Superman hadn't made any appearances in Smallville since the battle, but as Clark, he'd done all he could to help his hometown recover from the attack, because even if they'd never truly accepted him, it was still his home. The first twelve hours after Zod's death, he'd spent digging through the rubble there, helping with the rescue.

When Clark had showed up at the emergency staging area and volunteered to help, he was pretty sure that Doug Parker, Smallville's chief of police, knew his secret. Doug was the one who had picked up Lois from the crater in the cornfield and who had brought her to the Kent farm at her request. He had seen Clark dressed as Superman talking to Martha on her front porch, and Lois had called out to him by name.

But as night fell over Smallville's battered downtown, Doug had simply thanked him for volunteering, shook Clark's hand, and put him to work. When Clark insisted that they dig through the rubble at specific places, Doug gave the order, and soon the men working beside Clark didn't even need the order. If any of them noticed that he could lift beams or broken concrete slabs that wouldn't budge for two or even three men, no one voiced any suspicions that he was Superman. He wasn't sure if that was because of Doug's leadership or if it was something deeper, but either way, he was grateful.

Miraculously, only two people had died, Mike Melbourn at the silo when it blew and Becky Nathans when the locomotive engine was thrown into the Sears store. By himself, Clark retrieved them one at a time after everyone else was accounted for and carried their bodies to their anxiously-waiting families at the staging area. Then he'd sat down heavily on a piece of nearby rubble and wept for the second time that day. Eventually Pete came and sat beside him, offering an almost-awkward silent support.

Clark divided his time between Metropolis and Smallville until there weren't any more survivors to be found, and then he focused on his hometown. By and large, he blended in with the scores of volunteers who poured into Smallville over the next several weeks to help. Besides Doug, there were others who remembered the bus accident, who remembered other odd things Clark had done, and who knew that the state never was able to find his birth mother before he was adopted. They worked beside him every day without any concern or misgiving that he could perceive. In fact, the residents of Smallville seemed more open and welcoming to him than ever before.

With him "kidnapping" Lois today, though, he wasn't sure how they might respond or if that new good will would extend to his mother. Still, something told him that she'd be hidden away somewhere in Smallville if she'd already gone to work before Lois' stalkers closed in. Pete and Doug, at least, would do everything in their power to keep her safe. If she'd still been at home, though, there was no telling what could have happened to her.

So as Clark raced the sun westward, he hoped that his mom was already in Smallville.

To his surprise, the farm was quiet when he drew close enough to see. Martha was out in the orchard, inspecting the apricot tree, and there weren't any out-of-place vehicles anywhere in sight. As he swooped lower, he noticed that there were some listening devices in the house and barn now – a recent development since his move to Metropolis - but that was about it. A drone was patrolling the sky higher up, but no helicopters or fighters of any kind.

They suspected, then, but hadn't made any moves against his mom. Considering his mood today, that was very lucky for them. Maybe they'd realized that.

He flew over Smallville in a search pattern for a few minutes, trying to decide whether he should kidnap her, too. If they didn't already know her relationship to him, it would confirm it. If they did already know, they could have taken her into custody hours ago and didn't. That in itself was so unexpected that it made him hesitate. It didn't fit with what he believed Lois' stalkers were after, and until he wrapped his mind around it, he didn't want to disturb the strange detente. Against his better judgment, he decided to take a calculated risk and leave her there, promising himself he'd come back to check on her after he made sure Lois was safely settled in at the library.

After a brief stop at the Geo to change into some less-conspicuous clothes, he walked back into the town of Cascade Springs. Lois was still at the grocery store's snack bar, nursing a large cup of coffee. She glanced up when he walked in, but her eyes tightened with worry when she saw he was alone. He gave her as reassuring a smile as he could and sat down opposite her. "She's okay, for the moment."

"Where is she?"

"Still on the farm. They've left her alone."

Lois frowned thoughtfully as she took another sip of coffee.

"Yeah," he said in answer to her expression. "I don't get it either."

"So what's our story?" she asked.

"Story?"

"Yeah. Like, our stupid Geo Metro broke down outside of town and we're stuck here until we can get it fixed. So I'm hanging out in the library and the stores in town trying to stay warm while you're working on it. I'm Dolores Rhode and you're my brother Joe."

He raised his eyebrow at being called her brother. "If this is payback for the thing about brunettes..."

She gave him a playful smile. "Maybe a little bit. But mostly, they'll be looking for friends or a romantic couple travelling. They won't expect siblings."

He nodded in agreement.

"I'm starting to have tech withdrawal. I need to know what's going on out there. Don't suppose your podunk library has an internet connection? I'd settle for your mom's dial-up at this point."

"That's why I chose it, Dolores," he pointed out, "so I could email a certain big-city girl."

"Right," she answered, rubbing her tired eyes. "So...you want a quick breakfast before we go? They have rotisserie chickens and loaves of garlic bread. I think I saw a decent-sized watermelon, too."

He chuckled and shook his head. "The sun is still up. I'll be fine. Let's go."

The February wind idly stirred the snow at their feet as they walked, and Lois leaned closer to Clark. He smiled and put his arm around her. She gave him a warning look, and he said, "I'm just keeping my sister warm. Besides, nobody's out walking around in this cold but us."

She rolled her eyes but didn't pull away. "So...how did they up their game?"

Clark took a deep, calming breath. "They're letting up on the high-tech spying and going for the old-school strategies, at least at your place. They had a stakeout set up in an apartment across from yours." He couldn't hide the anger in his voice when he added, "They had a telescope pointed at your bedroom."

She looked up at him. "Is that the first time they've done that?"

"It's the first time I'd seen them, but I don't think it was in response to the interview, if that's what you're wondering. At least, not in response to what we said in it. It had probably been going on for several days. Maybe longer, judging by the fast-food debris."

"Probably?"

He shrugged. "I generally try to avoid being a peeping tom."

A smile flickered across her face before she said, "What about at the Planet?"

He softly snorted. "It's almost as bad as that first week at your place. There are bugs everywhere I looked, but the vast majority isn't hardwired, so unless they restock or swap out batteries, I'd give it two weeks tops before those are all dead."

"They just bugged it ahead of our exclusive," she concluded. "What about the ones that are hardwired? Where are they?"

"A camera and audio device both at your desk and in Mr. White's office."

She scowled at that, leaning away from him, and Clark tipped his head curiously. "It's one thing to spy on me at home," she explained. "I'm an investigative journalist and I've done a stakeout or two myself. Taking it to the Planet, though...That's crossing the line," she practically growled.

Clark shook his head in disbelief. "So them seeing you in your underwear isn't as bad as them reading your drafts?"

She dodged his gaze, glaring at the snow. "The drafts are more revealing."

They walked in silence for several minutes then, Lois silently nursing a growing grudge and Clark comparing her last statement with his own memories of the morning and just being unable to reconcile the two.

"Here we are," he finally said, and opened the library door for her.

Once inside, Lois paid the fee to use one of the two computers the library had, giving the librarian with a name tag "Jamie Sue" their story about a broken-down car and her wanting to hang out there to stay warm while her brother fixed it. Jamie Sue looked skeptically from the tall, dark-haired, and physically imposing Clark to the slender, strawberry-blond Lois, and improvising, Clark amiably added, "Step-brother. But we're close enough we claim each other as the real thing."

"Ah," Jamie Sue replied.

Once her curiosity was satisfied, Lois and Clark both huddled in front of the computer while Lois ran a few car repair searches for the look of the thing. After twenty minutes, she printed some of the suggestions for him.

While he folded and pocketed the pages, she snuck a peek at the Daily Planet's website. To her surprise, the big headline of the day was, "Lois Lane Kidnapped by Superman?"

She softly swore and Clark returned to read over her shoulder. The article detailed the incident at the apartment opposite Lois' and she looked up at him in surprise. "You attacked them?"

"I attacked their equipment," Clark clarified. "They were never in any danger."

"They probably didn't know that."

He shrugged, though a hint of a smirk played across his lips, and she shook her head at him before reading on. "Who wrote this?" Lois complained as the article went into the "gun battle" in the parking lot only minutes later. "Lombard. Figures. Seriously, how do you have a 'gun battle' with Superman?"

"You shoot at him and get killed by the ricochet?" Clark answered, pleased when that earned him an amused snort.

To his relief, the article didn't say anything about flying Geo Metros or even the direction they'd gone when they left Metropolis, other than to speculate that Kansas might be involved somehow. That part made him extremely grateful he hadn't interfered on the farm.

The rest of the story was devoted to calling for calm and asking the public's assistance in finding Lois. Fortunately, the photo they used for her was from her Daily Planet bio, which was two years out of date and showed her with professionally-styled hair and perfect make-up. Even Clark admitted that any resemblance between the picture and the woman beside him probably wouldn't be helpful to anyone in town.

"There's a disguise for you, Woot," she muttered. "Death warmed over."

Since he was supposed to just be her step-brother, he gently squeezed her shoulder with his hand. "I don't know. I like how you looked first thing this morning."

She hunched forward in silent laughter before twisting to meet his gaze. "You never cease to surprise me."

He cleared his throat, blushing to his ears. Anything else he said would probably either blow their cover as siblings or get him in all the right kinds of trouble later, so he kept his mouth shut.

Still chortling, she wondered, "If this is what the Planet's running, what garbage is the Metropolis Inquisitor putting out?"

Compared to them, the Daily Planet looked like it was out-and-out rooting for Superman. The Inquisitor had an interactive timeline showing every known event Superman was involved in. Each event had a paragraph or two about it, and they put the worst possible spin on everything. When it came to Lois' disappearance, their speculations ranged from sinister to lewd, and Lois clenched her jaw.

"Is that what people think Superman is really…"

"No, that's just the Inquisitor for you," Lois firmly cut him off.

"But the comments," he protested, pointing to the hundreds of entries it had already received.

"They're scared, and people do stupid things when they're scared. Here..." She logged out of the computer and Clark followed her to a reading table at the back of the library that was even further away from Jamie Sue. He took the chair beside her when she sat down.

She leaned closer to him across the table and, in a low voice, said, "There are people out there who are going to be malicious, but mostly they're just scared of you. Not because of what you are but because of what you can do."

"My father told me that hundreds of times when I was growing up," he pointed out. "You're preaching to the choir."

"But it's different now," she insisted. "Besides all the rest, you can literally watch the watchers – that alone is going to freak out a lot of people in Washington. They aren't going to get bored with you or give up on trying to find you. Today might even make it worse, not better."

"Then give me some solutions, Lois. You're the one with the Pulitzer prize."

She frowned thoughtfully for a moment and then said, "They're scared, so you need to show them that they don't need to be afraid of you."

He huffed and mildly glared at the opposite wall. "Oh, is that all?" His whole life he'd terrified people, though remembering the surprising acceptance he'd felt in Smallville since the battle, that same little, moral voice in the back of his mind told him to listen to Lois.

Lois softly chuckled, and he looked at her sharply. "Sorry, it's just something Lucy says all the time that I think might apply here. You and the government both need better boundaries. You said that today was about making statements, so decide what you can and can't live with and let them know. If they know the rules you're playing by - or that you'll play by any rules - it'll probably help them be less scared."

He grimaced. "It isn't playing fair if you're using my own words against me."

"Oh, I can do better than that," she smirked. "Remember the social contract you mentioned in the interview? You run around saving people hoping that they'll start to trust you, but sooner or later, you're going to have to start trusting humanity. If you really want in on that contract."

"That's not the same as trusting the government," he almost growled.

"So make it about trusting an individual." After a pause, she suggested, "General Swanwick."

Her words hit home and it eased some of his frustration with the whole situation. It had been tentative, under duress really, but Swanwick had trusted him.

"You just need to reciprocate now."

"And if my naive trust gets you killed?"

She narrowed her eyes at him defiantly. "Okay, firstly, I've waltzed into war zones for less-important things than you. Secondly, killing me and your mom would be the absolute stupidest thing anybody could do. It would gut your soul, turn you into another Zod. That's probably why they didn't threaten her today. Until they have to control you, why play that card?"

"And when they do play that card?" Clark demanded.

Her gaze softened. "We'll burn that bridge when we get there. Honestly, it'll probably be something big enough that you'd help anyway. If you can build rapport while it's still a matter of trust, there's an outside chance they might never play that card."

"You might be willing to risk your life on an 'outside chance' but..." He looked down and fell silent, barely able to think about her dying, much less talk about it. It was hard enough after his dad died; his decision then had haunted him for years. He'd already endured that hell and the thought of losing Lois because she insisted on protecting him was just...unbearable. Even more disturbing was the thought of actually having someone to blame for it. He couldn't retaliate against a tornado, but Lois' blunt words about becoming like Zod were truer than he cared to admit. It was frighteningly easy to imagine killing someone who had murdered Lois or his mom.

"Sooner or later, they'll figure out where you hang your cape," she pointed out. "Besides the drones and the security cameras around the city and the bugs around me and your mom, there's facial recognition software, voice-prints, DNA... It's only a matter of time. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life hiding in the shadows, you're going to have to accept that some people will know your secret."

The desolation he felt then was almost as bad as that day in the train station. He wasn't willing to accept that the two most important women in the world (as far as he was concerned) were fair game, or at least, he wasn't willing to concede the point to Lois' stalkers yet. But he'd asked for Lois' advice and, like she pointed out at Christmas, if he asked for it, he should at least give it a chance.

Her eyes softened with compassion and she laid her hand over his. "I know this is hard for you. It'd be hard for anyone, and you've spent your entire life hiding."

Her touch took the wind out of his sails and, more defeated than defensive, he asked, "So what are you suggesting, that I announce to the world who I am?"

She shook her head. "Even with today's coverage, nobody has mentioned Clark Kent. If they're going to keep that secret, then you should, too, as long as you can. But don't live your life in fear." A hint of a smile flitted across her lips. "Jean's Beans needs you."

He raised an eyebrow at that, and she dodged his gaze before admitting, "Or at least, their best customer does."

She glanced back up, and the shy vulnerability in her eyes made him smile even before the words sunk in. In her roundabout way, she'd just told him she needed him, and impossibly, the knowledge made him feel stronger. Or maybe it was just her hand on his.

The first time she held his hand, he'd been struck by the acceptance and compassion of the gesture. He had been going to what very well could have been his death in order to save the human race, and she alone had reached out to him. Literally.

But because it was her - the woman who had the drive and intelligence to find him when he'd successfully hidden for more than a decade, the woman who threw away one of the biggest stories imaginable in order to protect him - he had let himself truly feel her touch in ways only he could.

When he was little and his powers were just starting to manifest themselves, the only way he could articulate to his parents why it was so unsettling for him to touch other people was that he could read their souls. Something about the feel of their skin was almost frighteningly intimate. It went beyond the purely tactile sensation of the soft texture, the pulse fluttering away just below the surface, or the moisture. Later, as he learned all he could about the human body trying to understand what was happening to his own, he suspected it had to do with something far more fundamental. The skin communicated in a complex, subconscious interaction of temperature, vasodilation, electrical impulses, and chemistry and, theology aside, Clark wondered if 'reading a soul' wasn't as far off the mark as he'd once thought.

Until he'd learned to hone his senses, the only people he would voluntarily allow skin-on-skin contact with were his parents. No matter how intense it was, he always welcomed their touch - hugging, touching hands, tickling. Their souls were solid, strong, and kind. Pete had been a surprise, though. There was a day when Whitney Fordham had shoved Clark to the ground, bullying him with a group of his friends, and after they left, Pete had offered him a hand up. When he accepted that proffered hand, he sensed Pete's respect for and confidence in him and that moment had forever altered Clark's perception of him.

Touching the murderous Zod in the train station had been overwhelming - excruciating, soul-marring - despite Clark's focus. Worse, he'd felt him die when he snapped the other man's neck. Lois' touch that day had been the only thing that held him together in the aftermath.

But now, with Lois holding his hand, he could sense again how beautiful her soul was. She was wistful, reluctant to part with him, but also filled with a growing, driven excitement he didn't quite understand. Underpinning it all was affection and confidence and bone-deep compassion.

He would do anything for her, and finding a way into the circle of her daily life wasn't even a sacrifice. "Who am I to keep Jean's Beans' best customer waiting, then?"

She seemed to pull herself together and the vulnerability was gone, replaced with the kind of smile that he'd come to live for. "Go on," she encouraged him, nodding toward the library door. "Go take care of what you need to - check on your mom, find Swanwick, save a sinking boat. I've got a library to keep me company, and I have some writing to do, too, since Lombard wouldn't notice a good story if it bit him." Letting go of his hand, she meaningfully patted the messenger bag she still carried, the one containing pens and a notepad. "Perry will need something decent to print when I get back."

She lived and breathed her profession, he knew. He'd read everything of hers that he could get his hands on, partly because the best way to acquire any skill was to study a master, but mostly because her writing, though edited, was distilled Lois. She was passionate, but just as importantly, she was focused and intelligent. Her mind was like a sword, sharp and dangerous when necessary, but she wielded it with the intent to illuminate and to right wrongs. Her prose soared, carrying the reader through whatever moved her, whether it was grief, compassion, indignation or awe. If she already had an article or an exposé running around in her brain today, she'd be fine waiting here for him. If anything, she'd welcome the alone-time to write.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised.

Her eyes sparkled in a way that warmed him all the way to his toes. "I know. Otherwise I wouldn't let you go."