Clark was at the warehouse hours too early. No one else was there. That was fine. He needed a little time.
The tin waste basket was a solid sort of puddle on the floor, but there just had to be something to burn. His eyes nearly itched for it.
Looking around, unless he wanted to burn a support beam and take the building down, he didn't have any options. He supposed he'd worked his vision enough last night. He didn't have an excuse to burn anymore.
It wasn't about the burning anyway. There was something about last night that was freeing. The ability to say, even to himself, what angered him. Even if it was only because it was helping him. He'd been feeling guilty all along and it was refreshing to feel something else. To blame someone else. Namely Lois.
But maybe he should be angry with himself. It was his fault she did it. It was his fault she put her life and her mind in the hands of a stranger. He was the one who had finally broke her down.
But she chose that solution. To take herself away from everyone who cared about her. To become less than she was. He'd thought she was stronger than that. He'd thought she'd never want to live without truth. And this was her choice?
But was it? There were the chemicals on her shirt. There was the fact that Grady had messed with Jimmy and his own boyfriend, Dan. And they didn't have the same side effects, the same headaches.
So maybe he should be angry with Grady.
But then there were the letters she'd written. And the fact that Grady himself had told him she chose it. Had told him to let it be and...
And how could he trust a man who couldn't stick around to clean up his mess?
Nothing made sense. Nothing came together. Chloe had often used those kind of words, about things fitting, coming together. Like a giant puzzle. As if one only had to have the pieces and everything fell into place.
But nothing was falling into place!
He stomped hard and saw the puddle of tin split and skitter slightly.
He didn't know what to do because he didn't know what he was supposed to do. If this wasn't her choice, then he could fix it. He should fix it. But if it was her choice, then who was he to interfere? What gave him the right?
His eyes itched and he focused them on the split puddle of tin, watching as it turned red.
He was angry. He was cheated. Whether it was her choice or not, he'd been cheated.
He closed his eyes as the split tin melted and reconnected in the middle.
He remembered that first night after she'd done it. Not just what the night was, but what it could have been. Instead of her staring at him on her steps as if he were a stranger to her, they could have...
They could have had that first... Second date, really. This time, he would have driven them. Somewhere nice. Somewhere with chocolate souffles and stupid strolling violinists and women carrying baskets of single red roses. Something that made it clear what she deserved. Not a dance in a tornado where she drove and he left. Not a cheap fuck wherever they happened to be. But a real date.
With a real ending that didn't come until he walked her to her door with a chaste kiss... Maybe not too chaste.
They could have started over that night.
He opened his eyes, alone in the empty warehouse. Alone. Because they had started over, but in the worst possible way. And things were more fucked up than ever.
He stomped at the melted pile again and its pieces shattered and skittered away.
"Didn't you torture that worn out piece of tin enough?"
He turned and saw Linda in the doorway. "You again?"
"Nice." She smirked. "Great to see you, too. But I'm not staying. Just dropping off." She pulled open the door further and Ramirez stumbled in with a box. "You sure you don't want me to get that?"
"Linda, I got it." She tossed Clark a desperate glance and mouthed "I don't got it." He rushed forward and took it.
"I'll just get the other one from the car."
"No," Ramirez said quickly. She turned to Clark again. "Clark will get it."
He glanced at her, then sped outside and to Linda's car. It was a large box. He could no longer tell if it would be heavy, but he wondered exactly what she had planned today.
He sped back in and set it down.
"So I come back at four?" Linda was saying.
"Yes. Should give me enough time to pack."
Clark straightened and turned. "Pack?"
Ramirez lifted her head to him. "Yes. I'm going back to Star City this afternoon. I have a patient that needs my attention. I can't spend all my time bossing you around. Why?" She tilted her head. "You gonna miss me?"
Clark looked down. "No," he scoffed. "Just thought you were gonna stay through the holidays."
"Oh, you have to!" Linda said passionately. "Martha would probably have the whole gang over and last time I had Christmas with Martha, she made turkey and ham and you'd think the overabundance would diminish either, but everything was moist and not too salty and she makes these candies yams with..."
"Linda, you can't just assume my mom's going to do this big dinner."
"Why not?" she demanded, her eyes suddenly hard. "She still did it when your absent ass was off in your ice castle and might I say that she was awfully lonely and..."
"I'm not trying to start a fight," Clark gritted. "I'm just saying that a big dinner's a lot of work and she might be busy with the election and..."
"Like I wouldn't help with... some stuff? Don't act like you're the king of Martha just because she's your mom. Some of us were there when she..."
"Tempting as it sounds," Ramirez cut in. "All this fighting's making me a little homesick. I do have family of my own to get back to."
Linda crossed her arms and glared at Clark. "We're not family."
"Not yet," Clark mumbled. But he was starting to see a downside to Lois being at the end of that proverbial path. A cousin-in-law named Linda.
"I heard that and you are definitely jumping the gun, Mister, if you think..." She shook her head. "Wait... What was that about an election?"
"Uh..." There was no way out of this one. "My mom's kind of... running for town council."
Linda's eyes widened. "And you didn't tell me?"
"Well, she didn't want to make a big deal out of it, so I wasn't supposed to say anyth..."
"Well, I'm sure she didn't mean me." Linda pulled her cell from her purse. "It's only my field, but fine." She punched a few buttons and put the phone to her ear. "Martha, it's me. Heard the big news." She waved at Ramirez and started out. "How far off is this election? Because we have..."
Clark closed his eyes and took a breath. So he'd blabbed. How bad could it be?
"I hope your mother can mellow her out. Because I give up." Ramirez pointed to the boxes. "Could you put those on the table, please?"
"You actually said please." Clark picked up a box.
"Are you implying I'm rude?"
"I'm implying you're tough," he said, setting it down. "Not always a bad thing. You've... You've helped me a lot."
Ramirez bumped his arm. "Don't get mushy on me. We still have work to do."
"What's with all the boxes?"
"Just stuff I thought might come in handy for the rest of your training. More wood. Some bars to bend."
Clark pulled out a pillow. "In case I need a nap?"
"It's down." She hit him with it. "Feathers. Thought they might come in handy when you're on breath, for precision and all."
Clark pulled out a pair of handcuffs. "And these?"
"Probably useless, now that I think of it. You could break them too easily now." She tossed them back in the box. "Worst comes to worst, you can use them to liven up your sex life."
Clark choked on his own breath. "What?"
Ramirez stared at him. "It's a good thing we're on hearing today."
"No. I heard you. I just couldn't believe you said it."
"Progress already." She smiled and held up a scarf with two bits of metal on it. "Shall we?"
"See, now I'm really wondering what you have in mind."
"Don't get too cute with me now." She moved behind him and lifted the blindfold over his head. "You told me the first time your hearing kicked in, you had gone nearly blind. This has two lead patches glued on. We want to sharpen your hearing today by dulling your sight."
**************************
She could hardly see. It took her a moment to figure out that it was because she was facing the damned window. She'd thrown open the window and blinds earlier, letting the cool air in, needing something brisk and bracing to keep her up because she absolutely couldn't go to sleep until she'd read every issue.
Now she realized it was morning, if the blinding sun was any indication. Late morning by the look of it. And she didn't want it to be. It meant she'd been up too long again.
She groaned and pulled herself up from the floor, where papers were scattered around her. She reluctantly dragged herself to bed. It wasn't just the sun interrupting her reading. It was the fact that her eyes kept closing and she wished they'd stop. Sleep was low on her list, but she felt forced into it anyway. If there was a pill that contained a night's sleep without the pesky time lost, she'd buy the entire supply. Hell, she'd buy stock in the company.
As it was, she was stumbling to her room and getting under the covers to waste precious time with useless sleeping.
And it was useless.
Ever since she'd been in full-on research mode, there was nary a dream to set her on track.
Maybe that meant she was already on track.
It was a comforting thought. Nearly made her feel peaceful and...
She groaned and turned over, pulling a pillow over her head. Now her damned home phone was ringing.
It was no one she wanted to hear from at this time. The last time she'd checked her voice mail, there had been about a dozen messages from Linda, ever so casually checking in... about three times a day. She'd call back, but she was too afraid she'd actually reach her. Was two weeks too much to ask? Why couldn't everyone just let her be?
Two messages were from Ollie, asking her if she got the package.
She'd got the package. It was sitting on her table. It was a cell phone. A much nicer one than the refillable one she'd picked up at the gas station, to understate the facts. But she'd left it in the box, powered down. As flattering as she might have found it before she knew everyone was hiding things from her, now it just seemed like some way to keep tabs. She suspected a man with Oliver's money and reach could lojack a cellphone with no trouble, especially with Victor on his side. They might know where she was spending the majority of her days. What they'd do about it, she didn't know. But for now, she preferred to keep it her business when she was in Smallville.
And she wasn't done with Smallville.
After reading The Torch, Smallville had become a lot more interesting to her. It had sure been interesting to Chloe. Her idea of high school newspapers had been game details and the scandal of what's really in school lunches. But The Torch read like a sci-fi serial, with a new freak every week and her humble host was none other than... herself.
It was still so strange. But sometimes she saw it. Those flashes of herself in a sentence, a quip. It was hard to hate this girl, to see her as another person when she only saw herself in some other world... yet a world that still seemed to exist. A world where there was still Clark Kent. There was still a paper. There were still stories of strange happenings. Except now she had a name to put on the unexplained saves of the day. Superman.
Then, there were just these stories where things seemed to have worked out with no real explanation of how. The how was the same, she suspected. Clark Kent had always been there, saving her, saving others. The question was why?
Why would he follow her into this new life with this same sort of pattern? Was he just a creature of habit? Full of guilt that she'd gone so wrong? Some sense of obligation? And for what? And, of course, there was still the damned sex...
She reached for her phone, trying to pry her mind away from Clark. Her phone had long since stopped ringing, but there might be voicemail. The slight stuttering of the dial tone told her there was and she dialed her own number and punched in her code. Even another oh-so-casual message from Linda would be better than going around and around on Clark. He was a question she still wasn't prepared to answer, let alone stew on. The question was too littered with feelings and speculation. No facts to speak of. And she was dealing in facts alone.
It seemed that no matter what she tried, it all came back to Clark. The one man she didn't want to think of.
"Miss Lane..."
Correction. There was one other man she wanted out of her mind.
"I think you made yourself pretty clear in our last meeting. This is the last time I'm going to attempt to contact you."
Good.
"I'm so close. I've tried to tell you. I have something you need. Something we both need."
Like what?
"I don't think I should just trust you with the information outright. You're obviously... unpredictable in your reactions. I need to know you can be trusted."
Funny. I know you can't be. It was the strangest thing, as much as she was drawn to Clark, Lex repelled her. It was instinctual. It was in her gut. She had to trust that at least. It was all she had of who she'd been.
"I probably shouldn't have offered, yet I can't help feeling we're connected in this."
Why? You mean because, of all people, we both lost most of our lives. Great deduction. But she might go one step further and say that something they both did, whether they were in cahoots or not, led them here. This didn't just happen to them. She was starting to feel as if it was some form of penance.
"I have nearly everything I need. With or without you, I will be going forward. But it would be in your best interests to..."
Yeah. good luck with that. She hit seven to delete and turned the ringer off, pulling the covers over herself again. Whatever missteps had led her here, she wouldn't be repeating them by associating with him at all.
If she learned anything from her research, it was that Chloe Sullivan had been a good person once.
Lois Lane could be now.
****************************
"Okay, where did it land?"
"Uh... Two o'clock?"
"Not even close. Are you even concentrating?"
Clark pulled the blindfold down and stared at her. Ramirez was just sitting down, a cup in her hands. "You're throwing plastic pellets. Can't you try BBs or something easier to hear against the floor?"
"Do you hear yourself? Easier? Is that what this is about? Making it easy for you?" She gestured to him. "Blindfold up."
"Fine," Clark groaned, pulling it back over his eyes. He wanted to get this today, damn it. He'd thought he could.
"Now concentrate. Empty that mind. Should be easy."
"Very funny. Clark's so stupid. Ha-ha,"
"Oh, you know I'm just funning. But good, get mad and focus on me, At least your mind will be in the damn room."
He stood still and waited. She was right. His mind was far from here. Whatever he did, he was still thinking of Lois. Last night, it had helped. Focused anger at her had simplified things. It made it easier if the object of his lust was also the object of his anger. Today, his feelings were just angry static and questions on who he should be angry with in the first place. Her? Grady? Fucking fate?
"Where?"
"Seven?"
"You're just guessing."
"I just... I'm having a little trouble with the mind emptying."
"Fine. Don't empty. Just try to think of something less consuming." She paused. "How 'bout that weather? Freezing cold."
"I wouldn't notice if it was blistering hot."
"Oh, yeah. Well, that takes most of my possible small talk options away. Now all that's left is TV and sports. And I don't talk sports."
"I don't watch a lot of TV."
"How fun for us. I just threw three more, by the way. You aren't trying."
He was trying. He just wasn't succeeding at all. Stupid plastic pellets...
"So how's work?"
"You mean that place where I'm covering crime that I should be stopping? It sucks."
"You're just a ball of sunshine today."
"Why don't we talk about you?" he tried, just sick of his own whining at this point. "Linda said you were going back for your patients. I thought you were retired."
"I don't exactly have a practice anymore, but... between you and me, I have some freelance work with a certain archery enthusiast who's banged himself up a little."
He froze. "Is Ollie..."
"No, nothing too bad. But you know the honorable mayor can't just go to a hospital and get stitches without a storm of paparazzi. But I wouldn't tell Linda even that. I don't want to upset her. First three months are a little delicate."
"So you know." He took the blindfold off again. "I kind of figured by the way you were lugging that box in alone."
"And I kind of got an inkling the night you developed your vision, but I had the full picture last night when the woman took me out for burgers and kept dipping her fries in my chocolate milkshake."
"Gross."
"Actually, it was kind of good. I ended up trying it and..." Ramirez shook her head. "Anyway, I know."
"At this rate, everyone will know before Oliver does. I think she should..."
"Blindfold up. The point of us gossiping is to stop focusing on our own crap, not get off task."
Clark put it back on. "We aren't gossiping."
"If talking about a mutual friend's secret pregnancy isn't gossip, then I don't know what is."
"Well... I just don't like the word. I mean, it just came up. I don't like gossip."
"This from the guy whose X-ray vision was triggered by spying on his coworkers making out in the closet. Where?"
"Eleven o'clock. And it was the copy room and I wasn't trying to spy. I was... "
"It was three o'clock and you like gossip as much as anyone. Admit it. You're only human."
"Actually, I'm not."
"Well, you were raised here. You aren't so far above the rest of us."
"I never said I was."
"No. I see it. Your planet was so advanced above us that no one ever got jealous of the guy down the street with the new saucer or dished on the chick making out with the Martian..."
"Okay. Now you're just being silly."
"Well, better silly than holier than thou."
"I am not holier than thou. I just..." There was a noise. Something like a tapping that slowed. It was echoing in his ears. "Four o'clock?"
There was silence. "Not quite yet, but..."
He held his ears. "Ow..."
"Okay, fine." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You got it. But don't get cocky. Here..."
He heard it again. "Eight?"
A half-hour later, he thought he might have earned the right to cockiness. "Five o'clock... or more like half past."
"Okay," Ramirez said softly. He could actually hear her standing and stretching... hear the crack of her bones. "I have so many pellets around you that I hardly know anymore."
"No. I think I got it. We should move onto something harder... or lighter. Like cotton balls or..."
"Clark, it's nearly four. I need to pack and... Don't you want to get to your game... party thing?"
"I don't really want to go that much."
"What?"
"Hey! Tone it down." He heard her steps growing closer.
"Oh, you tone it down." The blindfold was pulled down and she was in front of him. He shook his head hard, trying to get back to normal. "You like football."
Her voice was slightly less jarring. "Well, I do, but..."
"And who doesn't like a party? Food, beer..."
"I don't have anything against parties, but... Well, it would be more useful to stay here and keep working." Clark rolled his neck. "So why don't we just..."
"You were the one that wanted some time off. After all that whining to Murray about a night off..."
"First of all, I didn't whine. And second of all..." He shrugged. "I don't know. That was before we were making real progress."
"And that's good. But no reason to stop... living."
"It's just a party."
"It's more than that. It's something normal. You don't watch TV. You resent your job right now. You can't even lower yourself to gossip... You are on your way to holier than... normal, actually."
"No, I'm not. I can... I can go. I just thought you would want our last session to last longer is all."
"Oh, don't make this about me. I feel good with what I've done. This former gym teacher can leave knowing she made that... that metaphorical fat kid climb the rope."
"Oh, thanks," Clark said dryly.
She moved closer. "But that fat kid can't do nothing but climb that rope for the rest of his life, if you get me."
"Could we leave the metaphor and just..."
He froze, surprised, as she leaned up to kiss his cheek. "To sum up, I think you'll be fine. You're on your way to being Superman again. But don't lose Clark Kent." There was a long, loud honk outside. "That's my ride," She moved away and gathered her purse. "I'll just leave this mess for the next superfriend." She started for the door.
"Ramirez?"
She stopped and turned to him.
"Thanks."
She smiled. "Call me Sarah. It's what my friends do."
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Chapter Twenty-Two
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