Is it dumb to try to finish a nine-year-old writing project about a long since cancelled TV show? Probably. But I'm doing it anyway.
Chapter Four
"I thought you were him," she admitted a moment later. "When I first saw you, I mean. But you're so different."
They sat in the coffee shop, still, and Clark couldn't help but feeling a bit dirty. He and Bruce had discussed this situation before, since Lois had come by the Wayne mansion more than once to see Chloe after she moved in. Clark had stayed out of her way, for the most part, but it had come up more than once in dinner conversation—how would they explain his presence if Lois stumbled in at an inopportune time?
"I, um," Lois laughed a bit. "I walked in on Bruce and Chloe fighting one time," she said. "And their fight confused me, and since I was curious, I kind of eavesdropped a bit. But I never brought it up with them. It makes sense, now, though."
She thanked the waitress who brought her coffee, and didn't even bother to glare at her for the earlier flirting.
"Bruce kept telling her that she had to let go of someone; that she had to accept that he was different and that no one could ever replace him. Then he said, 'you know how uncomfortable he gets when you call him Clark,' and I got even more confused. At that point, Clark had been missing for almost a year, and I was sure that he was off partying somewhere, or something, but Chloe had always seemed so pessimistic. Then Bruce said, 'we both know that Clark isn't coming back.' Chloe started crying, and then they started kissing, and needless to say, I snuck the fuck out of there."
She laughed quietly. "I guess I tried to put it out of my mind. I kept looking for Clark, all the time, on the internet, on the streets, hitting up the places he used to party at, asking anyone I came across. I kept a picture of him in my purse, posters and spent nights sitting by the police scanner." She ran her fingers through the bottom inch of her curls, and looked up at Clark, her eyes rimmed with tears. Clark couldn't remember ever seeing her like this. Even at Chloe's funeral she'd stood tall, kept her eyes dry and her voice steady.
"It just seemed like no one was looking for him," she finished. "His mom off in Washington with her new job, Chloe in love, Lana acting like an idiot, I couldn't believe how quickly people had moved on."
Clark felt guilt clutching his stomach. The people she'd named, they'd all known that he was alive. They were the ones in on the secret—he'd never thought of how Lois would be handling all this. He'd thought of her often while he'd been away, but in a sad, what-if kind of way. He'd always wondered how things might have turned out between the two of them.
"I don't know how well you knew Clark," she said. "But he was a good person. He deserved better."
"It tore me up that I couldn't be who Chloe needed me to be," he replied, his voice quiet and slow. "She often smiled at me like I should be laughing at an inside joke, or confided in me in a way I couldn't quite connect with. I should have done more to stop her pain, but I'm afraid I was too wrapped up in my own loss to ever look long at hers."
"He was your brother," Lois said.
Clark nodded slowly, and wanted to tell her how much more than a brother he'd been. He caught her gaze and held it, implored her to see Clark. When he'd been with Chloe, he'd always wondered why she couldn't accept the person he'd become. Now, Lois; unable to see Clark behind Kal's cold eyes—
His phone rang.
"Kal Elliot," he said sharply into the phone.
"Babe? It's Anna."
"How did you get this number?" he asked, more harshly than he'd meant to.
He caught Lois' eye, and knew that the moment had passed. She was hardening again, putting the DVD in her purse, taking a sip of her coffee and pulling out her notepad.
"Bruce Wayne gave it to me," she said. "He's one of my sponsors, so I get face time with him every year or so, and I recognized the picture of his wife from that selfie of you and her that you showed me. Weird coincidence, right? She was your friend who died."
"It's not a coincidence," he said. For some reason he felt annoyed at this interruption. Like it was somehow unreasonable for his ex-girlfriend to be calling when she realized that her sponsor had a surprising connection to someone she knew. "Bruce funds the project as a favor to me. I stay independent from the management of it so that it can still qualify as a fellowship for me."
"That's crazy, I can't believe I never realized. He renewed my grant, so I guess he's continuing with the program even if you aren't going back?"
"I haven't made my decision yet, Anna. Can I call you back? I'm kind of in the middle of something."
"Sure, of course," she said, and though she obviously had something more to say, Clark hung up.
Lois looked at his eyes, and could have sworn that they had faded from icy blue to nearly green before he had picked up the phone. They were definitely blue now, though, and she had to fight the urge to recoil from him.
"Girlfriend?" she asked. "Or mother?"
"Ex-girlfriend," he said. "I think, at least."
"Ah, complicated relationships," she said. "Speaking of which, I do have a date tonight with one of my exes, so I'm going to have to get your story and make a run for it."
"Lex Luthor killed Clark Kent," he said. "That DVD has some footage of Lex and Clark, nothing too gruesome, but I thought that the press should get a hold of some of the soft core stuff before I give the rest to the police. Lionel still has men paid off on the force, and they'd do anything to bury this."
"Do you have actual footage of the murder?"
Clark was shocked at how impersonal she'd become. "Not on that disk, I don't. It's pretty bad. It's—"
"I'll need hard proof of a murder. The cops never even found a body."
A body, he thought. A surge of anger lit through him. "Listen, you've got a date," Clark said sharply. "There's a lot about Clark that you don't know, about his life and even more about his death. How about some time when you have a few free minutes, you give me a call," he dropped a card and a ten dollar bill on the table.
He stood up and smoothed his hair down, shooting a flirtatious smile at the waitress. "Give Ollie my best," he said, and strode from the shop. He heard Lois' chair knock over as she ran to follow him, but by the time she reached the door, he was already gone.
Q
"Lois, it's great to see you," Oliver said, standing up to kiss her cheek. The restaurant they were meeting at was appropriately upscale, and Lois had worn a sweeping black number and tied her hair in a classic up-do. "You look stunning."
"Thanks," she said gruffly, and settled herself stiffly into the chair. She never could quite get used to the extravagance. "Listen," she started, "I met someone very interesting today."
"Did you?" Oliver asked, distractedly inspecting the menu.
"Did you know that Clark Kent had a twin brother?"
Oliver looked up sharply.
"He sends his regards," she said. "It's interesting that you, Chloe and Bruce all got to know the guy years ago, and no one thought to mention to me that my recently dead best friend had a doppelganger wandering around Gotham."
"Well," Oliver said, switching to the defensive, "he was in England for four years, which he didn't even bother telling me, and then in Africa saving orphans with some blonde chick. It's not like I even had that much contact with the guy, Bruce and Chloe were the ones that were really close with him. And Lana—" he stopped.
"Lana, what?" Lois said, her voice suddenly steely.
Oliver winced. "Nothing. Lana nothing."
"Lana knew about him too? Am I the only one out of the loop? This man, looking exactly like Clark freaking Kent, meets me at a coffee shop and tells me that Lex Luthor killed his estranged twin brother, and I'm supposed to take this all in stride? Everyone I love is dying, and no one bothers to tell me that a genetic duplicate of one of those people is out there?"
"He didn't come to me," Oliver yelled, and people in the restaurant were staring. "Whatever responsibility he had, whatever allegiance, he didn't come to me. Clark meant a lot to me, and I wanted, just as much as anyone else, to be there for him. But Kal spent his time with Chloe and Bruce like some exclusive little club, and he didn't think, not for a second, about the other people who were in Clark's life. He was selfish, Lois. He didn't want to be Clark anymore. As much as I want to, I can't forgive him, even after what he went through—"
"What he went through?" Lois asked. Her voice was quiet now. "What are you talking about?"
Oliver froze. "Losing his brother," he said, but he sounded unconvinced.
"He didn't even know Clark."
Oliver stared at her. The waiter was standing nervously at their table, shifting from foot to foot. "We'll have the house merlot," he said, without breaking eye contact with Lois.
"Is that what he told you?" he asked.
"No," she said, "He didn't tell me anything, really."
"They were close," Oliver said. The waiter was back, pouring their wine. He ordered off-handedly in Italian. "Lois? What do you want?"
"Um, the same," she said distractedly. "What do you mean, they were close? Clark never even mentioned him to me."
"Clark kept stuff about his family on the down low," Oliver explained. "He met his biological father as well; spent a bit of time with him, too."
"Seriously?" Lois asked. "Looks like the farm boy was more interesting than I gave him credit for."
Oliver laughed at that, throwing his head back and putting his whole body into it. After the screaming match he'd recently had with the man, he felt like he deserved a good laugh at Clark's expense. "Yeah," he said. "He sure is."
"I just don't understand why he'd confide in you," Lois said, pensively. "I mean, I wasn't under the impression that you two spent that much time together."
"Um, we did, I guess," he said. "Maybe after he lost Lex's friendship he needed a new billionaire to hang out with."
She chuckled, "Clark always did attract the rich boys. Looks like his twin is the same way, hanging out with Bruce Wayne the way he does."
Oliver nodded vaguely and sipped his wine.
"Asides from looking similar," Lois continued, "they don't really have anything in common. I mean, Clark was all naivety and sulking, and this guy, Kal, I mean, is suave and sophisticated. Plus, Clark had those green eyes that made you just trust him and want to confide in him, which I obviously hated about him. Kal, though, has these bright blue eyes that are icy and guarded and secretive, they make you think that he has a real story to tell, like he's been through a lot."
"That's what his eyes tell you, is it?" Oliver asked sarcastically. He had not asked Lois on this date to hear her talk about Clark all night. "I didn't ask you on this date to hear you talk about Clark all night," he said.
"You said it wasn't a date, Ollie," Lois pointed out. "You said we'd be friends. This is what friends do, they listen. So shut up and listen for a minute." She paused. "And I'm not really talking about Clark, am I?"
Oliver sighed and downed the rest of his drink. He didn't care if it wasn't classy to chug a two hundred dollar glass of wine.