"There," Lois pronounced with satisfaction. "Doesn't that look great?"
Jimmy, unconscious still in his hospital bed, failed to answer. But Lois expected that, when he did awaken and see the Christmas tree she'd set up on his bedside table, he'd appreciate the effort she'd gone to in giving his room a festive touch.
Sure, it was small and obviously artificial: a tinsel white-gold tree decorated with silver bead garlands and golden plastic ornaments. But it wasn't like there was a lot of choice in the hospital gift shop and Lois hardly had time to shop between keeping a bedside vigil during visiting hours, working at The Planet's Star City offices the rest of the day and catching a few hours of sleep each night in the nearby apartment that someone from the Queen Memorial Hospital staff had made available to her that night, weeks ago, when she'd accompanied Jimmy to Admissions.
Lois looked at Jimmy, breathing slowly but steadily. His colour seemed a bit improved but the doctors and nurses refused to predict when he'd regain consciousness. "Come on, Jimbo," she cajoled as she leaned over the railing on the hospital bed. "We've got to get you up and at them so when Chloe's back, you two can have that honeymoon you've missed."
Her nose wrinkled momentarily. "As long as it is far, far, far away from my place, that is."
Lois turned back to regard the small tree with a critical eye. It looked a little stark, as if it was missing something.
A tinkle of bells from the front door of the ward sounded an alert for the entrance of one of the orderlies that Lois had come to know. "Dwayne," she said, gesturing to the tree, "Whaddya think?"
"Nice," he judged. "But don't let Nurse Cratchit, I mean, Nurse Cranmer see it. She'll get all 'rules and regulations' on you."
Lois snorted disdainfully. "I'd like to see her try."
Dwayne shook his head mournfully. "It's your funeral."
Lois laughed. "Hey, Dwayne. This tree's still looking a little forlorn. Do you know any place I can get some more ornaments to decorate it?"
Dwayne pondered the question thoughtfully as he began to tidy up the linens. "You can try the Shop 'n' Save down the road. They'll still be open tonight."
Lois smiled brightly. "Excellent! I'll be right back with something to brighten things up. Don't let Cranmer be the Grinch while I'm gone, you hear?"
Dwayne rolled his eyes. "It'd take a better man than me to do that."
Lois was already breezing out the door, a light jangle of bells following her out into the hallway.
"Is this all you have?" she asked in some dismay.
The bored clerk leaned on the store counter. "It's the night before Christmas, lady. Most people have done their holiday decorations by now."
Lois's brows lowered darkly. "Well, some of us have been busy. Anyway, this is for a friend of mine who's in the hospital."
"Gonna bring him some holiday cheer?" the clerk asked idly as he began to run the gaudy and cheap ornaments and tinsel over the scanner. "That'll be 15.85."
"Highway robbery," Lois sniffed as she shoved a twenty into the clerk's hand and waited for her change.
"And a Merry Christmas to you," he grumbled as she grabbed her bag and headed out the door with a jangle of bells ringing at her exit.
"Dwayne was a hero, wasn't he, Jimmy?" Lois confided as she pulled out her haul from the plastic bag. "Lookie here, I got you a bunch of tinsel," Lois began to drape some of the multi-coloured garlanding across the tiny tree, "some ornaments," she began to carefully hang the garish Hawaiian santas and lopsided plastic snowflakes on the tree, "even a treetopper!"
The last item, Lois carefully unwrapped and placed atop the tiny tree. The gold star was sized for a much larger branch and began to sway dangerously to one side, causing a jingle of the silver bells that adorned each of its shiny points.
Lois frowned and worked to adjust the main branch until it held, almost upright. "There," she said triumphantly, turning to look at the still form lying in the bed beside her. Jimmy breathed in and out, the monitors beside him beeping steadily with each heartbeat.
"Come on, Jimmy," Lois said, sitting down heavily on the chair beside his bed. "We need you getting better soon. It'd be a great Christmas gift, wouldn't it?"
His silence was hardly reassuring as Lois settled in for her evening vigil. Fortunately, Nurse Cramer didn't show, so the tree seemed to be safe for the night at least.
Lois felt her eyes getting heavy as the quiet evening wore on. Usually she had some reading to do as she sat beside Jimmy's bed, but she'd forgotten to bring anything from the office. Without really meaning to do so, her head dropped forward on her clasped hands, and she fell asleep at Jimmy Olson's bedside.
"This has to be a dream," Lois mumbled to herself as she discovered herself in a old-fashioned Las Vegas-style glitzy set surrounded be carolers in leis and grass skirts.
Shouldering her way past the celebratory crowds, she found herself up against an endless series of glass walls separating her from the snowy reaches of a familiar Smallville farm. Being Lois, she tried a hearty kick at the glass, to no avail.
"Damn," she muttered and started to jog along the glassy perimeter, dodging crowds of faceless holiday revelers as she searched for a door.
Somewhere in the distance, bells rang and Lois turned that way. With a growing sense of urgency, she loped towards the distant sound of bells.
"Is everything all right?" It was Clark's voice, but where was it coming from? Lois looked around her but couldn't see her erstwhile partner.
"Relax, Clark." This was Oliver's voice, tinged with a familiar amusement. "She's just exhausted."
Lois began to feel angry. Where were her friends? She could hear them, but couldn't see them, past the Christmas-time crowds. The sound of bells had faded and she began to panic, turning round and round in the centre of what seemed to be nowhere.
"Get me outta here," she roared and suddenly, without warning, a red and blue blur picked her up and transported her out into the clear, snowy air of a Smallville Christmas.
Lois looked around but the blur was gone, as always. Still, with hands on her hips, she breathed in the clear, clean scent of a snowy countryside and turned, with a smile on her lips, to walk up the steps to the farmhouse.
"Clark?"
"That's cute, she's talking about you in her sleep!" Oliver's voice was full of laughter.
"She's probably dreaming of killing me," Clark's voice said. Lois frowned at this. Their voices didn't seem to come from the farmhouse which remained tantalizing out of reach, no matter how many steps she climbed. Thrashing wildly, she turned about and awoke, to see herself back in the sterile hospital room beside a sleeping Jimmy.
"Clark? Oliver?" With a start, Lois roused herself from the graceless puddle into which she'd collapsed. The two men appeared tired but happy. "Chloe?"
Oliver was the first to speak. "She's back and she's going to be fine. Right now she's two floors below us in the women's ward."
Lois made to scramble up and Clark lent her a steadying arm under her elbow. Lois felt suddenly awkward at that touch but didn't pull away. "I've got to see her!"
Oliver nodded. "You can look in but Chloe's under sedation. No permanent harm but they're just hoping to get her healed up from her ordeal."
Lois bit her lip in worry and made her way to the door. She noticed that Clark was following her. "I'll show you the way," he offered as she glanced up at him, questioningly.
They exited the ward to the familiar accompaniment of bells. Lois frowned. Bells and Clark. Something was tickling at the corner of her mind.
"How'd you find her?" Lois asked as they waited for the elevator.
Clark rocked back and forth on his heels, clearly uneasy. "That was mostly Oliver," he said. "Queen Industries has a lot of resources."
Lois nodded thoughtfully as they rode the elevator down to the lower floor.
Another bell dinged as they exited and Lois felt the questioning inside her deepen. With a nod to the nurses, Clark led her past the busy intake area of the ward to a quiet, private room. Chloe lay peacefully in a bed with a nurse, dressed head to toe in holiday prints, beside her. "You must be?" the woman prompted.
"Her cousin and her friend," Lois volunteered, stepping over the Chloe's bedside to look down at her pale and quiet cousin.
The nurse frowned minutely but looked at the notes on the patient file and nodded. "You can have five minutes. We're trying to get her monitors all hooked up and the doctor's going to be in shortly."
Lois opened her mouth, as if to argue, but Clark's hand in her hand forestalled the complaint. "Okay," she finally managed and went back to staring with worry at Chloe's silent form.
"Really, Lois, she's going to be okay," Clark assured her. "She was conscious when we found her, but her body's been through a lot. The doctors who first saw her administered a strong sedative so she's out like a light, that's all."
Lois looked up at Clark with gratitude, then felt a rush of awkwardness overcome her. She returned her gaze to Chloe, until the nurse shooed them out a few minutes later, promising them visiting access tomorrow.
Exiting the women's ward, Lois pushed on the door and triggered the familiar ring of bells. What was it with that sound, she thought?
Beside her, Clark cleared his throat uneasily. "Well, you must be tired Lois. Maybe you should go back to your apartment and get some rest." Another hospital worker, this time dressed in colourful Hawaiian-print scrubs sidled by and triggered the bells one more time. All of a sudden, things clicked into place inside Lois Lane's fertile brain.
Lois stopped suddenly, planting a hand on Clark's chest. "You!"
"Me?" Clark asked in confusion.
With a quick look either way, Lois dragged Clark off to an empty waiting room. Shoving the door closed behind them, she poked her friend in the chest.
"You! You're the red and blue blur!"
Clark laughed uneasily. "Lois, you're crazy!"
Lois shook her head in negation. "No, I'm right!"
As he opened his mouth to continue his denials, Lois planted that finger again firmly on Clark's sternum. "Just remember, Clark. If I'm right and you lie to me now, I will never, ever, ever trust you again."
Clark dropped his face for a moment and then seemed to summon some resolution. He lifted his gaze to meet Lois's. "And if I say yes, I am and, oh, by the way, I'm a stranger from another planet, will you ever talk to me again?"
Lois blinked rapidly. "Well, of course I will, Clark! How else am I going to keep you on the straight and narrow?"
His smile dazzled and Lois found herself biting her lip in an effort to keep from grabbing him by the collars and pulling him in for a kiss or peppering him with a million questions. Though, if she was going to be honest with herself, right now the first temptation was the more powerful.
Outside in the corridor, a bell rang faintly. It was followed by a caroling of bells from a nearby church, faintly ringing in the empty room. With the bells, the burdens of Lois's worries and woes over the past weeks finally let go and she could return Clark's smile, fully and completely.
"Merry Christmas, Lois."
"Merry Christmas, Clark."
Her fingers interlaced with his and his head dropped down to hers and soon the bells outside weren't the only ones ringing for Lois Lane in Star City.