Lois couldn't believe it. He didn't get a name. They were talking front-page story material, and he didn't get a name. Why her?
"Rule Number One: Always know your source."
He gave her his eyeroll-substitute smirk and asked for the CliffsNotes, but she ignored him. She didn't care. Chloe had been the first in the family to try it on for size, but journalism had become Lois' turf, and she was never one to hold back on giving advice. Plus, there was just something almost heartwarming about lecturing Clark.
For the rest of the day, she took every opportunity to rub his nose in the fact that this was her gig, and to pour cold water on his attempts to assert himself as some kind of equal partner. He could do as he was told or he could get out of the way, but she could not allow him to go traipsing in and out of the managing editor's office as casually as though it were a horse stall. At least she'd gotten him out of the flannel and into a proper dress shirt before he'd completely humiliated her.
Lying in bed that night, her mind wandering a bit too often to that dress shirt—and the non-existent wrinkles she had been pressing out of it while it was being worn—and the possibility that maybe Clark wasn't as dumb as he acted sometimes—she needed a distraction. She tore a page from the notebook on her nightstand and started writing. She scrawled a heading in big black letters: LOIS' RULES OF REPORTING.
Next time she went on assignment out of town, this list was going to wind up under his keyboard. He needed all the help he could get.
Not that it wasn't a shock when Chloe told her she'd been Lois-for-a-day, but it did explain something. "No wonder you sounded so...well, like me," Lois said, thinking back to the strange phone call she had received while in Mexico. "Why didn't you tell me then?"
"I was kind of panicking," responded her cousin. "At the time, I was really glad you didn't pick up on the whole Patty Duke scenario."
"Too bad I was out of the country. Think of all the fun we could've had with Clark."
Chloe grinned. "I had some fun with Clark all by myself."
It was beyond ridiculous that that statement should make her even remotely jealous, so she wasn't. Jealous. Even remotely. "Spill."
"First, six phone calls? Five from the airport and one from the plane?"
Despite herself, Lois flushed. "Last minute notes," she hedged. "Smallville can't handle things over there on his own. I was just...making sure he knew what to do when I was gone."
"I don't think that's a problem. Do 'Lois' Rules of Reporting' ring any bells?"
"He remembers them?" she asked, flattered.
"He framed them."
"No."
"Top left-hand drawer."
"Wow. Wait, really?"
"No lie," Chloe insisted. "Underneath all that bluster and eye-rolling, I'd say Clark Kent truly respects you."
"Wow. I mean, he's...he would...I...."
Her cousin laughed. "Sounds mutual to me."
Mutual feeling was not an okay mental pathway. "Enough about Smallville," Lois said. "The real question is: will you ever be able to wear that sweater again?"
