she could ferret out on her own. She opened a page saved from the internet and turned the laptop to Pammie. "See this boy? His name is Kevin Grady. He was loosely involved in some experiments his father conducted at Summerholt, a victim even, more than that, he was..."
"Meteor mutated?"
Lois stared at Pammie. "You know about that?"
"Well, I see the word Smallville and... Let's just say its one of those well-kept secrets that everyone higher-up knows."
"Well, you're about to get a sneak peek into parts of tomorrow's story. This Grady is meteor infected, though I doubt the higher-ups at my work will allow us to go that far. As far as they might let it go, he has a method, a way of wiping the slate clean. His work was, apparently, dealing with repressed memories and it seemed to work. Except they weren't worked through. They were just... erased. Parts of someone's life erased as if they never happened."
Pammie nodded slowly. "I could see how it might seem attractive. I know the name. Wasn't he a bit famous for some months?"
"Before he fell of the face of the earth? Yes. He also worked on some of the early stages of the program your neighbors were involved in. We think that's how he earned his papers. They aren't exactly legitimate. But yes. He was, apparently, the best. People could walk out of his office free of whatever sent them there. Like a miracle cure. Even me." She stared at her hands. "A few months back, I was seeing this doctor. You could say that my earliest and clearest memory was of him, staring down at me, telling me everything was going to be okay. I lived a life of work since then and... not much else. Until..." Here was where it got tricky. She wasn't about to bring Clark into it. There was no need for that. "I'd get these flashes, these headaches and I'd go to him. He'd talk me through them and... that's the crazy part. I don't even remember what he said, just that I always felt better leaving him, lighter. It was as if everything just melted away. And... then he just left. I'd figured out some things about him by then, I'd even been managing some of my problems on my own. If the flashes came, and the headaches, well... I became nearly immune to all over-the-counter headache medicine. I also built up quite a tolerance for chardonnay."
"Oh, Lois." Pammie's eyes were sad. "If you need help making the decision to try a program or..."
"No." She laughed slightly. "That's not it. I nearly wish it was. Might be easier. The headache from the wine was always just bad enough to stop me from going too far. But things changed for me when I found out about this." She turned the laptop back and opened another file. She turned it to Pammie.
Pammie stared for a moment. "You used to be blonde? Well, now that I see it, it doesn't seem strange. But I wouldn't have..."
"That's not me, apparently," Lois cut in. "That is my cousin, Chloe Sullivan. My late cousin."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I've... Well, It's fascinating. I never heard of cousins looking so alike. I mean, outside The Patty Duke Show..."
"That's because it doesn't happen. Not this close." She took one of two remaining shots on the edge of the table. "I am that girl. I just... don't seem to remember it." She knocked the shot back, feeling herself shake a little less. Saying it out loud was harder than she thought.
She glanced at Pammie as she took the other. She also took it with no salt or lemon, then let out a hissed breath, staring at the table.
"Do you think I'm crazy?"
"I'm trying to decide." She grabbed the waitress as she walked by. "Excuse me, can we get two more?" She stared at the laptop again. "I see that the resemblance is striking, but maybe that's all it is." She finally looked at Lois again. "Maybe you just... look like her."
"Yes. Down to the last freckle. You know that's not possible. Because see..." She turned the computer back to herself and magnified the picture. "Three moles on the left cheek," she muttered, turning it back. "Look." She turned her own head to the right, her makeup truly gone by now. "I have the same." She shook her head. "This doesn't just happen."
"So... you think you somehow lost your memory and changed your name."
Lois squeezed her eyes shut again. "I know it sounds crazy, but it seems like the only way. It really started with the dreams. And the dreams started with the articles. I had this box of articles and they just... were gone as if they were never there. I even thought I might have dreamed them. I thought I was somehow getting messages from the beyond, as if maybe the fact that I looked like her forged some kind of connection between us, even though I hardly knew her, but the thing is... I must have known her pretty well." She turned the laptop back and opened another file. "Or at least someone with this name did. Because the coroner's report has the body identified by Lois Lane."
"Mm-hmm." The waitress placed two more shots on the table and Pammie took one. But she pushed it toward Lois.
"There's more," Lois said, ignoring the shot. She pulled up another document. "An apartment in Smallville was on a six month lease and on that lease are Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane. Before that, just Lois Lane. If I'm Chloe Sullivan, then..."
"Who's Lois Lane?"
"Exactly." Lois rubbed her face. "Thank you," she said, taking the shot. She turned the laptop and opened another file. "See, there's these hard-to-find traces of the connection of Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane. They're cousins. They seemed to have been close. One died of a disfiguring gun-shot to the face and the other identified her. With a direct gunshot wound like that, who was to say that was really Chloe Sullivan? Because..." She'd managed not to cry all this time, but the confusion, the isolation and these rippings of guilt were pressing on her. "Because apparently, there were some very shady connections to Lionel Luthor and this project, which is still..." She sniffed. "Sorry."
Pammie shook her head. "It's okay."
"I was on the staff at the time that story broke. Me. But I hardly remember even that. I know that must have been when I started seeing Grady and... what if I went to him because... I... I couldn't handle it. What if I chose to forget because... Lois Lane was the one who died and I... I lied. I said it was me. To protect myself or..."
"Oh, Lois." Pammie pushed her the last shot. "I think these are on me, by the way."
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