Disclaimer: The characters from Smallville do not belong to me. They belong to the CW. Superman does not belong to me either. I'm just using everything for a creative outlet.
Rating: K for now, M later
**Author's Note: I'm loosely basing this story on the episode "Bride" as I'm sure you've already figured out. That being said, there are parts in "Bride" that I think need to make an appearance in the story, though they may not be in the order they originally occurred in in the actual episode. Also, thanks again for all your wonderful feedback!
The Moment He Knew
Chapter 4 – Nostalgia Revelation
Lois' P.O.V.
An hour after she'd abandoned Project: Bunny Slipper Missile and heard Oliver head out to the loft to present Clark with his tux, Lois was admiring the beautiful job the manicurist had done with her finger and toe nails. She'd decorated them with tiny tangerine colored flowers similar to the ones in the bouquets which also matched the tangerine-colored part of her dress. Then she'd utilized the darker russet, burgundy-orange color of the rest of her dress as the French tip on all twenty digits. The hairstylist was just about to do her thing – a simple, elegant, no-nonsense up-do that would take about 20 minutes to complete – when Lois received a call from Chloe.
"Hello?" Lois answered, even though she knew from the caller-ID who it was.
"Lois, I need you here! Now!" A highly troubled Chloe shrieked.
"Calm down, Chlo," Lois soothed, wanting to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible so she could finish getting ready. She wasn't at all the super smoking hot she thought she would be at this point, and if the bride was having a touch of cold feet, she worried she'd never get there. "Where are you?"
"In the loft," Chloe told her, voice full of apprehension. "You have to get here now!"
"I'm on my way." Despite her timing, Lois was glad that her cousin was finally showing some sign of pre-wedding jitters. It had been downright abnormal for someone to be so serene when approaching one of the most life-altering of days in a person's existence. She was also glad that her toe nails were perfectly dry. Slipping on a pair of flip-flops, she made her way out to the barn. Though she was traveling at a brisk walk, she couldn't help but admire the decorations that had turned the Kent farm into dream-wedding central.
Luckily for Jimmy and Oliver, Lois did not notice that the seating arrangements had been slightly altered when she entered the barn and headed up the stairs that led to the loft. She parted the shiny, opalescent curtains that kept Chloe hidden from those who were not to see her before her walk down the aisle. She found her cousin in a frightful state – her hands were shaking and she looked genuinely distressed.
"Chloe, what's wrong?" Lois asked, gently, not wanting to aggravate her cousin any further.
"I didn't think, Lois!" Chloe exclaimed, her voice a bit shrill, and very loud, for the petite blonde. She threw her hands up in the air, the stress coming off of her in waves.
"What's going on?" Clark demanded, a note of worry in his calming, honey-toned voice as he made his way through the curtains himself. He was still clad in his blue T-Shirt and jeans, which served to annoy the hell out of Lois.
"I was just about to find that out when you came in, Smallville," she snipped at him, using the usually affectionate name she used for him like it was a dirty word, a glare molding her features for the first time in hours. "Shouldn't you be in your tux by now?"
Clark returned her glare, "Shouldn't you be in your dress? For that matter, shouldn't your hair and makeup be done by now?"
"I was getting to that before the bride decided to have a total meltdown!" She cried, her annoyance with him clear in her tone.
"For your information, spider monkey on speed," Clark growled, using the affectionate nickname more as a grenade to launch from an arsenal, which she actually thought was really sexy, "it seems I have an affliction which causes me to spill things on myself, so I thought it would be safer to wait until closer to the wedding to change into my tux since I'm one extra shirt short due to 'Hurricane Lois'."
He had a fire in his eyes that was generally there when they were bickering, but it was more intense, like an inferno; in fact, she was sure her eyes were reflecting the exact same fire as his at the moment and the loft seemed to broil with gruff sexual tension. When their eyes actually met, the air thickened with the heat of their unspoken desire for each other. Cutting through the tension as though she possessed a butter knife, Chloe squeaked in distress. This, of course, brought all the attention back to the bride, who was still suffering from an unknown malady.
Her squeak acted like a hypnotist snapping his fingers and bringing Lois and Clark out of their state of hypnoses. They broke eye contact and Clark pulled a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, effectively erasing any tension in the room but the bride's. He knelt in front of Chloe and all the hardness in his face instantly disappeared, leaving nothing but breathtaking, brilliant signature Kent smiles as he approached his best friend. Taking her hand as though it were glass, he placed a finger under Chloe's chin, tipping her head up to meet his gaze. When he'd brought her face up to where he could look into her eyes, he sympathetically asked, "What's the matter, Chlo?"
Her hands stopped shaking and her breathing regulated as she looked into Clark's baby blues. Then she smiled and stood up as though her panic-attack had never occurred. She hugged Lois, hugged Clark and sat down again. "Well . . .," she said meekly, almost as though she was ashamed of herself, "I forgot something."
"What did you forget, cuz?" Lois queried, glad that the atmosphere was once again amiable and serene. She had no idea why she'd earlier been pleased that her beloved cousin had started to freak on her wedding day.
"I have something new, something blue, and something old but nothing borrowed!" Chloe told them. After a moment's pause, she seemed to regain her sense of self fully and chittered excitedly as she came up with an idea to fix her problem.
"A-ha!" She beamed in triumph. "When in trouble leave it to Clark Kent to get you out of a jam," she sang, gesturing toward her best friend. "Let's see what we have here."
Without asking and before Clark could say or do anything to stop her, Chloe started rifling through Clark's things until she found the lead box full of Kryptonite he'd hidden in a drawer in his desk. She opened the box with a flourish and the Kryptonite started to glow being so near a Kryptonian.
"Ha!" Chloe grunted with satisfaction.
"What are you doing?" Clark asked, moving backward and looking and feeling sick from the Kryptonite exposure.
"How about you carry your piece of Smallville's finest meteor rock down the aisle?" Chloe grinned.
Lois was about to ask Clark if he was feeling well when he piped up, "Hey, why don't you put that away. I have a better idea."
He backed further away as his best friend closed the box and set it aside, and reached into the middle of a pile of books lying on top of an old trunk. He pulled his hand out, clutching his copy of the Smallville High Crow's yearbook, his and Chloe's freshman year edition, and opened it to reveal a beautiful preserved white flower that appeared to be a rose. He presented it to Chloe.
With a puzzled look on her face, Chloe accepted the flower as Clark, a small smile on his face, explained, "You gave that to me freshman year at the Homecoming dance."
"And you kept it all this time?" Chloe asked in wonder, touched by the sentiment.
"I never throw away good memories," he said, pleased, his smile wider now. He shared a private glance with Lois, who thought she'd melt into a puddle at his sweet gesture.
"Thanks, Smallville. Another pre-wedding fire put out," Lois smiled, almost wistfully, and nodded. Looking to Chloe, she asked, "If you're all set . . ."
Chloe acknowledged that she was, indeed, all set, so Lois turned her attention to Clark, ". . . you and I have to vamoose. It's almost time and you and I have a show-down to get ready for."
Without really looking at him again, Lois started down the stairs and headed back to Clark's bedroom to finish getting ready. It was the hardest two hundred foot walk of her life, seeing as her knees had turned to Jell-o.
She took a seat in the chair before the vanity and the hairstylist started to sculpt Lois' locks into the style they'd discussed over coffee a few days ago. Reflecting back to what had just transpired in the Kent barn, she wondered about herself and her reactions. For the life of her, she had no idea why she had picked a fight with Clark. So he wasn't in his tux yet, what was the big deal? They had a whole hour and a half before the wedding, and everything, her getting ready issues aside, was going smoothly, as planned, and on schedule. Maybe she just couldn't wait to see him in it, and seeing him not in it had frustrated her since she'd had an image of him wearing it dancing through her head ever since the clothing had arrived.
Crap! I'm definitely going to crack!
And, had she really detected what she thought she had? Had there really been super intense sexual tension between them when they'd locked eyes during their squabble? It had certainly felt like it. She wondered what would have happened if Chloe hadn't been there as a buffer. Would they have kissed? Would they have done more than kiss? Or, would they have just stayed planted where they stood, staring each other down with nothing but sex on the brain? She didn't know the answers to any of those questions. She didn't even know if anyone else had noticed, i.e., Clark. Chloe had been too worried about her 'something borrowed' to even perceive the quarrel going on around her. As far as Lois knew, Clark viewed her as nothing more than a very good friend and co-worker who just happened to be his best friend's cousin, but she could have sworn for just a second that he'd looked at her the way she looked at him when she was sure he wasn't paying attention.
And, seriously, what was with the Jekyll & Hyde bit? He'd swapped emotions so quickly he'd made her head spin. First he was all sexy and fiery and angry with her, then, with no warning, he'd been all sexy and sweet and caring with Chloe. With personality changes like that, assuming of course that the sexual tension had been real, for all she knew he could be the red-blue blur for crap-sake!
And, had she imagined his reaction to the meteor rock? When Chloe had opened up that metal box and shoved it in Clark's direction it was almost like he'd gotten sick or something. At the very least, he was definitely acutely uncomfortable with the shard from outer space, which begged the question why keep it around?
But what she'd most thought about was what he did after he'd debunked Chloe's 'something borrowed' being his very own meteor rock. Pulling out his high school yearbook had seemed odd to her before he opened it and presented the preserved rose to her cousin. The pure sweetness and genuine sentiment of the flower itself and the unique act of saving that flower spoke volumes of the man that he was and the man he would become. From that simple gesture she knew that he would never leave her behind even if he was the red-blue blur, not that she thought he was. It had made her fall head over heels for Clark Kent all over again. He was the kind of man she could only dream of ending up with, and she often did just that.
Earlier, she'd asked Chloe when she'd known that Jimmy was 'the one.' Her cousin had reassured her by saying, "Lois, don't worry, when you meet your super stud, you'll know."
It was in that pure, sweet, simple flower of a moment that she knew. She recalled speaking with Mrs. Kent a long while ago about finding the right man – her Jonathan. It was in this reflective moment that she figured it out – Clark was her Jonathan. It would just take a little while before Clark realized that she, Lois Lane of all people, was his Martha.