A/N: You know, I think this is the longest chapter I've ever written? 1662 words (or 1912 according to FFnet (??))! :-D And this definitely the most regularly updated story I've ever produced, as anyone who has been reading the Sounds Kinda Nice Series can attest (Sorry guys!). Anyway, here is the next chapter!
Chapter 3
Lois rolled over in the large bed and stretched her arms with a yawn. She frowned at her still aching head as she slipped out of the large bed. Next to the bed she found a pair of cotton sweatpants – Clark must have put them out for her to wear. Lois pulled them up and yanked the drawstrings tight so they wouldn't fall off and sat back down on the bed to roll up the cuffs.
It was Clark's bed. She'd offered to sleep on the couch (which had turned out to be a fold-out bed) but Clark had point blank refused, since she was not only his guest but recuperating from a near-death experience. He said he really didn't mind; he sometimes slept on the fold-out in winter anyway, since it was so close to the fire. Lois guessed that was the Kansas farm-boy upbringing shining through once again.
Looking down at herself, she decided she just needed a pair of floppy shoes and a red nose to complete the look. Both the track-pants and the old football jersey Clark had offered to her to sleep in were grossly oversized. They also had a nice pine-y, fresh sort of smell to them. Not that she had been sniffing them on purpose at all – the scent had just sort of wafted up to her nose.
Padding out of the bedroom, she looked around for her host. He wasn't in the main room, and she couldn't hear him moving about anywhere. She guessed he must be outside somewhere. Looking around the large L-shaped main room, she noticed that Clark had folded up the sofa and neatly draped the quilt over it. Her mouth twitched in amusement. Smallville.
She wandered over to the tall bookcase that stood against the wall to her left and trailed her hand over some of the spines. Crime novels, mysteries, history books, books on psychology, astronomy, art and cooking, a heavy looking physics textbook, bird watching guides and more inhabited the shelves. She found a worn copy of To Kill a Mockingbird on the third shelf. She opened it to find 'Clark Kent' and a class number scrawled in the top right-hand corner of the facing page in a neat, but clearly boyish hand.
Slotting the book back into place, she sidled over to the dark wood desk at its side. A plain silver photo frame caught her attention. A sandy-haired man and kind-faced red head were hugging a dark-haired little boy between them. She leaned closer; was that cute little boy Clark? She had trouble believing that he had ever been so small. She guessed he was four or five in the photo; the couple in their mid-thirties. The sound of the door opening in the kitchen startled her from her investigation.
"Good morning," Clark greeted, shucking off his boots at the door before heading over to the fireplace to unload an armful of firewood.
"Morning!" Lois grinned at him and his red plaid button-down.
"Are these your parents?" Lois asked, nodding at the picture as he came over to her.
"Yeah," Clark smiled at the picture.
"Are they back home in Kansas?" Lois asked.
Clark's eyes clouded over at her question.
"Actually they both passed away," his voice was sad and quiet as he said this.
Lois inwardly winced at having brought it up. She was once again reminded that she didn't really belong here, and that he would probably much prefer to just be alone.
"Oh," Lois bit her lip. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry. It wasn't your fault," Clark responded. His face was neutral, but she could see something twisting away inside of him.
"They look like they were great parents," she said, trying to distract him from his grief.
"The best," Clark smiled at her. "That was taken the year after they adopted me."
Lois had been wondering if that was the case, as she hadn't noticed a real likeness between him and the pair. She wondered for a second if he was going to say something more, but instead he abruptly changed the topic.
"Do you like scrambled eggs?" he asked.
"Umm..." Lois shrugged following him to the kitchen area, "That comes under of the heading 'Things Lois Doesn't Remember'."
Clark pulled out a chair for her at the kitchen table, and she sat down with a quiet 'thank-you'.
"I'll make you some. They're made from powder, but they really aren't that bad if you use a good recipe."
Clark was rambling, he knew, but it was just so strange to have this woman sitting in his kitchen, watching him as he set up what he needed to cook. To be honest, he found it a little awkward to have someone in his space after spending so long in his own company. It was like being an actor on stage for the first time. He was hyperaware of her presence and couldn't help but look at her every couple of minutes to see how she was reacting.
He found himself rattling on about substituting long-life ingredients for fresh foods and his first winter at the cabin when he'd lived on canned tomatoes and spam for two weeks because he had underestimated how much he would need over the season.
Lois frowned in thought as he deposited the plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of her.
"Won't you run out of food with me here too?" she asked.
"No," Clark shook his head, "I always overstock now; you never know what'll happen up here."
"Prepare, prepare, prepare?" Lois smiled.
"What?"
"Oh come on – you don't know the boy scouts motto?"
"Oh. No. I never was one," he answered, surprising her.
"Pity," Lois told him, "I bet you would have been the leader of the troupe."
Clark smiled briefly.
"How's your head?" he asked.
"It hurts a little bit," she admitted, her attention drawn back to the throbbing.
Clark stood up and walked around the table to check her head. He gently swept her hair aside.
"It's closing up well enough. I should put something on it though. I'll get you some Tylenol," he told her and headed for the pantry, relieved to have something to distract himself with.
"What do you do up here?" Lois asked him when he returned pulling up a chair behind hers.
"I read a lot, go hiking, that sort of thing... I write too," Clark answered absent-mindedly as he applied ointment to cut on her head.
"Novels?"
"A couple of nature guides based on the local area, actually. I am trying my hand at fiction at the moment, but it's not finished."
"You don't have a job?"
Clark ducked his head sheepishly, "Well I'm, ah, sort of... well off. It's not really necessary."
"Well off?" Lois asked intrigued by his vague description, her curiosity overriding her tact as she turned and straddled the seat to face him.
"Umm," Clark shifted uncomfortably, "I have enough."
Lois crossed arms over the back of the seat and rested her chin on top, waiting for him to elaborate.
"Maybe a little more than I'll ever really need," Clark corrected himself, squirming under her intent gaze. "I don't really live an expensive life."
"Did you win the lottery or something?" Clark shook his head.
"I inherited some from my parents, and I used to have a job in a company that paid pretty well. I invested some of it in the stock market and well, you know..."
Lois nodded. She really wouldn't have picked him for an executive kind of guy, but it did explain how he was able to live like this (at least from a financial perspective). Seeing that she'd made him uncomfortable enough with her questions, she let it go, and asked him about his book.
+------+
That night:
Clark walked up to the wall opposite the bed and slid open a couple of inconspicuous panels that Lois had failed to notice earlier to reveal a television screen with a narrow shelf below harbouring a DVD player. Clark crouched down and pulled open the cupboards below the television to reveal a carefully organised and surprisingly extensive DVD library.
Lois's face lit up at the sight before her. So Clark Kent wasn't raised by a technophobic cult after all!
"The TV doesn't get reception up here," he explained. "I buy a handful each time I'm down in Oyen restocking. I haven't watched half of them though."
Lois dropped to her knees beside him and started flicking through the titles
"Oh, it is definitely movie marathon night tonight!" Lois decided, plucking out several whose titles appealed to her. A few of them looked familiar to her – ET, The Poltergeist, Jaws – she couldn't recall watching them, but somehow she knew what they were about.
"Okay," Clark smiled at her enthusiasm.
"Do you have popcorn?" she looked to him hopefully.
"Sure," Clark answered, leaving her to peruse his DVD collection.
When he returned a little later with a large bowl of buttered popcorn he found her sitting cross-legged on the foot of his double bed engrossed in the opening scenes of The Bourne Identity. She accepted the bowl with a quick smile and thanks before returning her attention to the screen.
"Where you going?" Lois's eyes left the screen when she noticed him heading back out the door. Clark turned back at the unexpected question.
"I was just going to go – " Clark gestured to the door.
"Smallville, you can't have a movie night by yourself, that's just sad!" Lois interrupted him when she caught his intention to leave her by herself.
"Smallville?" Clark asked in confusion.
Lois ignored his question, merely shifting over and patting the space beside her pointedly. Clark stared at her for a minute before he uncertainly settled himself beside her and began to watch the film.
Lois was watching from the corner of her eye and smiled at his stiff posture.
"Relax!" she ordered, passing him the popcorn. "I promise I won't bite."
