On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…

Lois came by the farm feeling chipper. Everything seemed more cheerful when Clark and Lana weren't dating. "Good morning, Smallville," she said, opening the door without bothering to knock today. "Has Lana already moved out?"

"Yeah," he said, sounding distracted. He was reading the Daily Planet. "Have you read the paper today?"

"No, does it have something to do with my article? I didn't put your breakup in it if you're worried about that. It didn't really have anything to do with a tradition."

"You didn't, but someone else did," he said, holding up the front page for her to see. It read 'Senator's Son Gets Dumped at Political Affair'.

"I don't like it, but that's the life of the paper. The news was kind of slow yesterday. I bet other papers are running it too."

"It gets better," he said and then started reading it out loud. " 'Kent's longtime girlfriend screamed that she was leaving him in front of the entire crowd. She hinted that he had a secret lover.' "

Lois, who had poured herself a cup of coffee and taken a drink, spit it back out into her cup in laughter. "You, a secret lover? This journalist obviously never met you. How in the world did they get that idea?"

"Oh, there's more. 'This claim gained more credence as Kent spent the rest of the night on the arm of another woman, not upset in the least. His lover was none other than the Daily Planet's own Lois Lane, whose column you can find on page—"

"What? This is bull!" Lois exclaimed, grabbing the paper away. "I'm calling Perry right away, since when did the Planet turn into a rag?" She pressed a number on her cell phone. "Perry! This is Lois. How could—" she stopped and listened. "I guess that explains it all, doesn't it?…Yeah, I know you're sorry. It's not your fault. See you later."

"What did he say?"

"It's Lex, of course. He said if Perry didn't run the piece on the front page, he was going to fire him. The sleaze ball owns the paper right now. I still don't see how Grant or Julian or whoever got all the blame for the corruption."

"He was Lex's scapegoat," Clark said simply. "He wasn't blameless, but he doesn't deserve to be rotting in jail for Lex's crimes."

"I'm going to find a way to bring Lex down."

"Not this again," Clark said. "It's too dangerous."

"I can't take working for him anymore and more than that, he has to be stopped."

"Can it wait until after Christmas?"

"Will you help me if I do?" she asked.

"I guess I'll have to if I'm going to keep you out of trouble."

"You flatter yourself. It'll be the other way around. I talked to Perry earlier and he is willing to hire you."

"Good, then I get paid to baby-sit you," he teased her with a smile.

She swatted him with a paper. "Be nice to your secret lover." Then she opened the paper back up. "I'd love to go after him now."

"Go after who?" Martha asked, coming into the room.

"The grinch who owns the paper and restricts the freedom of the press or prints trash. You know what I'd really like for Christmas, a new owner of the Daily Planet."

"Well, if you've finished letting off steam," Clark said, "today's event is ice skating, so let's get going."

"Ice skating?" Lois said uncertainly.

"Yeah, ice skating. Is there a problem?" he said, as he stood there with the door open.

"No problem," she said, following him out.

Martha, who was looking very thoughtful, picked up the phone and began dialing.

A little bit later, they were at the ice skating rink. Clark had already laced up and was waiting on Lois. Lois was taking her time putting on the rented shoes.

"Do you want me to help?" he asked.

"I'm fine."

"Lois, you've been at it for 5 minutes. Are you sure you don't need any help? Did you get the wrong size?"

"No," she said, finishing the double knots. She stood up and slowly and clumsily walked toward the rink. She almost lost her balance, but he took her arm and steadied her until they got over there. He stepped out first. He spun around and waited for her to follow.

She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the ice and then felt herself start to fall back. Before she actually hit into the ground, Clark was behind her and had caught her. "Something tells me you don't know how to ice skate."

"Something tells me you're right."

"So why didn't you say anything?" he asked with a chuckle.

"I can roller skate. I didn't think ice skating was that different."

"And you don't like admitting you can't do something."

"That too," she mumbled.

"You're right; it's not too much different from rollerblading. I'm not the best ice skater in the world, but I've been practicing a lot. I can help you learn."

"Okay," she sighed. "Teach me. I don't see how this qualifies as a Christmas tradition though."

"You'll see. The first thing you have to do is relax. I'm not going to let you injure yourself. See, I'm holding your hand. If you don't relax, you're more likely to fall."

She relaxed a little.

"Okay, now bend your knees to the point that you can't see your toes. Got that?"

"I can't see my toes."

"Good and just in case you do fall, here's a tip, ball your hands into fists when you catch yourself because if you leave your fingers spread out, the blades are sharp enough to cut your fingers off if someone skates on them." He felt her tense up. "You're not relaxing."

"What do you expect? You just told me I could loose my fingers."

"I won't let you loose your fingers."

It wasn't long before she'd gotten the hang of it, and Clark didn't have to hold on.

"You want to race?" Lois asked.

"I don't think that's such a good idea. You're still a beginner."

"Afraid you're going to loose, Smallville?"

Before he could answer, a voice came over the speakers. "All skaters clear the rink."

When all the skaters started rushing for the gate, Lois tensed up and couldn't keep up with the crowd. Clark took her arm and waited until it cleared out and then they started to glide for the exit, but Lois lost her balance because somebody had dropped something on the ice and because he was holding onto Lois, he lost his balance too. He had enough control to turn around so that he crashed into the wall first and then she crashed onto him, but at least they didn't fall down on the ice. They seemed to forget where at they were at as they got wrapped up in the intimate position.

"Lois… I…."

"What?" she whispered almost fearfully.

"I think I love—reindeer."

"What?" she asked in a confused, normal toned voice.

He pointed to the reindeer that were starting to come onto the ice rink. "That was the Christmassy part of it. The reindeer are practicing their show here."

They finished skating to the gate and then sat down on the bench to watch the costumed skaters perform.

"There are 10 of them, in case you didn't notice, made up of 10 real men, and if you watch, they leap on the ice. See that's 10 real lords like you wanted."

"That's not exactly what I had in mind."

"They stand for the 10 commandments."

"Wait, isn't there only 8 reindeer? Why do they have 10?"

"There are 9 if you count Rudolph. You can also include Leroy, the redneck reindeer."

"What?"

"It's a real song. He's Rudolph's cousin. They're the best ice show in the tri-county area. "

"Boy, are we lucky," she said sarcastically.

He smiled and then turned to watch.

She swallowed hard. Lana wasn't an excuse anymore. The thing that scared her about possibly starting a relationship with Clark was that it would go wrong, as all of her relationships went no matter how perfect it seemed to be going. Besides, there was no telling what he had been about to say. Maybe he loved ice skating. She didn't know if he did it consciously, but he was still holding her hand. It felt nice and right. For now, she was just going to enjoy being close to him and not worry about what was going on between them.