A/N: This is the last chapter I'll post until at least the 27th. Merry Christmas everyone!


Chapter 7


"What are you doing?" Clark stopped in the doorway, arms full of firewood.

"Making pancakes," Lois answered, spinning around to face him.

Clark looked around at all the surfaces covered in flour, at the tray of misshapen, half burnt pancakes and then back to Lois.

"Trying to make pancakes," she amended. It wasn't going so well.

When she'd woken up that morning, Clark was outside already – as was the norm; he seemed to rise with the sun. In a fit of independence she'd decided to cook something for herself. It should have been easy – she'd found Clark's recipe book and the ingredients quickly enough – but for some reason she kept getting distracted at key moments. Plus, she seemed to have forgotten to put something in... She wasn't sure exactly what, but the result had been very flat pancakes that burnt way too easily for her liking.

"I don't think cooking's my forte," she admitted, poking despondently at one of her disastrous creations.

Clark couldn't help but grin at the comical picture she made, decked out in one of his old flannelette shirts and a pair of over-sized shorts with her hair tossed up in a messy ponytail. She was as covered in flour as the kitchen bench and floor.

"I could teach you," Clark offered. He was rewarded with a surprised smile from the brunette before him.

"Really? You're willing to risk it?"

"Sure," Clark said, "I'm sure you're not that bad, you just need practice."

"Thank you," Lois responded, smiling up at him.

"... And if you are that bad, there's a fire extinguisher in the pantry," he added mischievously.

"Hey!" Lois whacked him on the arm, insulted. Clark merely ducked, grinning at her.

Lois wasn't really insulted – she was loving this new side of Clark. In the days since he'd opened up to her about Lana and Lex, it was as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He seemed younger – boyish almost . He was laughing more, talking more; even playfully teasing her like he had just done then. Lois wondered if this is what he'd been like before Lana.

Lois almost bit her tongue in surprise when Clark raised a hand to brush her cheek. Clark caught her shocked expression at the intimate gesture, and for a second they both froze.

"You had a bit of flour..." Clark's explanation tapered off as he blushed and hurriedly took his hand back.

"Oh," Lois said dumbly. For a second she thought he might have been going to...

"Um," Clark grabbed the plate of burnt pancakes from the bench and gestured with it, "Ready to start a new batch?"

"Sure," Lois said, trying not imagine what kissing him would be like. "Right."

"Okay," Clark looked relieved, "this time we use the egg powder."

"Damnit," Lois swore, "So that's what I forgot to put in."

++----++

Lois climbed up the last couple of steps of the ladder and into the attic. It had the same high roof as the main room, only here it was close enough to touch. Two triangular windows - one on each side of the roof – let in enough light to see the stacks of boxes and other items stored in the dusty room.

"Where?" she called back to Clark, who was following her up the ladder.

"I'm not sure," Clark answered, clambering up onto the attic floor, "In one of the boxes."

Lois turned back to him, rolling her eyes.

"Could you be any more vague?" she waved her arms at the numerous cardboard containers surrounding her.

Clark just shrugged in response, swiping the dust off the top off one of them and peering inside.

"I haven't looked at most of this stuff since I moved in. I don't even remember half of what's up here."

"Well then, I guess we're going to go with the trial and error approach," Lois said, dropping to the floor and opening the closest box.

"Books," she announced, after shuffling through them to check Clark's long lost Play Station wasn't hiding beneath them.

Clark shifted a box to the floor and opened the one beneath it, shuffling through the contents until he found something that made him chuckle.

"Hey Lois," Clark waited until she turned toward him to toss her the wad of cloth, "For next time you cook."

Lois unfolded the full length apron.

"Very funny Kent," Lois said dryly, and turned back to her mission, "Now keep looking! I want to go to war already."

"Violent," Clark mumbled.

"I heard that!" Lois hurled the balled up garment at his back. Clark just laughed at her.

Lois turned back to her next target. Pulling back the flaps revealed yet another collection of books – Smallville really was a bookworm. She removed a couple from the top layer, and found only another layer of novels. It was just as she went to replace the ones she had removed that she noticed the white corner sticking up between the books and the side of the books.

Pulling out, she found it was a photo. A much younger Clark, smiling and holding a pole cue beside him like a staff. What caught her attention though, was the young man beside him, smirking at the camera. Though surely only 20 or 21, he was completely bald – and Lois recognised him.

"Lex Luthor" she said to herself, a cold feeling coiling in the pit of her stomach. Lois Lane, the condescendingly formal voice answered from a fragment of a memory.

Nothing more came. She dropped the photo back in the box, frowning.

"Lois," Clark called her back to herself.

Lois turned to find Clark pulling the game console out of another of the boxes. She smiled back at him, doing her best to brush off the uneasy feeling that had taken up root within her.

"Awesome."

++----++

That night

Lois was dreaming.

Light streamed down from the stained glass windows high above, lighting up the dust motes swirling around in the air. Lois could smell candles and incense and musty old building smell.

She was in a church, walking down the long aisle. She was just taller than the backs of the pews, so she could see that there was no one sitting in them. That was strange. She had the feeling that was wrong. There should be people in the church. It shouldn't just be her here.

Her daddy should be in the church, she thought. And Lucy - where was Lucy?

Lucy was smaller than her. Small enough to sit in one of the rows and not be seen. Or maybe she was hiding again. Lucy was always hiding. When they went shopping with Mommy, she hid in the clothes racks and giggled.

"Lucy?" Lois called out, looking down all the rows and under the seats, one by one. She wished mommy was here. She always knew straight away where Lucy was, even if she pretended she didn't.

'No Lucy here... no Lucy there... no Lucy anywhere! Where oh where can my Lucy-girl be?' Lois's mother's voice echoed in her head.

"Where oh where..." Lois mumbled to herself, as she reached the end of the pews. She turned back and looked sadly at the aisles. No Lucy anywhere.

She was all alone.

"Lois," A voice whispered behind her, ever so quietly, "Come here Lois."

Lois turned. There was something on the platform in front of the altar that hadn't been there before. A big white box sitting on a wooden frame painted the same colour.

A coffin.

Lois suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to leave. She wanted to run away, but something drew her closer. She slowly made her way up to the short flight of stairs in the middle of the platform.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Four steps.

Now she stood on the platform, in front of the coffin. It was the sort that has a lid with two halves, and the top one was open.

"Lois," she called, her voice rasping breathlessly.

A steady 'beep, beep, beep' echoed through the empty building as Lois tremblingly stepped up to the casket. She held her breath as she grasped the handle sticking out from the side and stood on tiptoe to look in.

Staring back at her was a face thinned to the bone and pale as snow. The oxygen tube across her face emitted a faint hissing noise that almost drowned out her weak voice.

"Lois," her mother whispered again.

------------

Lois sat up in the bed with a gasp. Her mind churned with a jumbled and confusing storm of memories, as they were suddenly released from wherever it was they had been trapped.