Chapter 4

Clark was deep in thought for miles down the road before he even registered that Lois had become totally silent once more. A sideways glance showed that she was biting her nails yet again.

He caught her hand in his and chided her, "Lois, stop that."

"Oh, so I'm in your sphere of existence again, Smallville?"

"Lois, I'm sorry. There's just a lot to…Lois, I am sorry."

She looked over at him and then down at his hand which still held hers. "You're forgiven."

"No more nail biting?"

"Don't push it. I'm still mad at you. This isn't a whole lot different than being kidnapped by Lex so far."

"Lois!"

"Well, it's not as if I've had any say in the matter. Where are we going anyway? Do you really trust Tess? What makes you think my notes and my proof are not already in Lex's hands right now? Do you really think this rattrap of a car is going to outrun anybody? Can you even —?

"Whoa!" He shook his head. "You can give a guy whiplash going from silent to chatty like that." He looked over at her and grinned.

She felt her heart melt just a little. Did the ability to fly come with some other secret power over women?

And all at once, the thought was back, consuming her. "Oh, God, Clark, you can fly!"

He saw that she was looking at him again with that look of wonder. "Lois, please. You've said that now about thirty times. Can't you just —"

"Let it go? Ignore it? Pretend it never happened? No, Clark, I can't. You broke the law of gravity and probably about ten other physics laws as well. I know I've seen some weird stuff in Smallville since I came here, but absolutely nobody else has done that! I mean," her voice climbed a few hundred decibels, "you seem to be taking this far too calmly yourself! Aren't you concerned?"

Clark was wincing. "Lois, please. The hearing?"

"What? What hearing? What—" He could swear her voice was in the hypersonic range by now.

"Oh, um…you don't know about that yet."

"Clark, if you don't start explaining yourself pretty soon, I'm going to —"

"I will, I will. Just…let's get to where we are going first and then there'll be time to —"

"To what? Where are we going? You haven't exactly told me. You just keep tossing out my secrets to people I wouldn't trust to walk a dog and acting like that's just fine, but you're keeping some pretty big whoppers all to yourself there, farm boy!"

"Milk River."

"Excuse me?"

"There's this place where dad and I used to go camping along the Milk River. I thought that would be a good place to hide out for a bit until we can make sure we have enough on Lex."

"You and me? Camping?" Lois looked back down to where he still held her hand lightly. "Smallville?"

The doubt in her voice and the fixed stare at their hands caused him at once to snatch his own away from hers. He hadn't even been aware of what he was doing.

"I thought you were a trooper, Lois? How bad can it be?" He kept his eyes on the road while she settled back into a place closer to the window than to him.

"Bring it on, Clark. I can outlast you any day of the week, regardless of the lack of creature comforts."

"You're on, Lane. We'll see how tough that skin of yours really is. The mosquitoes along that river are known to reach the size of frogs."

She gulped. Great. Just great. She crossed her arms defiantly and shifted in the seat, searching for a more comfortable position. There was none. It was going to be a long ride.

TBC

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