A/N: Sorry for my absence the last few months. My graduate classes have made it really hard for me to sit and write. I hope everyone likes this chapter it took me almost two months to get this worked out. Please read and review. I doubt my schedule is going to be any better this spring but maybe if I get enough demand I'll try to make some time to write on the weekends. P.S. I don't have a Beta so there may be some errors that I missed. If anyone wants to help beta my stuff that would be greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Warner owns DC and Smallville. Joss and company own Buffy.

A loud metal "DING" sounded as the large brass doors of the elevator slid open revealing the rushed madness of the Daily Planet newsroom. Stepping out of the elevator I could not help smiling at the frantic nature of the metropolitan journal. Staying in the outer vestibule housing the elevators I waited until I could see my lunch date at work. Shortly after sitting down on a wooden bench next to the elevator I heard a shouting match break out between a man and a woman. A few moments later a tall brunette stormed out of the newsroom her red stiletto hills clicking loudly on the laminate floor. I could tell from the way she walked that she was throwing weight into her steps to make her angry march more pronounced. A few seconds after the perturbed reporter walked into the vestibule a tall well built man with dark hair followed her. At first I hadn't recognised who he was. Everything about this man seemed to contradict what I had seen the night before. His posture was slouched making his six foot four frame look bulky instead of muscular. The glasses on his face coupled with the greased back hair complimented his suit and tie in making him look like a geek. Even his voice was different, instead of the steady baritone his voice was now slightly higher in pitch as he tried to get his partner to stop.

'Lois!' He shouted becoming visibly exasperated at his partner's antics. 'I'm sorry that I beat you to the story.'

Enjoying the show and not at all upset that he had not noticed me I giggled silently as the brunette six meters in front of him turned slowly seething in anger.

'You didn't beat me at anything Kent!' She said loudly stomping her foot at the end of her sentence. 'You stole that story from me. There is no way you were even there to get a quote.'

The antics between the two of them were priceless. If things were like this all the time it's a wonder that the building was still standing. A smile spread across Clark's face and he regained almost an inch of his height. He was enjoying torturing her and the mask he was wearing was starting to slip.

'I know you couldn't have been there Smallville because I blocked the door to the office as I ran out.' Lois shouted only a few moments later realising that she had given herself away.

A long second went by punctuated by a loud male voice yelling 'LANE!" Lois had the decency to look ashamed as she turned her head to see her boss, the editor and chief, Perry White standing at the opening of the newsroom. The older man's face was red and I could almost see steam coming out of his ears. 'My office NOW!' was all he said before disappearing back into the news room.

Clark stood still staring at where Lois had vanished back into the newsroom.

'Well, that was fun to watch.' I said noticing the small jump in his posture when I spoke. He turned around to face me obviously startled that he hadn't noticed me before. I waved cheekily enjoying the unease he was displaying. 'Good afternoon mister Kent.'

A smile spread across his face when Clark saw me. The four inches of height he had been hiding restored them selves as a mirth shone in his eyes. 'Why hello miss Winters.'

The man I now saw before me looked wry and jovial. I couldn't help but reciprocate his grin. 'What am I going to do with you?' I pondered matching his wide spread expression.

With a shrug he removed his suit jacket draping it over his left arm. Holding out his other arm to me the corners of his cerulean eyes sparkled. 'Why don't we find out?'

I looped my left arm through his right and stepped back onto the elevator. 'Where too?'

'It's a surprise.'

An hour later I found myself half drunk in the back room of small Vietnamese restaurant located in the heart of Suicide Slums. Like the Narrows of Gotham City, Suicide Slums was the poorest ghetto imaginable in a North American City. Each interaction I had with Clark Kent caused me to question everything I thought I knew. When I first moved to Metropolis I thought Clark was one of those reclusive liberals who thought they understood what life was really like. My only basis for this image came from reading his column in the Planet International a "New Yorker" type of periodical traded all over the western world. When I met him the night before I felt like he was this self obsessed but brilliant newspaper journalist who got way too close to the action than was necessarily good for his health. Then this morning I was confounded by him twice in-the-course-of half an hour. At first the impression I had gotten from him at the newspaper lead me to believe that he was not as confident around his peers as he seemed in private. He was also hiding something. His demeanour at the Planet showed me that there was a secret he was hiding from his partner. More than likely he was wanted by someone for a past indiscretion. This last hypothesis of mine was formed when he took me to this dive of a restaurant in the middle of the worst part of town. Clark and I had taken a cab from the Planet and not his car which I knew he had as I had passed his parking space that morning in the buildings garage. Then we had exited the cab two blocks from our destination and entered the restaurant through a back ally. My lunch date had yet to explain his behaviour or how he knew fluent Vietnamese. The profiteer of the noodle shop had set up a table behind the kitchen in what looked like his families living area and brought us out several bowls of pha and a bottle of rice whiskey before either of us could order.

Looking at my bowl I reminisced on the meal. The once raw beef had long ago finished cooking in the boiling hot broth. Surely serving raw meet in such a way violated health code as there was only a slim hope that the boiling liquid would sterilise whatever microbes may have been present.

It was not easy to get a slayer drunk so long as the drink was free of mystical contaminant. Apparently the Kansan across the straw table from me was equally as resistant to its effects. Two bottles into the meal and I was just starting to feel myself lose some of my higher brain function. Clark must have been made from some hefty stock in the heartland as he did not seem to be effected at all and I knew for sure he had drank as much as me.

Somewhere after our first bottle I had stopped trying to pretend I didn't understand what he was telling the owner and his wife. We were now engaged in a heated debate about which provinces of south asia had the better cuisine. Each affronted remark caused the two of us the speak faster and louder. Shortly after this discussion began I realised that both Clark and our hosts were speaking Hanoi Vietnamese while I was struggling to be understood in my significantly more westernised Ho Chi Minh dialect. I could pick out a few words shared between Clark and the owner that were definitely not Vietnamese. Deciding to store that piece of information I decided that I needed to have a conversation with Mr Kent about his education.

Sometime after one in the afternoon we left the noodle shop and started walking in the direction of the Planet.

We walked in silence for a while as I observed the specimen next to me. Clark was walking with his head turned to the sky. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows and his tied had been loosened. The navy suit jacket he had been wearing was hanging on his arm with both hands stuffed into his pants pockets. For almost six blocks he walked with me never saying anything but maintaining my exact pace on the city sidewalk. He moved us off into the direction of a subway entrance and spoke the first word to me for nearly fifteen minutes when he handed me a plastic metro-line pass before walking through the turnstiles.

Once we had stepped onto the train and both grabbed the rail above us he turned to me and smiled. It was the first time he had looked me in the eyes since leaving the restaurant.

'I liked this.' He said in an even tone that I realised held none of the trepidation or masked inflection I had heard earlier at the Planet. This was him being who he really was or as close as most people were allowed.

'I liked this too.' I said smiling up at him. He wasn't off the hook for his conflicting behaviour but for just right now I could forget all of my questions and just enjoy being with Clark Kent.