Lois dialed very carefully, her fingers trying to hit only one button at a time.
"Stupid gas station phones are so stupid and tiny and... stupid."
"What's that?"
She looked through the foggy glass and saw the cabbie staring at her, still suspiciously, from the rearview mirror. "Nothing. Keep going. It's..." She waved her hand ahead. "It's still further."
"I don't see nothing but woods ahead, Lady. Are you sure..."
"Didn't you swipe my credit card?"
"Well, yeah."
"Then this ride is... paid for," she said enunciating with care.
"Yeah. But..."
"Then keep goin." She stared blearily at her phone again. "Three hundred dollar cab ride," she muttered. "Think a guy would just take it or somethin... Hmmm." She had dialed the first four numbers with success. The next were kind of tricky. Zero. Five. Eight. "A-ha!"
"What?" It was the cabbie again, sounding startled.
"Shh! I'm on a important phone call." It hadn't started yet with all that ringing, which was so loud, but still...
"I'm sorry, but this road is kind of dark and mostly dirt and it's givin' me the heebie-jeebies."
"Oh, S'fine. Now shhhhh!" The ringing stopped. Thank God.
"Hello?"
"I'm ssorry to call sso late, but I hadta."
"Uh... Who is this?"
"Tha's a good question, Pammie. Tha's one I ask myself all the time." She sighed and leaned her head against the window. "Who's this? Who's this, really?"
"Lanie... Uh... I mean... Lois?"
"You can call me Lanie, Pammie. Jus' one more name to add to all the others." She giggled to herself.
"What's wrong? I've tried to call you and you never pick up and..."
"Oh, I don't pick up these days. Not my style."
"Lois, what's..."
"Oh, no! I didn't even ask... Did I wake you up?" She didn't want to wake up Pammie. Pammie was... like... her only friend nowadays. Except for those other friends she so didn't want to talk to.
"No. It's only six. I just... Lois, are you drunk?"
"Just a weensie bit." She shook her head, nearly dropping the phone. "Thought this cab ride might knock most of it outta me. All that farmland and freshhhh air. Except the damn windows don't go down."
"Well, I told you before you got in, Lady..."
"Hey, Mr. Nosey-pants," she said to the driver. "This is a private conversashun."
"If you weren't yelling half of it..."
"Shhh!" When did cab drivers get so nosey, anyway?
"Lois? Lois..."
"Yeah. I'm here. Wha's up?"
"Uh... You called me. It's Pammie."
"Oh, Pammie. Hi. Listen, I'm sorry to wake you up..."
"You didn't. I told you..." There was a sigh on the other end. "Lois, what's the matter?"
"Okay..." She took a deep breath. There was a reason she called Pammie. She just couldn't think of it right now... "Oh. Yeah. Okay. Pammie... 'Member how you said I should relearn me and all that?"
"Yes. I..."
"I've been doin that and it's... it's... it's so much. It's too much. And I got this kinda idea, cause how Mikey's in the gov..." That was a hard word. "Congress," she finally said. "Okay. So he talks to his buddies and we all go to a top secret lab and I unlearn all the stuff I learned and..."
"Honey, I don't think Mikey has any buddies with secret labs."
"Oh, don't say that, Pammie," she said, drooping. "He just has to."
"Lois... Did you talk to your friends?"
She breathed on the glass and drew a circle. "I'm... gettin' to it."
Pammie sighed. "Lois, where are you? I can come get you and..." There was a crackling noise. "...spare bedroom... really shouldn't be alone if..."
"Pammie?"
"Lois?" More crackling. "Lois..." There was a beep and then silence. She shook her phone.
"Where'd the signal go?"
"Probably can't get one wherever the hell we are," the cabbie grunted from the front.
"Don't matter." She's lost her taste for secret labs lately. She just had to face it. All of it. She'd call Pammie back and tell her never mind later. She tucked the phone in her pocket... after a couple tries. "Oh!" She pointed. "There's the fork! Go..." She gestured with her arm, then finally figured out the word for it. "Right," she finished triumphantly. It was only a little further and... "Here we are," she sang a little.
The cabbie just stared ahead. "This is where you wanted to go?"
"Yeah. So?"
"This place gives me the creeps."
"Fine," she groaned. "Then you don't have to wait. I'll just call another cab." A less nosey, annoying one. She giggled to herself, thinking of the total of six hundred she'd rack up in fares. Her poor credit card.
"Yeah. But... Come on. You don't want to go in there."
She snorted. "S'fine. I know someone round here."
"Like who? A caveman?"
"No. A... taxidermist," she finished proudly. That was a hard word. "Could you take the child lock off now?"
"It's not a child lock. Just pull the button up and..."
"I knew that. I was just making sure you knew." She pulled the button and opened the door, coming around to his side very slowly. "Stupid dirt and rocks... Here." She pulled a fifty out of her pocket. "Tip. As promised."
He took it, but still stayed put.
"What now?"
"I don't feel right just..."
"Oh, for God's sake, just go already."
.
He rolled his eyes. "Don't have to tell me twice."
She watched him drive off, pulling her flashlight from her bag. The nerve of some cabbies. She was perfectly fine. Plenty of people explored caves at night. Or, if they didn't, they should.
She'd just felt so itchy at home. She had to get out. She didn't want to face them yet. She wasn't ready, even with the half-bottle of liquid courage sloshing around inside her. But she wanted to do something useful, keeping in mind that she wasn't exactly fit to be seen by people right now.
But she was perfectly fit to take in some art. Wasn't that one of the things she'd said she'd do on her vacation? It wasn't a lie. There was all kind of art in here. She sank onto a rock and looked around.
"Ancient Kawatche art." She shined her flashlight over the cave walls. She hadn't seen it since that time with Clark and she hadn't done much looking then, considering she'd started having sex with him -- something she seemed to keep doing with Clark.
"Gotta stop that," she mumbled. "Not very productive."
There was one symbol in particular she was interested in seeing. The one with the woman. She shined her light over it and pulled herself up, moving closer. She pulled up her sleeve and shined her light on the bracelet, then the symbol again. "Common design," she muttered. "Got it at a roadside stand. Psssh!"
She'd looked up Kawatche artwork on the net and saw nothing like this. She'd only seen this here and on the bracelet, which looked a little too old to be some souvenir trinket... that seemed to be glued to her wrist.
So many millions of things that didn't add up.
Clark, Linda... Those were the people with the pieces.
She shook her head and wondered what the hell she was doing here. Why wasn't she getting her answers? Didn't she have enough pieces now? She could confront them, find out where everything truly fit and she was standing in a cave. It had seemed like a good idea all the way here, but now... She must be sobering up.
"Good for me," she said, nodding to herself and starting out, only stumbling three times.
She took her phone from her pocket and dialed... only to get that silly tower symbol with the rays that went around and around and made her just a little dizzy. She just had to walk a bit and find a signal. She moved a few paces away from the cave.
"Nothing,' she muttered. She moved to her right, staring at the phone as she walked. Stumbling a little over branches as she kept moving, only to keep getting that damned tower. And it really was making her dizzy. She shut the phone and leaned against a tree, gulping in all that fresh air. She felt less like puking after a minute.
She opened her eyes and looked around. This wasn't anywhere near the road.
"Great." Now she had no signal and she was in the damned woods. She shined her flashlight around, trying to figure out which way she came in. It was too damned dark and full of trees. "Stupid woods."
She shook herself and turned, deciding to just pick a direction. It wasn't like this town was so big there wasn't something outside these woods.
Five minutes later, she realized she was wrong. She was at the edge of the woods and staring at a whole lot of nothing.
Not exactly nothing, but it was a whole lot of land without a building in sight. She decided just to trek onwards. There had to be an end to the nothing at some point.
She pulled her coat tighter as she moved through crunchy, dead grass. The wind was whipping through and her flashlight was picking up flecks of snow. Just sparse little ones. She was suddenly grateful she was still a bit drunk as she might be freezing to death, otherwise. All in all, it wasn't so bad. Now she'd taken in art and a nature hike. It was something to tell Linda, at least... if that was even her name. Which it wasn't.
Maybe she should plan out exactly what she'd say. She couldn't give them any room to hedge around it. They'd been talking circles around her, all of them. And she didn't want to leave any doubt that she was done playing games. She knew, somehow, they were doing this for what they thought was her own good. But she knew better what her own good was. And it was time she took some more control.
"Okay, Linda," she practiced aloud. "No more games. The... jig is up. I... Oh, damn it!" She shook her flashlight, trying to get a few more drops of light out of it. "Double damn it!"
She stomped on the frozen grass and tossed her flashlight to the ground. She stared ahead of her bleakly. If there was an end to the nothing, she couldn't see it in total blackness.
She squinted ahead of her. Not total. She could swear she saw a light. She stepped forward and felt something different beneath her. She crouched down and ran her hand over the ground. It was pavement. A road. If she followed the road, she could get to civilization and signals and hot beverages and... Her mind wanted to go down that road, but her body seemed to have ideas of its own.
It was moving toward that light, hardly needing her permission. She felt something hitting her ankles. Hard, thick stalks sticking up out of the ground. She stumbled a bit, but didn't fall as her body kept moving. The craziest part was that she didn't feel so unsure now, getting closer. She was hardly surprised to find a house around that light from a window. She didn't hesitate as she moved to the door. She knocked as if she were expected.
She wasn't even surprised to find Martha Kent behind that door when it opened, staring wide-eyed at her. "Lois?"
"I knew it," she breathed. "I did."
********************************
Clark moved into the elevator, trying to gently push the button for PH rather than punch it in. Just because he knew he had to face his problems didn't mean he had to be happy about it. His mood was still black as the doors opened on the apartment.
"Hey, Boyscout!"
He brushed past him. "Yeah. Hi, Bart."
"Listen, I'm learning a trade and I need some guinea pigs. Want to try a tasty..."
"Not now, Bart." He moved to the control room.
"Well... sorry for being so pleasant."
Clark winced as he opened the door. It wasn't Bart's fault he was miserable. He closed the door and left it that way. He wasn't about to explain the situation to Bart. That meant explaining Lana. Lana wasn't their affair. She was his problem. He shook his head, wondering when Lana had become just another problem to deal with. She used to be all that mattered. Now she was just a task set for sometime tomorrow. Catch her up. Send her home. Get on with the business at hand... which was Lois. Lois was a whole other, more difficult matter. The matter they were here to discuss.
"I'm going crazy."
"Give yourself a little credit, Clark." He glanced to his right to see Victor, leaning back in a chair, a plug jutting from his arm, his eyes closed. "Most of think you've been crazy all along."
"I'm serious." He paced to one corner. When that didn't help, he paced to the other. "All the sudden, she's here and she wants to catch up and...You know, under normal circumstances? Fine. But all I can think about is the fact that this probably isn't safe and I still haven't figured out what to do about Lex, if anything, or figure out if my not-girlfriend should find out who the hell she is and, to top it off... I still can't fly."
"You haven't been flying for two weeks and you weren't so bent out of shape," Victor said, his eyes still closed.
"Yeah, well it still sucks." He tossed himself into a chair. "The weirdest part is I can't even figure out which of these problems are Clark's and which are Superman's."
'
"Oh, lighten up. We're all multi-tasking. Hell, Bart's been to Star City twice today and that's just to get clean clothes."
"Victor, I have two identities, here and... Oh, never mind. You don't get it."
"Oh, silly me." Victor laughed and opened his eyes. "I have to present a human face to the world, then plug myself in every night. No. I can't possibly understand two identities."
Clark nodded. "Fair enough." He stood. "This sucks. I can't deal with her on top of everything."
Victor unplugged himself and sat up. "I thought the point of this meeting was to deal with her."
"I don't mean Lois. I..."
"Hey, you were the one that was pushing to talk this over. You'd think you'd be happy we were..."
He moved to the door and threw it open. he just didn't want to get into Lana right now. "Oh, never mind."
When he stepped out, he nearly collided with AC, who had a bucket full of ping pong balls in one hand and a stack of plastic cups in the other. "Hey, Clark. Guess what? Victor and I made up this awesome game. Okay. You line up these cups and..."
"Maybe later," Clark muttered, pushing past him as well. He nearly ran smack into Linda.
"Watch it, Smallville!" she growled before moving into the living room. Her mood wasn't any better than his.
He followed her in, glad at least one person wasn't being so damned happy.
"Are we meeting or what?" Linda barked.
"Some of us are," Clark mumbled, sitting on the ottoman, tapping his fingers on his knee.
AC leapt onto the couch, landing cross-legged. "Not Di. She had to be in DC. Besides that, she said she wasn't sure this involved her. I tried to tell her that..."
The elevator dinged and Murray stepped out, unwinding a scarf. "I'm so sorry I'm late. I was attending a lecture on string theory and time just got aw..."
"It's fine," Linda said, folding a blanket with jerky movements. "We're all here except... Victor!" she yelled, causing everyone to jump a little. "Will you get out here, already?"
Victor stepped out of the control room and closed the door. "Shouldn't we wait for Oliver?"
"He's not coming," Linda said tightly, sitting on the couch.
"But I thought..."
"Just. Drop. It," she said, glaring at Victor.
**********************
Lois found herself in an easy chair with what felt like mounds of blankets on her. Martha had sort of bustled her into it so quickly that she hardly had a second to look around her. And she did so now, throwing the blankets off and getting up. There were pictures of Clark everywhere, but she'd caught a few, more than a few, of her. Maybe Martha had a piece or two of this puzzle.
She moved to one picture on the mantle. It was her with Clark in caps and gowns. She picked it up, nearly dropping it at the sound of Martha's voice.
"Here we go, nice and... hot." She turned to Martha. Her eyes were on the picture, too. She moved into the dining room and placed two mugs down before moving back into the living room. Lois started to prepare her speech, but Martha spoke first. "How long have you known?"
"Not long," she said, figuring Martha already knew about the jig and how it was up. "I had... ideas before, but now..." She shook her head and tried to place the picture back.
Martha rushed forward and took it, placing it carefully on the mantle before placing an arm around her, leading her to the dining room and pulling out a chair. "Sweetie..."
Lois pulled away. "I don't want to be called Sweetie and wrapped in blankets." Actually, she did, but what she wanted didn't matter right now. It was what she needed that counted. She planted herself in one of the chairs. "I need the truth."
Martha sighed and took a chair across from her. "Swee... Lois," she began. "I'm... not exactly sure you're up for this talk right now." She stared at her hands. "I'm not even sure I'm the one who should be having this talk with you."
"Why not you? You know more than I do."
Marta only sighed and pushed a mug toward her.
"I don't want coffee," Lois said, though she found herself picking it up, anyway. Must be some kind of mom voodoo. She took a sip, then choked a little. "This isn't coffee."
"Sure it is." Martha gave a weak smile. "It's just a little Irish."
"A little?" She took another sip and felt what sobering she'd done come undone.
"Yours might be a little more Irish than mine." Martha took a sip of her own, then placed it down with a grimace. "I thought it might help you sleep."
"Oh, I've been a little Irish all night. This won't put me out." Lois decided being a little Irish wasn't so bad, really. It made her less angry. She took a deep gulp.
Martha was staring at her, her head tilted. "I think I can see that now. Maybe Irish coffee wasn't the best..." Martha reached for her cup, but she downed it and slapped it on the table.
"So let's talk."
"Lois, I don't know that I have the right to..."
"Sure you do," she drawled. "I mean, you got all these pictures of me and I, myself, am giving you full permission to..." She reached across and grabbed Martha's mug. "You don't mind, do you?" She drained it and slapped it down. "Since I'm sleeping over, I think it's definitely time for some gossip. Tha's what you do at sleep-overs. That and s'mores. So... What about that Chloe, huh? Heard she was a total hobag." She found herself giggling.
Martha stared at her. "Wha..."
"Oh, you can tell me. I won't mind at all. See, whatever you know, I am sooo prepared for." She gestured widely. "Hell, she could be Satan himself and I would not be a bit surprised at this point."
"Lois..."
"Because, see... I think maybe I need to hear it from someone with pictures. Someone like you." Her cheeks felt hot and wet now. "Because you don't keep pictures of someone if she's so bad she can't even... face herself..." Her head dropped and she saw her jeans darken in tiny, wet spots.
She heard distant jingling noises. "Okay. Up you go."
She was being pulled up, led away from the table. She let it happen until she realized they were moving to the door. "What? I don't wanna go for a walk." She planted her feet. "Had enough of that."
"We're not going for a walk. We're going for a drive." Martha kept pushing her forward until they were outside in the cold air.
"So we're not having a sleep-over?" She felt kind of disappointed. She wasn't even sure if she'd ever had a sleep-over and hated to be deprived of one now.
"We might be. Just not here." They were moving to a red truck.
"I don't want to sleep in there. It looks old and rusty."
She heard a slight chuckle as the door opened. "Oh, Sweetie. I hope we can have a good laugh about this someday. I really do."
"You're laughin now." She let Martha push her in.
"Doesn't mean it's funny," Martha muttered. She closed her eyes and leaned back, sort of hazy and a little cold. She felt a something across her middle and a hand smoothing her hair as the muttering continued. "What have those idiots been doing? Poor girl must've been..." Her voice faded and there was a loud slam, nearly jarring her into opening her eyes. There was a creak to her left and the muttering started again. "...wandering around fields at night. Someone should be keeping an eye..."
She drifted off as the truck gunned to life, feeling sort of... safe Must be more of that mom voodoo...
******************************
"...and she's been holed up for a week now. She won't answer her phone," Linda was saying.
AC leaned forward. "But we have no right to just haul her out of her apartment." Clark rubbed his eyes. They'd been at this for an hour now and they'd hardly got anywhere. "I mean, she has the right to..."
"To cut herself off from us?" Linda cut in. "Ollie even tried sending her a cell and she hasn't touched it." Linda glared at the floor. "Of course, he might try actually being here if he really..."
"Hey, I got an idea," Bart piped up. "Why don't we take a little moment to pat ourselves on the back and have a little drink?" There was a reddish blur and the sideboard was suddenly littered with bottles. "Okay, we got scotch, vodka, rum, triple sec, vermouth..."
"Uh... just a sec..." Victor sat forward. "What exactly are we patting ourselves on the back for? We haven't found Grady. We haven't found out who's behind Met vista. As a team, we actually did fuck-all on most of that..."
"All the more reason to drink up." Bart held up a shaker. "Come on, free bartending, here. I'm trying to learn a trade. AC? Something fruity for you?"
"Oh, hardy-har. But you know I'm off all carbs right..."
Clark moved from the ottoman and sat next to Linda. "Are you okay?"
"Me? Great. If everyone would just focus on..."
"I mean about Ollie. I thought he was going to be here."
"Well, so did I. But, apparently, there's a few things going down in Star City and... God! I don't even have a right to be angry. I know what he's doing is important. But he was supposed to be here for dinner and I just... I was so ready to tell him. Everything was ready. I made reservations and this place has this duck comfit that's just..."
"Linda! Bet you want a cosmopolitan."
Linda's head whipped to Bart. "Are you insane?" she hissed.
"But you always drink cos..."
"I always drink?" Her mouth worked soundlessly. "For your information, I am not a lush."
"Uh..." Bart stared at her. "I never said you were. I just thought you might want a cosmo."
"Well, I don't. I want an Orangina."
"Allright. One Orangina comin right up. On the rocks or..."
"I'll get it myself," Linda growled, standing and striding to the kitchen. "Honestly..."
"Oookay," Bart drawled. He placed the vodka bottle back on the table. "Does anyone want anything alcoholic?"
"Well, I would."
Bart turned to Murray. "Doctor T! What can I get you?"
"Well, my aunt used to make this hot, buttered rum around Christmas time and if you have any cinnamon and a splash of..."
There was a blur and a glass appeared in Murray's hand, layered orange and red.
"I'm sorry. I heard tequila sunrise." Bart shrugged. "That and cosmo are what I know so far."
"Well... That's good, too." Murray took a sip. "Very... tasty."
Bart turned to victor. "Hey, Mr. Roboto. Can I tempt you?"
"Drinking doesn't do anything for me, Bart. I see no point in it even if it did."
"Well, that just makes you the perfect foil. You can taste test for hours without falling down. So..."
Clark almost wished it did affect him. There was only one thing that did relax him and that was off limits, mostly because he knew exactly what he'd do if he got his hands on a red rock. He stood. "Speaking of Lois..."
"We weren't."
"Huh?"
Bart held up his shaker. "We were speaking of you trying my cosmo. Pretty much purely alcohol. Bet you can handle it till I get it just right since Vicky's acting like he's gonna rust."
He really wanted to get back to business.
Luckily, Linda sailed in, twisting the cap off her bottle. "We should be speaking of Lois. That's why we're here. Now I think..."
Victor stood. "Can I say something?" The room quieted, something his voice seemed to always accomplish. "I miss her. I miss the way she confronted everything head on, I miss the way she could hack. I mean, she's no me, but it's nice to have someone else around that can disable a security system and I think..." He sighed. "I think that there's no question that we all want her back. I just don't know if it's possible."
Clark stood. "I know that. We all know it won't be the same. I don't think she can just get it all back, but whether we find Grady or not, we have to do something."
"Well..." Murray stood as well. "I'm willing to help in any way I can. I've got a few ideas as to how to control these headaches and all that, but I really can't move on anything without her full consent."
"Exactly!" AC slapped his hands together. "I mean, she's not a lab rat."
"I never said she was," Linda said heatedly. "She's my family. Don't act like you're her champion or something. I..."
"I never said that. I meant that she needs to be treated like an adult, not..."
"Shut up!" a voice boomed. Everyone quieted and Clark was surprised to find it was his own voice that had done it. "No one is going to treat her like a lab rat or a child. Lois is an adult and I... I think she has to be told." Five pairs of eyes stared, wide-eyed---extremely wide-eyed-- as he stepped up on one of the steps to the elevator. He was sort of pleased that he managed to get their attention so raptly. Maybe he could Victor a run for his money at leading meetings. "Maybe we can start out giving it to her a little at a time, but, eventually, Lois needs to be told everything."
"I think that's a great idea," a voice said behind him.
He stilled, realizing that all those eyes weren't on him, but behind him.
He turned and saw her leaning against the elevator doors. "Lois..." He swallowed. "How... long have you been there?"
She smiled. "Long enough."
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