Chapter 49

Lana's Apartment

It had been a long day for Lana, but Clark was on Superman duty—trying to gather more evidence about The Philosophers—and she didn't want to go to sleep that night until she learned how much progress he'd made.

Lois was out of town again, working on a story she had to get to Perry White the following week, so Lana had made Clark a wonderful meal at her place for once, and they'd skipped the cleaning up part for making an even bigger mess—with the couch cushions.

After Clark had reluctantly left—promising to come back for a goodnight kiss—Lana finished their dinner dishes, got out her laptop, and did some more research for their honeymoon. She didn't want Clark to figure out where they were going, however, so she positioned herself on the couch so that she could flip the monitor shut if he super-sped into the living room to surprise her. Knowing him, he would. And knowing her, she'd scream.

It wasn't like she could look at the clock and think, "Oh how nice, Clark will be coming home any minute now," like a typical suburban housewife could. Lana never knew what to expect from one night to the next. On a regular outing, Clark would patrol the streets from the sky, x-ray into known criminal hangouts, and scare off a few would-be offenders. It usually only took a couple hours, give or take a bit. He kept up the routine to keep the ruffians of the city on their toes, knowing if they stepped out of line, they could very well end up with a SUPER-sized headache.

Sometimes, however, Clark really did run into serious trouble—which often made it an all-nighter. She really hoped tonight wouldn't be that way, because she was anxious to cuddle up with him again . . . even though he'd only been gone for two hours. Two hours was plenty long for a swept-off-her-feet woman to be away from her man. A minute without him sometimes felt like an eternity.

Since their engagement, two weeks ago, Lana had been continually distracted by her engagement ring—just as she was right then. She held out her hand, moved it back and forth ever so slightly, and watched shimmers of light bounce of each delicate facet of the pink diamond. And then she gave a happy sigh, surfed the web for a few minutes more, then started the ritual all over again.

The happy sigh got longer every time. Lana really couldn't believe she was getting married! Not just to anyone, either, but to Clark! His effect on her increased with each new day. Her toes still curled in her shoes, her skin still shivered at his touch, and his kiss continued to make her feel so passionate that she was sure there had to be some sort of law against it. No wonder they'd been kicked out of so many public places.

They had many, many happy years ahead of them.

With that in mind, Lana had been flirting a bit with some research on adoption. It wasn't that she wanted a child the day they returned from their honeymoon, but with the money Mr. Olsen had given them—to use at their discretion, as long as it also helped pay for their honeymoon—she and Clark had some budgeting to do.

Adoption was very expensive, she discovered, so they could either blow their whole wad of cash in one shot by taking an extended trip to Europe—which she'd love to do—or they could go along with Lana's original plans for a getaway, and have enough in savings to adopt when the time was right. The rest they'd put away for their future, which seemed to be coming upon them very quickly since they were already making such important decisions to affect it.

One critical decision being her job offer as the nightly news anchor. Tonight, she'd told Clark of her decision to turn it down. He disagreed at first, worrying that she was giving up her dream just to spend more time with him. That was definitely part of it, since she loved seeing him so much at her current job, but Lana had given him an even more solid argument than that.

"Clark, my dream of being a news anchor was imagined when I was a freshman in college—when marriage and family seemed a lifetime away," she had said. "But a solid family life is my dream now . . . you are my dream now. I have no hesitations at all about this decision, and I'm absolutely positive that I'll never regret it."

It would be selfish for her to take the job for a short period of time—until they either had a child, or were so frustrated about the little time they had to be together that she just up and walked out on it. The job should go to someone who planned to invest a lot more time—to make it a priority in their life. Lana wasn't interested in that kind of career anymore. When she met Clark, all her plans changed . . . her world changed.

At half past midnight, the phone rang—not Lana's cell, but her actual apartment phone. That happened so rarely that it completely startled Lana. She leaned over to the sofa table and answered.

"Hello."

A deep voice, which sounded altered by some sort of device said, "I know you're alone . . . but you won't be for long."

Lana's spine straightened, sending sparks to every nerve ending in her body. She didn't take the time to respond to the caller. She hung up and ran across the room to get her cell out of her handbag.

Dialing Clark as fast as her trembling hands would let her, she said, "Please pick up please pick up please pick up . . . "

"Hey, babe, I was just—"

"Clark! Help!" Lana screamed.

Less than five seconds later, Clark was holding her in his arms. Both their hearts were pounding like bass drums—especially since Clark had gone straight through the glass patio door. Shattered glass was everywhere.

"What?! What?!" Clark kept asking her, but she was crying too hard to answer.

She finally pointed to the phone, stuttering, "Someone called . . . he said . . . he knew I was alone."

Clark gathered her even closer, and for the first moment, she noticed he didn't have a shirt on. "Are you all right?" she said, searching his skin for shards of glass—or even scratches.

"Of course I am," he said. "You just freaked me out so bad, I didn't even think to open the door. Now, tell me about the caller . . . " he kept a tight hold on Lana as he squinted and x-rayed the apartment, " . . . we're alone, don't worry."

She nodded against his warm chest. "I'm glad you got here so fast. I'm okay . . . it was probably just a prank call."

"Did he say anything specific, like your name? Or anything at all that hinted that he knew who you were, or where you lived?"

Lana shook her head, now feeling kinda stupid for overreacting like that. She wiped her tears away. "You're marrying a chicken, did you know that? My gosh, that scared me to death!"

Clark looked just as shaken as she was. "Lana, promise that you'll never take anything like this lightly—I have a lot of enemies," he said, stroking her back. "If someone, especially Lex, ever suspected that you knew I was Superman, my biggest fear is that they'd go after you."

"I know that, Clark," she said, wishing she didn't have to admit that this was a fear of hers as well. "But it's a false alarm this time, I'm sure it is. I'm sorry I worried you."

"Don't ever be sorry," he said with a half-smile. "When your safety is concerned, anything is worth interrupting—even changing out of my suit, which you obviously caught me doing."

Her smile was more generous than his, now that her nerves were calming. "Remind me to interrupt you a little sooner next time," she said, looking over his deliciously toned body. He had jeans on and that was it—no socks, no shoes, no shirt. Then Lana gave a little cough. "Umm, you, uhh, missed zipping up."

Clark's red face dropped to his zipper.

"Made ya look," Lana said with a little laugh.

It was good to joke after such a terrifying experience. How silly of her! At least Clark wasn't rolling his eyes at her reaction to the prank call. He'd never mocked any of her stupid moments of weakness.

Clark scooped Lana off the floor, tickled her for teasing him about his zipper, then said, "Prank call or not, I'd feel much better if you stayed at my place tonight."

"I'm sure you would," she said. "But what are we supposed to do about the broken patio door?"

"I'll clean it up . . . it'll take me about ten seconds," he said, looking over the mess. "Then we'll replace the door in the morning."

"Lois is supposed to be home early—surely before we can get a fix-it man here."

"Okay, well, just tell her that a bird ran into it," Clark said, completely serious.

"A bird?" Lana asked with a smirk.

Clark tried again. "A plane?"

"Superman," Lana said, roughing up his hair. "You have a lot of special abilities, but brainpower isn't always one of them."

Clark kissed her. "Thanks, sweetie. I guess I'll leave the thinking to my better half."

-- -- -- --

If Lois had had a heart condition, she would've been flat-lining. She lay motionless on the floor of the empty apartment across the hall—the one that used to belong to Travis.

"Clark is Superman?" she muttered to herself. The thick words stuck on her tongue like honey. "Superman . . . Clark?"

She shook her head hard, sitting up to rewind the footage of what the micro-cameras and listening device had recorded.

Someone must've slipped a hallucinogen into her coffee. That was the only explanation for what she'd just witnessed.

Lois pushed play, speeding through the part where Lana was just sitting on the couch with her laptop for hours. Lois stopped when the phone call she'd made to Lana was picked up. She'd known that would scare Lana enough to call Superman to rescue her.

Lois had overheard Lana talking to Supes on the phone before—she'd known it was him because they were talking in specific detail about a car accident Superman had just helped out at. Lois had been on the scene, too—reporting—and Clark hadn't been there.

At least that's what she'd thought! Only . . . Clark was there!

"Oh my . . . " Lois was fluent in a lot of curse words, and she said every one of them as she re-watched Clark smashing through the patio window—or rather the blur of Clark doing that—then appearing out of thin air to wrap Lana in his arms.

That would've been enough to process, but then he had said he was Superman! And he seemed to have used his x-ray vision . . . and super-sped around the room to clean up the shattered glass.

There was no denying this. Clark really was Superman.

But how? How could she have spent so much time with both of them and not known that?

She wiped her mouth without realizing it . . . she'd kissed Clark! Eww . . . but wait . . . wow . . . he'd never kissed her the way she'd just seen him kiss Lana on the couch after dinner!

Lois shook her head to get her brain back to the topic.

She'd been asking herself how . . . that's where she was. But Clark and Superman looked so different—that was her next confused thought.

Then the answer hit her square between the eyes.

When Superman had confronted her about the book she was writing, she'd told him that she loved him—out of desperation—and he'd claimed that was impossible because if she'd truly loved him, she could've seen through his disguise!

"So when he has on his suit . . . he looks different," she said, reflecting to herself. "Which means Lana must've seen through his disguise . . . and she hasn't been cheating on Clark after all . . . and I've made a total ass of myself . . . and they've been laughing at me this whole time! And Clark has known every single time I've lied to him about me and Supes . . . and he's been lying his butt off to me, too! For years! . . . Ohhhh, I hate him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

She was mad. Really mad! Then she just about kicked a hole in the wall when the next thought came. "I bet Chloe knows, too!!"

Thinking through all the times Clark, Lana, and Chloe must've made fun of her ignorance, Lois shoved the surveillance equipment into her duffle bag as quickly as she could. With friends like this, who needed enemies? Lex Luthor wasn't looking so bad right then.

Lois was gonna make herself a million bucks!