hospital.

"GOOD MORNING METROPOLIS…THIS IS KID KELLY…." Woke Clark up as his alarm went off to the jockey on the radio shouting at Clark.

"I'm up, I'm up" Clark mumbled before slapping the alarm clock and then peeking to see what time it was.

"Well crap" Clark said thinking that it was entirely way too early to be getting up, as he thought every other day that he got up at this time.

"Big day" Clark said, talking to himself it wasn't as if he could call one of his friends for a pep-talk since they would no doubt want to come over and inspect his outfit which would lead to a diatribe on why he didn't wear better clothes, he was after all going out with a model and couldn't he help Clark in his fashion black hole. That would of course lead to him telling them that he was pretty sure that his model boyfriend was going to break up with him, so there would be no help from that end. Which would then lead to his friends asking what *he* had done to have the pair break up, like it was his fault that Laurent no longer wanted to be with him. Clark showered and got ready for the day ahead, making sure to even floss his teeth before getting dress in his interview outfit he had chosen. By the time that Clark had dithered, he had exactly one hour before his job interview. So Clark got his portfolio ready and then made his way to his parked car with the instructions he had been given in his hand and thoughts running through his head about some of the questions that the person may ask when he arrived. The ride to the Julian Building was short, it was the finding a parking spot that seemed to take up the rest of his time before his interview.

"Finally" Clark said stalking a person as they made their way to their cars. Clark had been looking for a full twenty minutes for a spot and then he has spotted a worker making their way to their car. He had been lucky since there was a huge line of cars trying to fight for the limited parking spots in the underground garage; Clark hated to think on how early he would need to be here to even get a parking spot. Clark pulled into the spot quickly and then got out of the car, making sure to lock it before heading for the tall glass and steel building. He hadn't really known what he was getting into when the HR person had called about the job, he had just known that it was a job interview in his chosen field of study and that anything could be better than the hell hole he called a job currently. Clark people watched for a moment and noticed that most, if not all of the people that came to or from the building looked like they could be someone famous and were just at the ready to pose for the camera. The women all wore suits or something close to it with three inch stilettos, their hair done to perfection along with their make-up. If there was a woman with glasses, they were of designer quality and they looked to be worth more than Clark's whole wardrobe. The men on the other hand all looked like they were CEOs, CFOs and some other C that Clark couldn't think up at the moment. They looked much too young be running anything and they held an air around that that screamed 'I'm important, look at me'. This had Clark shifting foot-to-foot, a nervous habit of his that Kara and his mother had been trying to break of him. It hadn't worked yet and he didn't think that it would ever go away, he thought ruefully. Clark took a fortifying breath before he entered the building and became even more self-conscious of what he was wearing for the inside was just as bad as the outside of the building. There were more people milling about looking absolutely perfect, something that Clark was realizing that he was definitely not. 'Screw up that would mean I actually made it to the interview' Clark thought, remembering Lana's words about him not screwing up this chance.

"Do you need some help?" A woman with mid-length blonde hair said to Clark clearly wondering what on Earth he was doing here in this building.

"Uh, no" Clark said before looking at his paper and seeing that he would need to make his way to the tenth floor for his interview in HR.

"You sure, visitors aren't allowed in the building" Clark could tell what she clearly thought of him and his attire, she every few seconds she would look over his body and then hold in a grimace.

"Oh, I have a job interview" Clark said before making his way over to the elevators. He never noticed that as soon as he walked away the woman and everyone in the large entry area of the building gasped as a bald man walked into the building. Clark had pushed the up button, deep in thought wondering if he should even bother with the interview to begin with. It seemed like most if not all of the people that worked here were perfect, something he was clearly lacking if the look on the woman's face meant anything. The bing of the elevator had Clark moving towards the one with the highlighted up arrow, and it was as he was about to step onto the elevator that someone pushed him out of the way and then pushed the close button.

"Hey!" Clark shouted bringing all of the attention of the area to him and the person the elevator now.

"This is full"

"Hey! No it isn't" Clark said sticking his arm into the closing door hoping that he wouldn't end up on the nightly news about the elevator taking off his arm off, as he had seen on the news on occasion when poor maintenance had been a factor.

"Yes it is" the bald man said before pressing the close button again making Clark pull his arm out at the last second, not wanting to lose said limb. By now it seemed as if the whole area was watching Clark and the elevator's doors as the closed. Clark blushed when he noticed that everyone then began to speak to each other as if not believing what Clark had just done. Clark trying not to look or even over hear what they were saying, so instead he pressed the up button yet again and then waited for the next elevator to come. A Bing sounded shortly after Clark had pressed the up button and he then made his way onto the elevator before noticing that one other person had gotten on with him.

"What floor" Clark asked being polite, he was hoping that not everyone at the office building was as rude as the bald man.

"Fifteenth" the woman said before eyeing Clark and then grimacing. Who was this po-duck boy in the Julian Magazine Building? Clark pressed the button before choosing his floor as well; Clark looked at himself in the mirror walls of the elevator and began to wonder on why he was even bothering with going through with this.

"Job interview" the other person on the elevator said before getting a nod in response to the questions.

"Hmmm" the person said before the elevator stopped and Clark made his way onto the floor looking a bit lost. The whole floor was done in purple, he wasn't really sure what that meant but he had a feeling it wasn't anything good.

"Can I help you" a woman with a perfect hair cut, perfect make-up and perfect outfit said to Clark eyeing him and his outfit. Clark didn't think he looked that bad, his clothes were clean and he most certainly didn't smell so why was it that everyone seemed to give him some sort of once over and deemed him not worthy? They didn't know him and they certainly couldn't judge him by their standards since it was obvious that it was lacking in some areas.

"I have an interview" Clark said before looking down at his piece of paper and finding the name of the person he would be meeting with.

"With whom" the woman asked still not believing that he was here for an interview.

"A, uh…Chloe Sullivan" Clark said reading the name off the paper he had in his hands.

"Ah" the woman said her displeasure very clear to Clark and pretty much anyone who was around. The woman then picked up the phone and called; who Clark assumed was Chloe Sullivan to let her know that her interviewee was there for her. It was while waiting that a short woman with a pixie hair cut came scuttling over to the front desk woman and started whispering in her ear while directing her eyes to Clark every few seconds.

"No he did not!?" The woman said scandalized by the words that the other woman had just told her, she got a nod in response to confirm her words and then she scuttled back away from where she came.

"Clark Kent" a blonde with a flippy hair cut said coming come through the doors that Clark had walked through a few minutes before hand.

"That's me" Clark said before standing up since he had taken a seat on one of the uncomfortable stools that lined the walls.

"Hello, Chloe Sullivan" the woman said before sticking out her hand and then shaking Clark's hand. Clark smiled a bit, this woman hadn't yet done the normal once over and found him lacking something for which he was grateful.

"Follow me" Chloe said before marching right back out of the HR entry and then pressing the down elevator button so that they could go to where the translation department was held in the building.

"Going down" Chloe said before she pressed the B, which was below the P for parking and the LL for lower level on the list of floors and then watched as the doors closed before speaking again.

"So did you find the place okay?"

"Yeah, parking was hard to find though" Clark commented before they were making their way off the elevator, since the elevators were top of the line and zoomed up and down faster than most regular elevators.

"Welcome to the translation department" Chloe said before spreading her arms wide and then grinning to Clark. It wasn't much but it was all hers and she was proud as peaches about it. Clark looked around the floor and had to admit that there was a different vibe going on down here than in the rest of the building. Most of the people that worked there seemed to still have the perfect thing going on, but they were much less up front with it. They just sort of wore the clothing to make sure that they continued to have a job, not that it was their job to look the way they did.

"Follow me" Chloe said before making her way into her office for the interview. She had heard from the rumor mill that ran Julian that Clark had a run in with Lex and was still standing an amazing thing in her book.

"So let's get down to business" Chloe said pulling out the file with Clark's information in it, she had been looking for months now for a translator that could translate the magazine into Arabic since Lex had deemed the country of Qatar worthy of having their publication, and with that meant that they needed to find someone that could translate the magazine into written Arabic. Something that was very hard to find, sure there were those that could speak it fluently but she didn't need a person to speak it she needed a person to write it and Clark had stated that it was one of the many languages that he spoke and wrote fluently. She was only just confirming this before she hired him on; she knew he fit the bill of the stereotype that worked at Julian even if he did maybe need a bit of help in the fashion area.

"So it says that you speak and write Arabic fluently"

"Yes, I spent two summers and one semester in Morocco" Clark stated before looking at Chloe wondering if she would be testing him on if he really knew the language or not.

"Good, good" Chloe said excited to actually have a candidate that had spent time in a different country to learn the language. Most of the people she had interviewed had basic book knowledge nothing that was useable in the real world since most of the people who spoke and wrote a language did not do so in the formal way as was taught at schools.

"Can you maybe do a sample for me" Chloe asked, she had a small part of the magazine that she had been having each candidate translate, while she had a translated copy from a service to try and match up the two, seeing who was bluffing and who actually knew what they were doing.

"Sure, no problem" Clark said before Chloe handed over a pen, paper and the small part of an article to Clark. Clark read over the clipping and then set to work translating it; he found the article or what he could gather from the clipping he had to be fairly easy to translate.

"Here you go" Clark said passing the translation to Chloe ten minutes later, it was hard work writing out Arabic than it was saying it. Part of the reason why Clark liked to deal with paper and ink so much, he loved a challenge and writing out a language always presented their own sort of challenges. Chloe looked over the translation and was amazed; Clark had been the first and only person to translate the whole clipping she had given to him. There had been one or two others that has only translated part of it but it seemed she had found herself the next Julian translator and that was Clark Kent; a man that was hot enough to be *inside* the magazine instead of translating it. Chloe tried but failed to not gape at Clark like a fish, Clark blushed at the look before sinking lower in the chair he was sitting in.

"Excellent" Chloe said once she snapped out of the stupor she had been in, maybe she would be able to sneak past Lex's policy on meeting all new employees for she was certain that once Lex met Clark that she would have to start her search all over again. Lex didn't take too kindly to being backed talked to, his latest junior assistant found that out and come to think of it, weren't they still looking for a replacement? Chloe shook her head of the thoughts before standing up a wide grin on her face; oh she just couldn't wait to get Clark down here with the rest of the language nerds.

"Come with me" Chloe said walking them out of her office and then showing Clark around the space that was deemed the Translation Department.

"Is there a reason why you are down here?" Clark hazard before Chloe began laughing; she could already tell that Clark would fit in just fine down here.

"We're not part of the pretties so they stick us in a place where they don't see us" Chloe explained, it would take a while for Clark to understand what she meant but she figured he would figure it out before he did some major damage to one of the pretties that could leave her possibly without a Arabic translator.

"Right" Clark said tucking the information away and figuring he would worry about it later when he had been hired, if he had been hired at all; when they arrived back to the HR floor it seemed that most had sort of gathered around the front desk to listen to the woman standing there talking about something. All fell silent when Chloe walked in with Clark besides her, the room then exploded with whispers about Clark and how he had done something to someone, Clark couldn't quite understand or hear what they were saying.

"I need to speak to Alicia" Chloe said to the woman standing at the front desk, she got a nod of the head and then she was soon being lead back to Alicia's office. Clark sort of stood not really sure what to do and it seemed that those that didn't leave watched him with amazement in their eyes. He was still in the building and he had a bit of an altercation with Lex Luthor, *the man* at Julian.

"Clark" Chloe said a smile on her face before she was shaking Clark's hand and telling him that they would be in touch soon. Clark smiled and then made his way back down to the main entrance of the building and then back out to his car. Once in his car he was finally able to breathe, he didn't want to jinx himself but he was pretty sure that he had done really well on the interview. Granted it didn't go like most interviews where the person asked you inane questions for a while before getting to the heart of why you were there but he didn't think that Chloe Sullivan was that type of person. She wanted as little fuss as possible, and that was just fine with Clark. That would cut down on the gossip mill in the department unlike his own, which seemed to have its fill of drama and gossip. Clark arrived home twenty minutes later to see that there was yet again two messages for him.