A/N The rubber cement incident is from something that happened to me on like my second day on the job at a library when I was in college. Yes it really does look how I've described it in the story ;) Reviews and constructive (not destructive!) criticism welcome. If you really don't like something, I'd at least like to know why, though I realize it's impossible to please everyone.

Chapter 1: Touch and Go

It was after ten before Clark Kent got to work that morning, late again. Not that anyone noticed of course.

It was business at usual at the Daily Planet from the look and sound of things. To anyone who'd never been there, it probably looked like an utter madhouse. The room was a veritable maze of small desks and cubicles, most stacked high with papers. There was a constant buzz of noise, voices chattering, phones ringing, the clickity-clack of fingers on keyboards and of course, the multiple televisions tuned to different channels so that there was little chance of missing any breaking news. And through it all wove the reporters, editors, copyboys, graphics artists, assistants and everyone else who helped put out each edition of the top newspaper in Metropolis.

It'd been six days since Metropolis had felt the effects of Lex Luthor's island formation, and everyone in the city was working hard to clean up the mess. Miraculously, very few buildings had permanent structural damage from the earthquake. Most of the broken windows in the Daily Planet were still in the process of being replaced, though they were almost finished with the repairs on this floor at least.

Clark made his way through the obstacle course of desks and people, managing to bowl over one person and bump into two desks in the process. A file case fell over as he slung his briefcase onto his own desk, and he awkwardly fumbled to catch it before it hit the floor. He allowed himself to succeed today, and straightening back up, replaced the case into his organized work area before sitting down.

Out of habit, he craned his neck to look in the direction of where Lois's cubicle was. A slight smile curved his lips as he saw her dark head bent over her desk, a phone held in the crook of her neck as she furiously wrote on a pad of paper in front of her.

A surge of some inexplicably complicated emotion surged in his chest as he watched her. She'd been so busy the last few days, especially after finishing her latest big article. It had been aptly entitled, "Why the World Needs Superman." Perry White insisted it would be another Pulitzer prize winner.

For himself, he'd not had much opportunity to talk to her since that night after he'd left the hospital, either as Clark or Superman. Heaving a controlled sigh, he leaned back in his chair, thinking.

"Mr. Kent! Hey Clark!" called his friend, Jimmy Olsen, waving a hand to gesture Clark over toward where he stood staring up at one of the television monitors.

He regained his feet and headed that way, offering a cheerful, "Hello Jimmy," to the other man. The monitor was showing some footage of a train derailment in Pennsylvania that Superman had helped with earlier that morning.

Jerking a thumb toward the monitor, Jimmy said with a grin, "You'd never know he nearly died less than a week ago, would you? He's amazing. You should see the pictures I took of him yesterday when he was helping replace the globe on the top of the building..." his voice trailed off and he grimaced, "I'd show you the first-day story about Superman and the train derailment, but your new helper had a little accident."

Clark nodded absently as his gaze went from the footage of Superman to another monitor tuned to The Weather Channel, which was covering the formation of a new hurricane in the Atlantic. He made a mental note to head down that way later to 'encourage' the storm to dissipate before it made landfall in the Caribbean and caused any severe damage. Then he'd... the last part of what Jimmy said sank in and he blinked, looking at the photographer, his eyebrows arcing upwards. "My... new helper?" he echoed with genuine confusion.

"Oh, you haven't heard?" Jimmy asked, his brown eyes wide with surprise. "I'd have thought you'd be the first to know. Anyway, we've got a ... well she's kind of an intern only she's in high school. Part of her journalism class, extra credit, or something like that. It's volunteer, you know. No pay, credit or glory. Anyway she's going to be hanging around here for at least the rest of the year, after school and that kind of thing. Mr. White assigned her to work with you. So congratulations, you have your very own assistant!" he announced.

The best response that Clark could come up with at that revelation was a weak, "Gee, swell."

Olsen turned and looked beyond his taller friend to editor-in-chief Perry White's office, then lowered his voice, saying sympathetically, "She's not having a good first day."

Gil, a heavy-set man who was another one of the reporters for the Daily Planet, aws glowering when he approached them and said, "Jimmy, I need to talk with you about those pictures you took for my article..."

Jimmy gulped, "Uh... Ok. See you around, Clark," and hurried after Gil.

"Uh-huh," Clark responded, his attention now on the slim girl in Perry's office. Without even listening in or looking in, it was obvious the teenager was getting raked over the coals by the editor-in-chief. Perry White was by nature both gruff and strict, but rarely was he outright angry. This happened to be one of those times. He made his way back to his desk and 'tuned' his hearing to listen in on what seemed to be the tail end of the conversation.

"...and I know this is your first day, but if you mess up another layout to that extent, it will be your last day as well, do I make myself clear, Mason?" Perry demanded, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at the girl. "Great Caesar's ghost, I'd send you back today but they'd probably send me someone even more fumble-fingered."

She ducked her head down for a moment and then squared her shoulders, meeting his eyes with her own. "Yes sir. It won't happen again, I promise. I can assure you that..."

White cut her off, saying flatly, "I don't want excuses, I want results." He looked through the glass windows to his office and saw the broad shoulders of Clark sitting at his desk. "Kent is finally here. Make sure that mess is cleaned up, then report to him." He turned his back in a wordless dismissal and made his way back to his chair.

A moment later, the glass door opened and the girl walked out of Perry's office heading in the direction of the copy desk, her chin up and brown eyes focused straight ahead. She looked to be about 15 years old, attractive but not beautiful, in that 'all American girl' kind of way. Her long sandy blonde hair hung down past her shoulders, brushed straight back and to the side. She was slender and probably an inch or so taller than Lois, which would put her around 5'8".

Clark watched her go past, a slight frown darkening his typically cheerful expression. While he agreed that a few months learning the inside of working at a major newspaper would be an invaluable source of experience for someone her age, the prospect of having someone who could be around watching his every move at the Planet had the potential to be disastrous. Surely someone else at the office would be interested in having an eager kid to run errands for them. He'd just ask around.

"Hey Pauly," Clark started, leaning around the edge of his desk to address the reporter who sat opposite him. Pauly Varaggio's desk was stacked so high with files and papers that there was literally a paper wall barrier between their two desks, never mind that they were right next to each other. "Uh, I was wondering, if you'd..."

Pauly interrupted him without even looking up from his work, "Not a chance."

Taken aback, Clark blinked at his co-worker. "I thought that you could use some help with organizing..." he gestured at the stacks of files separating them.

Looking outraged at the notion, Pauly scowled, "Are you kidding? It'd completely mess up my filing system! And don't bother asking anyone else to take her on either, not after what happened earlier." The short Italiano gave him a humorless smile, "You're stuck with her, Kent. Enjoy your shadow."

"Swell," Clark sighed with resignation and leaned back in his chair. The girl had finished cleaning up the layout area and was carrying a rag and a bottle of cleaner back toward the cleaning closet. But when she opened the door and then vanished into the small room, shutting the door behind her, he stiffened. His suitcases were still in there.

He hesitated and then got to his feet, walking to the closet. Staring at it for a moment, he then focused his gaze to stare through it, curious to see what the girl was doing.

She was sitting on a box in front of the stand-up cutout of Perry White, hunched over and crying quietly.

Great.

Lifting his hand, Clark rapped his knuckles on the door. On the other side, the teenager started, and wiped her cheeks and eyes with a quick swipe of her palms. She stood up, put her hand on the door knob and took a deep breath as though bracing for whatever was on the other side, and pulled the door open.

The day that was supposed to have been one of the best days of Patricia Mason's short life was instead turning out to be one of the worst. Feeling on the verge, out of desperation she'd shut herself in the cleaning closet before she broke down completely and started blubbering like a baby in front of everyone in the entire newsroom. The gentle knocking at the door brought her head up, and she fought to recovere her composure. At least they had been kind enough to knock and give her time to do so. Whoever it was must have heard her through the door.

"Yes?" Trish forced her voice to remain calm and steady as she opened the door to answer the knocking. She found herself staring at an ugly brown tie with thick white stripes that probably dated back to the time her father was a child. It was a perfect match to the brown suit he wore. Her gaze flicked up and then up some more to meet concerned blue eyes that were obscured by an equally ugly pair of black-rimmed glasses.

"Are you ok?" the man asked after a slight and awkward pause, pushing his glasses up further on his nose in a nervous gesture. His thick dark brown hair was in bad need of a haircut, covering his forehead and long enough to hang down over his ears, though it was neatly combed and parted. "I saw you come in here, and, well I heard about what happened earlier. Actually I just heard that something happened, I didn't get the details," he corrected himself.

Trish emitted a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, turning to pick up the cleaning bottle she'd brought in and replace it on the shelf. "I tripped and broke a bottle of rubber cement on the clean proof of the train derailment that Superman was at this morning. I was just trying to get a closer look at it..." She paused and turned to look at the tall man who now took up most of the doorway to the storeroom, saying bluntly, "It made the photographs look like he'd sneezed on the accident site. Big time."

The man's lips twitched. A moment passed, and he said, "I see. Well. The edition will still get out on time, they don't use the original pictures and such, there's soft copies on computers, originals in files. That kind of thing."

Sighing, Trish nodded, "Yeah but... I mean not only did I royally screw up within two hours of my getting here on my first day, I messed up a story about Superman. Can you believe it? He's like..." Here she waved a hand, trying to come up with the right words, "royalty around here. Or something. I mean, the Daily Planet always gets the biggest scoops on him and what he's doing. It was just bad." She grimaced at the memory.

Reassuringly, the man said, "I'm quite sure Superman could care less, especially since it was just an accident." He ducked his head before introducing himself, offering her his hand in greeting, "I'm Clark Kent. And you're... Mason?"

Trish's eyes widened with surprise. "Really? I thought you'd be a lot older," she said without thinking as she reached out to shake his hand, then flushed as a quick and toothy grin appeared on his face. "Patricia Mason, but please, call me Trish. Only my mom and dad call me Patricia."

"Gee, thanks. I think, anyway," Clark responded, still smiling. "Trish it is."

Apologetically, she said, "Sorry, it's just, well, well your articles are always so well thought out and insightful. Like someone who's seen a lot of the world, if that makes sense? Seems like someone who wrote like that would have to be old." Trish glanced up at him, then exhaled in a slow breath to stop her runaway mouth. "I'll stop eating my foot any day now." She studied him for a moment. For all his outdated garb, he was not all that old. Maybe in his late 20s or something. Younger than her parents at least, and kind of cute in that geeky-nerdy sort of way.

Clark lowered his head to hide a smile, and as he took a step back, his elbow knocked into the water cooler to the left of the storeroom door. It teetered precariously, in grave danger of falling over, but he managed to right it at the last moment and returned it to it's original position with care. "That was a close one," he murmured, pushing his glasses up again. "My desk is over this way."

Relieved to see she wasn't the only klutz in the office, Trish followed, flicking off the light switch for the cleaning closet and pulled the door too. "Mr. Olsen showed me where it was earlier, before the... Supersneeze incident." Were his shoulders shaking? It must have been her imagination. When they reached his desk, she glanced at his face but his expression was serious, though his eyes seemed a brighter shade of blue.

Clark put one hand on his hip and gestured at his neatly organized desk, explaining, "I've only been back in town for a couple of weeks from, ah, travelling abroad. So I've done a pretty good job of keeping up with stuff so far. Here, let me clear this off," he began shifting some of the things on the end cabinet to his desk, then paused for a moment. He cocked his head, darting a quick glance toward the windows to the right of his desk. "Actually, let me go see if I can find you a decent chair in the storerooms. You just make yourself at home... oh and you can proof these if you want." He dropped a surprisingly heavy file case into her hands.

"Oh," Trish said, startled, blinking down at the flat grey box with the Daily Planet logo etched onto it. "Uh, thanks. I'll get to work on it right away." She looked from the file case up to see he was already gone, quickly striding toward the elevators with far more grace than she would have expected given his mannerisms up until then.

Well at least Clark Kent seems alright to work for, Trish thought to herself as she gingerly settled into his chair. It was positioned to comfortably accomodate someone far taller than herself, but she left it as it was, her feet dangling a few inches above the ground, figuring she'd messed with enough stuff for one day. Then she opened the case and got to work.