Disclaimer: They belong to DC, The CW, AlMiles ...

A/N: I'll admit now that I have no idea where this is going. I'm just trying to amuse myself over the break and while Erica is absent from the show (love that girl!). It's set just after the events of "bride" and will remain from the point of view of Lois Lane.

........................................................................................................................................................................................

Star City

They'd arrived at Star General in an ambulance, Lois in the rust coloured bridesmaid dress, her hairpins falling loose, holding Jimmy's limp hand as he lay bandaged on the gurney and insisting it would all be okay through blurry eyes and a shaking smile. In retrospect she was glad he hadn't seen her, unconscious as he'd been. The piteous looks from the paramedics had told her just how uninspiring her overwhelming lack of hope had been.

She'd remained at Jimmy's side however, leaving only when the doctors wheeled him off to surgery. She'd been there when he woke. There to deliver the awful news.

Lois didn't think she'd ever seen a man more devastated than James Olsen in that moment; his bloodless look followed by a determined move to rise from the bed, forcing Lois to stop him before he managed to pull the drip from his wrist, manoeuvring him gently back onto his sheets. She'd put her arms around him then, letting him scream into her shoulder, and before long they'd both been sobbing - supporting each other as the tears fell.

Three weeks, eighty seven cups of bad hospital coffee and five bedside screenings of The Maltese Falcon later - still no word from Ollie, and Lois was starting to get twitchy. With the satellite technology and superhero gadgetry at his command, the Green Arrow should surely have found something by now, but calls to his cell had gone unanswered and his office insisted he'd gone to FiJi to recover from stress. He had after all witnessed the violent kidnapping of a colleague at her wedding. It was proof at least that Ollie had blown off all other commitments to search for Chloe, but Lois would still have ripped that snotty receptionist a new one had they been in the same room.

Lack of communication aside, Ollie had actually been a Godsend throughout this ordeal. He'd arranged accommodation for Lois (a five minute walk from the hospital), paid Jimmy's medical bill, sent communications to Gabe and the General informing them of the situation and, according to Clark, paid for repairs to the barn. It was generous to say the least and Lois reflected that there were tragically few people in the world like Oliver Queen.

Clark had checked in a few times, promising like a broken record they'd find Chloe soon, assuring Lois she could take as much time from work as she needed – he'd arranged it all with Tess – and generally worrying over how she and Jimmy were doing. The words were nice - and Lois knew his wish to comfort her was sincere - but somehow his calls always left her feeling hollow; as though he were stringing her along. She knew it was irrational - Clark most likely had no clue what romantic thoughts had gone through her mind that fateful day - but that didn't make his clueless attention any less painful to bear.

The last time he'd called she'd heard Lana chirping away in the background and had made the fastest excuse she could think of – Jimmy needs sandwiches! - to get off the phone. She'd screwed up her face against the uprising tears – she refused to cry over whatever this was while her friend was still in the critical ward - and had gone back to fix Jimmy's pillows and hand him the latest issue of Photographer's Monthly. She'd avoided Clark's calls ever since.

Now she was in her usual chair by Jimmy's bed, wrapped in a blanket, feet on his mattress, reading an ancient issue of Warrior Angel she'd found out in the waiting room. Not her usual choice of distraction, but the other option was fashion magazines from the nineties and she'd already made fun of them all.

"Which one is that?" asked Jimmy unexpectedly. She'd thought he was asleep.

"Er ..." she flipped the cover. "Issue three sixty."

"Oh," he said, disappointed. "Well it beats the fashion mags I guess."

"Yeah," she agreed, though honestly she found comics in general disappointing - all action, no substance – just like a lot of the guys she'd grown up with on various bases. "Have you read it?"

"No. It's one of the new ones. They rebooted the story a few years ago. I'm more an original series kind of guy."

"You are an original," Lois agreed fondly.

"Have the police called yet?" he asked quietly.

"No," Lois sighed, aware that this question would lead to yet another hashing out of all the possibilities of where Chloe might be, who was looking for her, what the hell had taken her and, most mysterious of all, why. They'd gone at it obsessively for the first two weeks after Jimmy had regained consciousness and the answers were as elusive as ever. Now the conversation was getting stale and Lois was starting to feel they needed a new angle. "Not since the last time," she said; the last time being two weeks earlier when Detective Sawyer had bluntly informed Lois that that if a kidnap victim wasn't recovered within forty eight hours, the chances of survival were slim. Lois had responded by saying she knew that much from watching CSI and did Sawyer actually do anything useful for the money taxpayer's poured into the police department? "I'm not sure they even consider supernatural kidnappings part of their jurisdiction," she added, more bitterly than she intended.

"You think maybe the red and blue blur is onto it?" Jimmy asked hopefully. "He's saved your life twice that we know of. Maybe he's looking out for your family too."

This was another possibility they'd already discussed at length, but again, their conversations had gone in circles. The red blue blur was an unknown. Lois smiled sadly. "I'm sure he is," she said, sure of no such thing, but like Jimmy, she hoped it was true.

"You think that thing was a meteor freak?" asked Jimmy. "I mean, we were in Smallville." He shook his head. "Why did we choose to have it in Smallville? I mean, we were just asking for trouble. Sure, the farm was perfect for photos, but how many times has that barn been repaired over the last ten years because some freak tore it to pieces? We were tempting fate!"

"People get married in Smallville all the time without getting attacked by spiny monsters, Jim. You couldn't have known," she said tiredly.

"It didn't seem like a meteor freak though, did it?" he said, apparently choosing to ignore her words. "I mean it looked ... "

"Extra terrestrial?" asked Lois softly. It wasn't the first time the idea had been voiced between them and, as previously, it left her feeling useless. Corrupt billionaires she could fight, but aliens? Where did you even start?

"Yeah," Jimmy agreed. "And Lois, we've both seen things - that ship you found in the damn, the research that Kara was doing - and if that thing was E.T. it could have phoned home and had Chloe beamed to the mothership by now!"

"Jimmy ... " She reached out to comfort him, but Jimmy closed his eyes and shook his head, hiding his eyes behind his palm as he lost himself in grief. She curled her fingers into a loose fist and withdrew her hand.

Suddenly he looked up, hope lighting his eyes. "Wait, wait, wait" he said, "Lois! You need to call Kara! She knows more about this stuff than anyone else we know. She ..." he hesitated, his eyes shifting guiltily, clearly on the verge of revealing something exciting but held back by ... a moral imperative?

"What?!" Lois demanded impatiently, slightly alarmed that he might hold anything back at this juncture.

"It's confidential," he said, looking worried.

"I will hit you," said Lois.

"Okay," said Jimmy, one hand up in surrender. "Okay, about a year ago, Kara hacked into the Department of Domestic Security to get information on that ship you found. She said it was a hobby, but with those skills ... look, I know it's a long shot, but it's been weeks, and if she can tell us anything about what the government has on the alien invasion ... Lois. Please. Can you call her?"

Lois felt her disappointment like a blow. Jimmy's revelation would have been interesting a month ago, but now it felt like the most useless piece of information he could have offered. Whatever her hobbies, Kara was still just Kara; sweet and perky and kind of huggable, but not a major league player in the game of government intrigue. Looking into Jimmy's hopeful face though, and feeling the same anguish of loss, Lois nodded. "Go back to sleep Jimmy. I'll track her down."

"You're the best Lois," he said, obediently closing his eyes. Somehow his confidence in her was heartbreaking.

"Yeah," she said, and reluctantly retreated to the hall.

........................................................................................................................................................................................

He picked up on the tenth ring. "Hey Smallville," she said, before he could speak. She needed the upper hand here.

"Lois?" he asked, and to her disappointment he didn't sound pleased to hear her. "I thought you weren't talking to me. Are you still at the hospital?"

"That's ridiculous. Why would I not be talking to you?" she said, acutely aware of how childish the obvious lie was. He had a way of bringing this side of her out; this petty competitive side. There was something about him that was just ... frustrating.

"I keep getting your voicemail – "

"I'm in a hospital. They tell you to keep your phone off!" True enough, she thought, feeling justified.

"I left messages," he countered, "and you haven't called me back." This was also true. He'd been calling every couple of days. Just calling to see how you're holding up. Let me know how Jimmy's feeling. Don't give up hope; I know we'll find Chloe soon. Call me when you get this, okay?

"I've been busy here."

"Yeah," he said sadly, not bothering to argue the point. She forced down a surge of emotion. Under normal circumstances he would have risen to the challenge and fought her for the truth. He was changing the pattern, leaving her with an even more intense feeling of loss. She wondered what he was thinking. Did he suspect her feelings? Was he distracted by his latest drama with Lana? Was he just too tired to deal with her in the face of all the tragedy?

She put it out of her head and focussed on the reason for her call.

"Listen up Smallville, Jimmy and I were talking, and it seems pretty clear to us that that thing in your barn was ... Look, I know that you're a non-believer when it comes to this, but you can't deny that that thing looked extra terrestrial, and apparently –"

"Look, Lois, this is a really bad time," he interrupted curtly. "If I call you back do you think you could actually answer your phone?"

"Smallville, hang on! I just need you to –"

"I'm sorry Lois, but I have to go."

And with that he hung up.

It took Lois a second to realise what had just happened, and when she did she took a moment to gape at her phone before shoving it back in her pocket and hitting her fist against the nearest wall. Tears of pain gathered in her eyes as she bent over, gripping her fist in her other hand. "Damn him!" she said, then looked around to be sure no one had noticed her outburst before heading out to find the nearest internet cafe. She needed to find a number for Kara.

........................................................................................................................................................................................

Star Gen was a full service hospital with a cafeteria, gift shop, newsagent, florist, and ... a Cafe Connect. Finding an internet connection was easy; finding Kara - not so much.

Trying to ignore the thirteen year olds playing Gangster Life at the next booth, Lois discovered there were twenty five Kents listed in Minnesota. Unfortunately, of the twenty who'd actually answered their landlines, none had ever heard of a Kara Kent.

Lois then tried Martha, kicking herself for not thinking of this before cold calling strangers, but the Senator was to be in meetings for the next four hours.

A google search brought up very little in the way of useful information (though who knew Kara had been in the School Choir?) and Clark had yet to call back, leaving Lois with no leads on a simple contact number.

She cursed herself for never having asked for it when Kara was around, but really, they'd never been that close. Clark and jeans size was all they'd really had in common, and even after rescuing the girl from a crazy busboy in Detroit, Lois had never really bothered to make friends. She was beginning to think she might actually have to go back to the Planet just to track the info she needed, when her phone beeped with an incoming SMS.

"0600, F-HW, Nellie Bly DB. 1900, Queen I. Hellipad."

Translation: The General wanted her at Fort Hayworth by 6am tomorrow for a debrief on what had happened at the wedding, and there was a helicopter coming to collect her at 7pm on the roof of Queen Industries - which meant that Oliver had somehow started working with the military during his three week phone silence. The fact that the summons had come in the form of a text message meant that the General was leaving no room for argument on this one.

She looked at her watch. It was 6pm. Queen Industries was on the other side of the city and traffic at this hour was going to be a bitch. She thought of the red blue blur with envy. How nice it must be to move that fast through peak hour!

She grabbed her bag and headed back to the hospital to say goodbye to Jimmy before catching a cab to the helicopter, noting to herself that she would be keeping the receipt. This one was going on "uncle" (ha) Sam's tab.