So, I wanted to apologize for forgetting that this site doesn't seem to support the use of the squiggly line, which I use to break up sections of story. If things seem to randomly jump around the past five or ten chapters, that's why.

-- Chapter 21

"How long have you two been partners?"

"Seems like it's been years," grumbled Lois, causing Clark to mess with his glasses in an attempt not to say the exact same thing. It really did feel like it had been years, mostly because their polar opposite styles of not only writing, but life, seemed to mesh very well when it came to finding the truth of the matter. He knew that it could be difficult to make a partnership work, and according to Perry making one work with Lois was near to impossible.

"It's been about six weeks, Rachel, and apparently it hasn't been a short six weeks," Clark said as he grabbed another slice of pizza from the boxes they'd ordered. Since they were trying to finish an article, they'd had pizza delivered to the Planet. "Would you like another slice of pizza? We still have some of Lois's double bacon left, or feel free to take the last slice of cheese."

"Are you trying to give away my pizza, Smallville? So much for all that courtesy we were talking about."

"What? No, I wouldn't..."

Lois held up a hand and smiled. "It was a joke, Clark. Take it easy, loosen up a bit. You're always wound up way too tightly."

"Yeah, well, I distinctly remember not being wound so tightly until I was partnered with a woman that decided a story with no risk probably wasn't a story worth writing. I know that my blood pressure has jumped since starting with you."

"You're welcome! Before I got hold of you, you were about as dull as an old butter knife! Now, I've got you up to at least a regular butter knife, and maybe a dull steak knife."

"Wow, you two really do act like you've been partnered for years," Owen said. "Considering Lois's history with partners around this place, I think I can speak for not only myself, but my sister as well in saying congratulations, Clark. You're officially in."

"I'm in?" Clark grinned, wiping his hands off on a napkin. "This sounds ominous; are you guys some sort of mafia family or something?"

Rachel snorted. "The way Lois makes friends, I don't think you're all that far off. Of course, we're free to ask about her business, and she's happy to tell us about what we've read in the paper. I think she likes to leave out details though, because half her recent stories seem to jump from you two being trapped in a building to the celebration of putting bad guys behind bars. What, pray tell, is our cousin omitting from the story?"

"Well, it seems that she likes to omit all the times that I've had to get her out of jams."

He heard Lois start coughing and looked over at her as she took a drink of water and seemed to gather herself. "You got me out of jams? Oh you are SO dreaming, Smallville! In your version of things, right after you pull me from these buildings we're trapped in, do I thank you breathlessly before leaning in for a passionate kiss and some groping?"

"No, but that sounds like a very good ending to an investigation. Next time we're trapped somewhere, if that's how you want to play it, by all means do whatever comes naturally."

"Whatever comes..." She trailed off and shuddered in an exaggerated manner, causing her cousins to grin and Clark to shake his head ruefully. "What comes naturally after this little story, Smallville, is me leaving you to get out of these jams you supposedly pull me out of all on your own. You'll get no help from me."

"Fortunately," Clark said, holding up a finger and looking to Owen and Rachel, "your cousin's new best friend is helper to one and all in need. The real story on how we get out of these situations? Ever since Superman showed up, Lois has a tendency to scream his name and see how quickly he can come to help."

"Hey! Lois Lane does not scream!"

"And now it all makes sense," Owen said quietly. "I knew there was more to your so called daring escapes than you were letting on."

"Ok, fine, so maybe I've called for help a few times, but most of the times he shows up I'm well on my way to escaping and he just expedites matters a bit. That's it. I mean, you know, he's Superman. Helping people in distress is his thing, and if he happens to mistake me for someone in distress, then who am I to argue with a free flight home?"

Wiping off his mouth as he finished swallowing a bite of pizza, Clark motioned at Lois with his head to the other two in the room. "And now you can see why the hottest gossip in the city is that Lois Lane, intrepid reporter, and Superman, super hero from another planet, are something of an item. First, a lot of his high profile actions seem to center around saving her and flying with her in his arms. Very romantic looking I'm told. Second, whenever Lois talks about him, she gets that dreamy look on her face that you may have just noticed."

"I do NOT look dreamy when I talk about him!"

"You do, Lo," Rachel said as she smiled.

"Gotta agree with my sister on this one, Lois," Owen said. Clark smiled at her, and had to duck the napkin that was thrown at his face.

"So if Lois is all smitten with Superman, Clark, does that mean there's nothing between you and her?"

Before Clark had any time to even digest what had been said, Lois scoffed loudly. "Me and Clark? You've gotta be kidding, Rachel."

"What? He's tall, cute and I bet he's hiding a great physique under that suit. Weren't you the one that used to say she'd take a nerd in glasses over... well, over something. I don't remember what it is, but it probably resembled Superman."

"Yeah, but who could have seen somebody like Superman coming along? Had I known then what I know now, I may have been a little more cautious in making statements like that. Granted, had I known then what I know now I may have been able to predict things about my life, like that time I broke my hand fighting off a mugger. I don't know what was worse: trying to type one handed or trying to dictate my articles to Jimmy. Longest two weeks of my professional life."

"That's what you want to predict? Unbelievable. And hey, I thought the longest two weeks of your professional life were our first two together?"

"It's something of a 1A and 1B situation."

"We seem to have strayed off topic here. Lois, you have no interest in Clark?"

"None at all."

"All right." Rachel turned and smiled at him. "Clark, I'm sure that, living in Metropolis, you know all the best little places to eat. How about you and I go out tomorrow, grab a bite and get to know each other better?"

"Hey, whoa there. Are you asking my partner out on a date?"

"Yes, I am. You have no interest in him, so I don't think there's going to be a conflict of interest."

"He's my partner! Of course it would be a conflict of interest, especially when the whole thing inevitably blows up in MY face!" She turned and faced him. "Clark, you cannot go on this date. You just can't. It's too weird."

Surveying the scene in front of him, Clark decided that things could work out one of two ways: either he could go out with Rachel, potentially having a good time and getting to know somebody that knows the deep dark secrets of Lois Lane, which sounded like fun. Or he could go the direction of less fun, which would be to decline the date, making Lois think she can dictate what he does and sit home alone on another Saturday night. Choices, choices.

"You know what, Rachel? I would love to take you out to eat tomorrow night. I know a great little place I bet even Lois hasn't heard of."

The aforementioned Lane sputtered a bit before she seemed able to spit out some words. "You're going to go out with her? But... but, why?"

"First of all it makes you stutter, which I think is kinda funny. Secondly, and most importantly, it beats the pants off sitting at home alone all night. I think I'll try having fun this week. I hear it's enjoyable doing things with other people that don't revolve around work. You had a date two weeks ago, so I think you remember how it works."

"But she's my cousin! And you never go out on dates!"

"And as such, I will be very courteous in making sure I remember how a date works. Or, wait, no, I've been told courtesy is dead. I guess I'll just have to be rude while I remember how a date works."

"Rude? Now I'm really glad I asked you out, Clark."

"My sister, everyone," Owen said. "Guess it's just you and me tomorrow night, Lois."

"Guess so."

--

She hated pacing. It accomplished nothing except to show that you were trying to think something through and weren't comfortable doing so sitting down. Sitting wouldn't be any better than pacing, though. She'd sit, and ten seconds later her leg would start bouncing in anticipation, or she'd end up chewing on her lip. It all just pointed to the fact that she was extremely uncomfortable with her cousin going out on a date with her partner.

Nothing good could come from this date. At best they'd have a good time but decide not to do it again. At worst they'd spend the next five days together, leaving her to entertain Owen and leaving things at work decidedly uncomfortable. Or maybe worst was the date went horribly and it left things uncomfortable at work. No, the first worst case scenario was definitely worse than the second worst case scenario.

Any situation with two possible worst case scenarios should not be happening.

Groaning, Lois gave a quick glance back towards her bedroom, where Rachel was doing her last touch ups, adjustments or whatever one did when getting ready for a date with Clark Kent. At least with Clark she could be fairly certain that his farm boy values wouldn't allow for him and her cousin to be sexing each all night on the first date. Hopefully Rachel wouldn't do that, either, but since they were related she had to hedge her bets. She'd been known to get carried away with a guy or two over the years.

When Rachel emerged from the bedroom Lois did her best to look at ease, but she knew she'd failed when Rachel looked at her and just rolled her eyes.

"What do you want to say, Lois?"

"Say? I don't have anything to say."

"That would not only be a first, but I think it's physically impossible for you to not have something to say about pretty much every situation."

"Fine, I have something to say. My Partner? Seriously? This city is full of men willing to take out women that look like us, but you set your sights on the one I have to work with every day? Why... why... just why?"

"I didn't set my sights on him, Lo, or anything so ridiculous that makes me sound like I was guy hunting. He just... he's really attractive, as you know unless you've gone blind, and he's different than most guys I'm attracted to."

"Clark is different than most guys that most women have dated," Lois mumbled. "Yes, Clark is good looking, but do you know what else he is? Dull. He never goes out for a drink, never does

anything that could be construed as fun. After work he goes home and doesn't really do much; he's told me as much. I know we've only been partners about six weeks, but I can honestly say I don't think the guy likes dating. He never does it, despite having plenty of opportunity with

women from all over the office fawning over him. It was half the reason I was so shocked he agreed to go out with you. Normally he just deflects and declines politely, if not a bit clumsily."

"Well you know as well as I do, Lois, that dating can suck horrendously if you go out on dates with the wrong people, and going out with people from work is rarely the best idea. Maybe that's just been his problem; in the past he probably went out with girls that left him with dating scars and he's become hesitant."

"And are you going to try and cure his hesitancy?"

"Your dirty innuendo aside, I'm going in with an open mind and hoping that Clark is a lot like he was last night. He didn't seem nearly as reserved as you described him."

Lois grunted. "Yeah, he did seem to come out of his shell a little bit last night. Normally he stutters and messes with his glasses a lot more than he did. He's also generally much less vociferous when it comes to come backs. All in all, last night was certainly not the norm. I wonder what changed?"

"Maybe I'll find out tonight." There was a knock at the door, and Rachel smiled. "I really liked the Clark I met last night, and I want that to continue."

"She really did that," Clark said, grinning as Rachel laughed. "And then afterwards she actually wondered what had gone wrong. It was our fourth day as partners and I was seriously wondering what I had been thrown into by Perry. He'd warned me that my time with Lois was going to be a trial by fire, but I hadn't thought that it was going to be literal fire. I guess that'll teach me, won't it?"

"Growing up with Lois, you kind of inherently understand that she's going to do things her way, and if that way doesn't work she's not going to understand why. It's just how she's always been, even when we were four and five years old. But if you're just thrown into it like you were... well, it's easy to see why she never kept a partner longer than a week and a half until you came along."

"It's odd, too, because even when she isn't with you she somehow is still the center of attention. I've heard a few stories about Lois, which I greatly appreciate, but I haven't really had a chance to learn anything about you." Taking a sip of his drink, Clark swallowed and continued where he'd left off. "Let me dig deep into my intricate reporter questioning skills and ask this: where'd you grow up?"

"That's digging deep into your intricate reporter questioning skills?" she asked, smiling.

"Well, working with Lois has had the adverse effect of my questioning skills atrophying a bit. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to get a word in edgewise, though she has a knack for asking all the questions I want to in a much more direct way."

"I best she does. To answer the question, though, I grew up in Chicago. Went to school at Northwestern so that I didn't end up moving far away from my family, though in the end the attempt to stay close was thwarted by Owen moving to New York and me getting sent to Miami for my job two months after I graduated. Our parents are still there, though, and we both try to get back to as much as we can. That's actually where we're headed after our time here; we both took two weeks off and flew here to spend five days with Lois, then we're headed home for the remainder of the time. We're actually trying to convince Lois to take a day off from work and join us there for a long weekend."

Clark made a show of being shocked. "Asking Lois Lane to take time off from work? But how would the world get its news?"

Rachel laughed a bit and popped one of the few fries left in front of her into her mouth. "You would think that's a realistic scenario, the way she makes it sound. Really, I think you should take offense to it; she makes you sound inept, the way she describes things potentially going downhill."

"It's just Lois being Lois. What do you think the odds are you two actually get her to take some time and go to Chicago?"

"Oh, she'll go. She's never really been one to turn down an opportunity to visit family, despite the show she makes against leaving the paper for a few days." She paused and took a drink before continuing. "So what about you? Since I've heard Lois call you Smallville a bunch, I imagine you grew up somewhere called Smallville. Must've been an experience."

Wasn't that the truth. Granted, he still couldn't tell people what had really happened there. People in Smallville barely believed what had transpired in the town over the years. "You could say that, yeah. It's a little farming community, as you can imagine, so one doesn't expect there to be a whole lot to it. It could be sneaky in its excitement level, though, especially for a guy growing up on a farm."

"You know of any good bars, Lois?"

Moving only her eyes, Lois glanced over at Owen, raising an eyebrow despite the fact that she wasn't sure he could see it. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm afraid that if your leg keeps bouncing like it is you're going to strain a muscle or something." Looking down, Lois slapped her hand onto her knee to stop the bouncing. "Since you won't loosen up and talk now, I figure you'll talk after a scotch or three. Probably not as much as when we were teenagers, but enough."

"I don't need to talk, Owen. Yeah, I could go off on how my cousin and my partner going on a date makes me think all kinds of things, things I don't really want to bother having to think, but I'm not going to. I could spend the next three hours telling you how many ways this could possibly go wrong, but I have better ways to spend three hours!"

"Sitting there tensely with one of your legs bouncing up and down restlessly?"

"Exactly."

"You handle unnecessary stress so well."

Lois sputtered a second before finding an appropriate response. "This is not unnecessary stress! This is stress that is like, ninety-eight percent necessary and two percent my natural state of being." Did that even make sense? She tried thinking about what exactly she'd meant to say and what she'd said, but the two didn't seem to match up well. Oh well. Maybe he'd understand it anyway.

"I don't get why you think it's necessary to stress yourself out like this over a simple date, Lois. Rachel isn't going to ruin Clark in any way, and with the kind of guy you describe Clark being I

think the biggest thing you have to worry about is if he kisses her on the cheek or simply shakes her hand. If Rachel likes him and all she gets is a handshake you may want to plug your ears because she'll rant for hours. Believe me, I've heard it, and let me tell you the last thing a brother wants to hear is that his sister wants a guy to be more bold. It's just wrong."

"Fortunately I've never had that problem with Lucy," Lois said. "She's more than willing to share, but I only listen half the time. Plus, I'm not a brother to her so there isn't some weird thing where hearing about her having sex is traumatic."

"Don't try to understand it. Few brothers, be they older or younger, want to hear about their sisters having sex. I think it's because we know very well what goes through our own mind, and similar things go through the minds of other guys. One does not want that mental picture if his sister is involved with it in any way."

"While this is a fascinating topic," Lois said, frowning, "how did we even get on it?"

"You said something, then I said something and we went from there. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, we got to this point, which is good."

"Why is it good?"

"Because you aren't thinking about Rachel and Clark, at least not directly. They've been pretty much the only topic on your mind all day, and my attempt to distract you seems to have worked at least for a minute or two."

"Oh. Thanks, I guess." Lois glanced at a clock, her frown returning as she noted the time. "11:30? I didn't think they'd be out so late?"

"11:30 isn't really all that late, Lois. I really don't get why this bothers you so much. I seriously doubt it's going to blow up, especially into your face, so what's the real story behind your tense obsession with the two of them going out?"

"I'm worried about Clark," Lois said, and off Owen's confused look she continued. "He just strikes me as the kind of guy that can get real into somebody quickly. He knows you guys are

only here for a short time, but combine what I said about him with Rachel's seemingly innate ability to make guys fall for her and it could be tough on him."

"And you're going to be the one that has to pick up the pieces," Owen said slowly.

Lois nodded. "He's my partner. Partners stick together through the tough times in their lives, and he's only been in Metropolis six weeks, so unless he's really good at hiding things he doesn't have any good friends around here. His best friend since high school lives in Topeka, so I'm pretty much all he has here. It's not like I wouldn't be willing to help him get over somebody in a normal situation; we're getting to be friends, not just partners, and that's what a friend does. But helping him get over my cousin? I don't know how to do that. I'd be the one to pick up the pieces except I wouldn't know how this time.

"In a normal situation, you say comforting things and do a bit of bad mouthing about the offending party to try and help break the rose colored glasses we generally wear in those regards. I can't go there this time if it all goes badly. I'm not going to try and tear down Rachel. So it leaves me in the awkward position of trying to be a friend without saying anything bad about my cousin, when if this happened with anybody else I would totally be on Rachel's side, no matter what."

"Well, now your position on things does make more sense."

"I'm sorry if I didn't explain things well enough before, but the brain was a bit preoccupied with the potential awkward silences in my future. You know how much I hate awkward silences."

"Your recent description of them as the second most evil thing in the world did a worthy description. I still can't believe you think chocolate is the most evil thing in the world, though."

"It's so good you can't not eat it, and it's so fattening you can't not feel like you need to run a mile for each bite you just took. Only a force of evil could have come up with something like that. I know it's girly of me, but I do have my girly moments."

--

Stopping at the front door to Lois's building, Clark smiled at Rachel and put his hands in his pockets. "This was great, Rachel. I haven't had this good a time on a first date in a long time." Ok, technically he hadn't had a first date in a long time, but he wasn't going to come right out and say that.

She smiled back at him. "I can honestly say the same thing, Clark. Most first dates feel a bit like interviews, which I'm sure for you is unfortunate since you do those for a living. This was just plain old fun."

"If you were going to be in town longer, I would definitely ask you out again. As it is, I am putting in the request that if we're both single next time you come to town we do this again."

"The same goes for you if you're ever in Miami, Clark; that happens, you damn well better look me up." She stepped close and got on her tiptoes, kissing him softly before shooting him one last smile and heading inside.

"So, how'd it go? Did you two hit it off? Did you screw him up for me to have to fix?"

Lois crossed her arms as Rachel just rolled her eyes and smiled. "It was a great date, Lois, and if we're both single the next time one of us is in the other's town, we'll do it again. I don't think anything could ever happen between us, though."

"I hate to ask this, because nothing happening between you two is for the best, but why not?"

"Because he's hung up on you, Lois, and he doesn't even know it yet. It's not like I blame him; I think it would be hard for any guy to work so closely with you and not find himself at least a little hung up on you. Just... when the time comes and he asks you out, if you aren't going to say yes, let him down easy. He's a rare kind of guy, and I don't want that ruined, even if I have only known him a short time."

"But... what... he's hung up on me? How could you tell?"

Rachel sat down on the couch and stretched for a second. "It wasn't obvious, but just the way he talked about you held something a bit more than he was letting on. Like I said, I don't think he even knows that he likes you as much as he does. He'll figure it out pretty soon, though. He

probably won't have a shot with you, though, with Superman being around, so be gentle with him."

Lois blinked, still a little stunned by the revelation. "Yeah, ok."

"Good, glad that's settled. I'm going to go crash, so goodnight and see you in the morning."

"Night, Rachel."

As Rachel disappeared into the bedroom, Lois's mind went into overdrive. Clark had feelings for her? How the hell had that happened? Sure they were partners, but she'd never done anything that had intimated things might turn into more than that, had she? No, of course not. Maybe it was just that he hadn't had a girlfriend for a while and so since she was in his life everyday one ting turned into another.

God, this was going to be a mess.