I'm sorry I'm a bit late with this one guys, but I've had a crazy week! I just wanted to say thank you to all my lovely reviewers and to the people who Favorited/ Followed this story :) You guys keep me motivated! So read on and tell me what you think :)
The smell of apple pie made Lois feel sick and hungry at the same had been ill all night long. While she spent the majority of the early hours this morning contemplating what she had done to deserve a night staring into a toilet, she also had time to think. She could already begin to see the damaging effects she was having on the past. She didn't have it in her to fight with Clark like she used to, Martha knew their future, and now she was on Brainiac radar. If she did the same things she had done previously, pretty soon she would be running Jonathan's campaign and then…she couldn't even think about that. She absolutely had to find a way back to her time before she was faced with the choice of standing by and letting Jonathan Kent die again, or changing everything she knew about the future.
The smell of Martha's cooking warmed up the whole house and reminded Lois of better times. She could practically see Jase sitting on their kitchen counter, hands full of dough with his grandma patiently showing him how to make Christmas cookies. She could imagine Martha years from now, knowingly looking at her ultrasound pictures and keeping her joy to herself.
Luckily she would have the house to herself today. Martha was about to head to the Talon and today was Lois's day off. Clark and Jonathan had left to check out an almost new tractor that was for sale for a price so low they couldn't resist taking a look at it.
Martha offered to buy Lois some saltine crackers and ginger ale as she grabbed her baked goods and walked out the door. As soon as the door shut, Lois jumped up and nearly ran up the stairs to change out of her pajamas. The opportunity had finally come and she didn't know when or if she would get the chance again. She was going to have a conversation with Jor-el.
She had changed and grabbed everything important to her in under five minutes. She thought about writing a note, but decided if she managed to switch places with her younger self again, they would understand what happened. She was going home today, no matter what. It had been too long already and Lois was prepared for whatever would come. Except for the possibility that someone would knock into her as she flew out the front door.
"Chloe!" She shouted, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I stayed at the Talon last night in case you were still sick or needed someone to talk to." Chloe was staring at her like a teacher that caught a student throwing a paper airplane. "Where were you off to?"
"I…had a craving." Lois said, lamely.
"Pop-tarts again?" Chloe teased. Lois made an attempt to smile, but it wasn't very convincing.
Chloe walked past her and into the kitchen while Lois shut the front door, cursing her silently. She made herself a cup of coffee, unaware that Lois was trying to think of a way to get rid of her. Nonchalantly Chloe said, "So I guess we figured out what was weird about your blood."
"What?" Lois asked, confused.
"A few weeks ago in the hospital. The doctor said something was strange about your blood. I guess you figured out what it was." Lois froze. With everything that had occurred since then, she hadn't given her trip to the hospital a second thought. She had to go find the sample and destroy it. Leaving something like that behind would be irresponsible and could be catastrophic. Resolved to the fact that she wasn't going to the cave today, she ran full speed to the bathroom upstairs and pretended to throw her guts up. Chloe offered to stay but Lois begged her in between fits of gagging to come back later. After her cousin finally gave up trying to nurse Lois back to health, she figured out how she was going to get into the hospital.
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The uniform store was very reasonably priced. Her nurse disguise was much cheaper than she would've paid for it in Metropolis. But then again, that could probably be traced back to a decade's worth of inflation. Fortunately for Lois (and unfortunately for the patients), it was an extremely busy day at the hospital. So busy, in fact that no one actually verified that Lois was a real nurse.
She walked straight into the Lab and searched through the refrigerated container until she found the label with her name on it and slipped the vial into her pocket. Then she searched through the filing cabinet by the door and grabbed her file. She quickly folded it up and stuffed it into her shirt.
Then she sat at the nurses desk where the computer was left open and thankfully, unprotected by a password. With the simple technology it was easy to find her medical records and completely delete any trace of her ER visit that night. She almost felt bad for taking advantage of the nurses at Smallville Medical Center, but it was necessary.
She waited until she got back to the farm before opening her file and reading it. It was pages thick of stitches, concussions, and broken bones. Sometimes she forgot how many times she had been hurt in this little town. A sample of that blood had been sent to Macedon Research Facilities in Metropolis. Her doctor from Smallville Med made a note in her file saying that her sample was strange, but nothing dangerous enough to call disease control. The lab technicians an Macedon might not come to the same conclusion though. She needed to go tonight and take care of the problem.
Before she changed out of the nurses uniform she took the file and vial outside to the barn. She dug a hole and buried the blood, not wanting to risk anyone seeing it or picking it up from the trash. She started to burn the file when she heard footsteps behind her.
"Lois, what the hell are you doing? And what the hell are you wearing?" Chloe asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Dammit, she thought. She should've changed first.
"What are you doing here Chloe?" Lois said, breathlessly.
"You said I should come by later. It's later and I brought you some stuff from Mrs. Kent. Again, Lois, what are you doing?"
"Nothing, Chloe, don't worry about it."
"You're burning a folder, wearing a nurse's smock, and obviously not sick," She softened her voice. "Just tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you."
"I got rid of my blood sample." Lois said, sagging in defeat. Her pregnancy made her extremely tired and she just didn't have the will to evade Chloe's questions anymore.
"Why?" Out of all the answers Lois could've given her, she didn't expect that. Perhaps she should've, considering the strange circumstances, but she wasn't prepared.
"It's complicated and I can't explain it right now, but I just had to." Chloe looked as if she were about to ask more questions but Lois interjected. "Trust me, it's a matter of life and death. Please just let it go."
Chloe didn't want to let it go, not in the slightest, but since she'd been friends with Clark for so long she had just learned to accept some things as they are and move on. Lois finished burning the evidence, then she and Chloe walked back up to the house.
Immediately and wordlessly Lois went up to Clark's bedroom and changed her clothes. She was starting to get nauseous , but she powered through it. At the bottom of the stairs she found Chloe reenergized from coffee and ready for anything Lois could throw at her.
"So what now?" She said, standing up a little straighter, a determined look on her face.
"What do you mean?" Lois asked, cautiously.
"I know you, Lois and I can tell your job isn't done. So what do we need to do now?"
"Chloe this is dangerous. You're staying here." Lois said, firmly.
"God, you sound just like Clark. You're pregnant and you're the one telling me something is too dangerous? Let me help you. You know I can." Lois could see that reporter's fire flaring up in her cousin. Chloe wanted to prove herself to Lois and who was she to stop her?
"There's another sample in Metropolis, some place called Macedon Research. I need to sneak in there and destroy it."
"Breaking and entering. The perfect girls-night-out."
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Again Lois and Chloe found themselves in the Metropolis University Library. The best time to get into the lab would be at night, so Lois had time to kill and Chloe had research to do.
"What did you find?" Lois asked for the seventh time.
"Still not much. The lab is owned by an off-shoot company of an off-shoot company. I've been trying to hack into their system for the last 30 minutes, but they have firewalls galore."
Lois groaned. She hated sitting still, and she was starting to become ravenously hungry. She excused herself from Chloe and made her way to the vending machines outside. She was staring at all her snack choices when she noticed someone coming up the sidewalk, headed towards the library. She really hoped that Lana would walk by her and not pay attention to her, but her wishes were in vain.
"Lois?" Lana asked, unsure if it was actually her, because of her newly dark hair.
"Hey, Lana." Lois said, awkwardly. She wondered if she would ever get used to being around Lana again.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm fine?" The way Lana was looking at her made her extremely uncomfortable, like Lana was observing her, searching for something strange about her. Lana glanced down at her midsection and Lois understood. Somehow Lana knew about the baby. She flipped through a mental list of the four people besides her knew about it, wondering which of them had spread her business to the world. I had to have been Clark, she decided. Chloe and Martha were much too loyal to her to say anything to Lana. Jonathan would've said it wasn't his place to say anything. Clark though…Clark would tell Lana anything she wanted to know (unless it was about him of course).
"Well of you need anything, I'm here." Lana gently squeezed her shoulder and smiled before walking away.
"Thank you." She called to her. She meant it. Lana had a kind heart, even if Lois couldn't stand the sight of her anywhere near her future husband.
She bought ten dollars worth of food and somehow managed to smuggle it all back into the library. She returned to their table to find Chloe totally immersed in what she was doing and was typing at a superhuman speed
"You're going to love me." She said a few minutes later, a triumphant smile on her face. Lois almost spit out the Fritos she was munching on. "I got in, I deleted your case file, and found out how to disable the security cameras. The vial is on the fourth floor, in Lab 402."
"Chloe you are absolutely a genius." Lois gloated.
"I know." She smiled widely.
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By eleven there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot. Lois and Chloe were waiting in the car for some poor sucker to come out of the building with their security pass. It wasn't a concrete plan, but it was the best one they could think of given the amount of time they had.
Finally, a nerdy looking guy came outside to smoke. He leaned against the building beside the door, even from a distance looking miserable about his life. Lois could see the green and purple badge securely strapped to his belt buckle.
"Do you want to be bait or shall I?" Lois asked Chloe while getting out of the car.
"Bait?"
"One of us needs to go up there make an excuse to talk to him, and start flirting while the other takes this," Lois pulled a very small pink taser out of her pocket that was shaped like a cell phone. She handed it to the reluctant blonde. "and hits him with it."
"I don't know about this, Lois. It just seems wrong. This guy didn't do anything to us and he could be fired or something." Chloe argued, half jogging to keep up with Lois's long strides.
"He won't lose his job from being tazed. In fact it might make him look like a hero to all the geeky girls who work here," Lois looked back and saw that Chloe wasn't convinced. "Trust me, he'll be fine. I've done this before."
"You've done this before? When?" Chloe sounded panicked.
"I'll tell you about it one day." Lois's body language changed almost immediately after they had gotten close enough to the guy to talk to him. "Hi, my name is Sherri and my car just won't start. Do you have a phone I could use to call a mechanic?"
"Uh…not with me?" He man said in a voice higher pitched than she was expecting. He looked nervous and a bit suspicious of her. She guessed he didn't have much experience with women.
"Is there one inside I could use?" She smiled at him, trying to look harmless and pretty at the same time.
"I'm not allowed to bring anyone inside." He watched her face fall a bit and instantly said, "But if you have a number I can call someone for you."
"Oh I wouldn't want to put you out." She tried to catch Chloe's eye.
"It's not a problem." The man replied quickly.
"No, we really couldn't ask you to do that. Could we Chloe?" She emphasized her name, giving her the look. Shoot him Chloe! Shoot him! She mentally screamed at her.
"Oh!" Chloe jumped in realization, fumbling around with the taser until she held it in the right hand and turned it on against the man's side. His eyes went wide, then he crashed to the ground, twitching.
"Come on!" She shouted at Chloe, ripping the security pass from the mans pants and using it to get inside.
They quickly fast walked to the nearest elevator, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves. They weren't that worried about security teams because Chloe had disabled the security cameras earlier, but they didn't want any of the workers to raise any alarms. The elevator ride to the forth floor had left like it went on for years. Lois's heart beat so hard and fast she felt like anyone around them could hear it.
When the doors opened they didn't see anyone working there. It was dead silent and with the humming of the florescent bulbs above her, Lois half expected to run into a zombie or two. She peeked into lab 402 before entering it. There were many more refrigerators with blood samples in this lab than the one in Smallville. They split up looking though each one, since they were organized alphabetically in each individual container. In the first fridge she looked through the Ks twice before realizing that her last name was "Lane" and not "Kent." It took ten minutes, but Lois found her blood in the fifth one.
"Got it." She told Chloe.
"Now, put it down." A deep voice said. She didn't know how she could've missed the giant guard before. Her heart slammed into her chest. She looked around for something to defend herself with then heard the sound of glass breaking. Chloe had grabbed a beaker from the sink and smashed it over the guards head. He doubled over clutching his bleeding scalp and reached for his gun. Lois quickly ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher that was sitting beside the door and hit him with it a few times until he was knocked unconscious. Chloe gave Lois a look that said What did you get us into?
They ran for it, using the stairs instead of the elevator and speeding off in the car the way anyone does when they've stolen something valuable.
"What's so important about that blood?" Chloe snapped at Lois once they were a safe distance away.
"Chloe, I told you that I can't explain."
"You said it was a matter of life and death. I was almost shot by that guard. I think I deserve an explanation!" She swerved the car a slightly out of anger.
Okay! Okay, just focus on the road." Lois sighed. She could always lie to Chloe, but if she ever found out she might not forgive Lois. But then again, Chloe might not forgive what she was about to tell her anyway. "I had to get the blood back because I can't have anyone learning that my baby isn't entirely…human."
"Isn't human? Why wouldn't it be…?" Lois could tell the moment Chloe understood what she was saying. The color drained from her face and she looked out past her windshield in disbelief. She struggled to find the right words. "No. No, that couldn't have happened…"
"Yes." Lois said. "It did."
Chloe's heart felt like it had been stabbed with an icepick. Her cousin was pregnant by her best friend, the boy she had been not-so-secretly in love with since eighth grade. And they hated each other's guts. She had been joking when she asked Clark if he thought they were together in the future. How did they end up doing the horizontal tango? She swallowed down her emotions. Then it hit her.
"You married him." She said in a dead sort of voice.
"I did." Lois could tell that Chloe was heartbroken. "Please don't hate me."
"And Jase is his son?" Chloe acted like she hadn't even heard what Lois said.
"He's our son." She hated when people made it sound like Jase was only Clark's son. Even though if you looked at Jase you wouldn't think Lois had much to do with the creation of him, she had the stretch marks to prove it.
"Does he know?" Chloe asked.
"No, he doesn't and you can't tell him. Please, Chloe. If you do it could change the entire future."
"I won't tell him." She promised Lois. Even if her cousin was with her dream guy, they were still family and she loved Lois. She couldn't intentionally hurt her. "Your secret is safe with me."
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"Mr. Luthor, I need to inform you that Macedon labs was compromised this evening. A vial of blood was stolen from room 402. Mr. Hodges and Mr. Gates were attacked." A pretty asian woman stood in front of Lex, her hands behind her.
"Thank you, Elizabeth." He said in a tone that told her she was dismissed.
After she had exited the room, he opened his laptop, and found the encrypted file he had been looking for. He had extra security cameras put in the building to make sure he could see and control everything that happened in his lab. He funded many secret projects in that building. Projects which he planned to sell to the military once they had been properly tested, so he spent extra so that he could ensure extra protection.
What he saw was not a rival company trying to sell his prototypes. It was none other than Lois Lane and Chloe Sullivan. He watched as they riffled through the hundreds of blood samples until Lois found the one she wanted. Then he watched her take down a six-foot-six guard and escape unharmed.
He had been struggling with himself over how to deal with Lois. Obviously she was working on something sinister with Milton Fine, but he had not considered her an actual threat, just a small nuisance. Now he had just seen it with his own eyes; Lois Lane was dangerous and she was hiding something important.
