TITLE: Forgotten
AUTHOR: Nymph Du Pave
RATING: PG-13
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: nymph_du_pave@hotmail.com


Forgotten
by Nymph Du Pave

Chapter One
One week earlier…

"This isn't the right story, this isn't the angle Perry asked for."

Clark sighed and pushed the plastic rims back up his nose. He wondered what on Earth had convinced him to choose the thick black rims, instead of something more fitting to his face. "I didn't see it Perry's way."

"Okay, so multi-billionaire Lex Luthor donates several million dollars to a non-profit Astrology foundation-"

"Astronomy."

"Right, right. And you find a devious angle to even that? Clark, I can't stand the man, and even I see this as an actual honest donation."

"Nothing is honest with Luthor," he said, managing to keep most of the bitterness out of his voice. He sounded more like a pissed off reporter than a let down and betrayed friend.

"And who the hell is your source?"

He swallowed. He'd been waiting for that one. "Superman," he told her hating that name. He'd been so thrilled and flattered when she'd first called him that, her in his arms, fingers caressing the tight blue material that nothing could destroy. That was when he thought maybe she'd realize that he and Clark were the same. When he thought that true love was more than a myth. Before he'd recognized her crush as completely superficial.

The way she discussed 'Superman' with Clark and around the office… It had changed his mind about her.

He ignored the slight change in her disposition. "Why don't you quote him?"

"Because he asked to remain anonymous."

She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and stood, tying it. "You know that this article is not going to fly with Perry, even if one of your sources is- Superman."

"Then he can get someone else to write the 'Lex Luthor is doing something saintly, could it be a turn around?' bullshit. Cause I'm not doing it."

"Is this retribution for Perry giving you such a lame story to work with in the first place?"

"Of course not."

Her eyes narrowed and for a moment, standing facing him so that he couldn't see just how truly and awfully skinny she was, her beauty caught him by surprise. Maybe if Lois hadn't grown up the way she had, and she wasn't so much of a bitch ninety-five percent of the time, then they could have had something. Maybe she would have liked Clark more than she did now, and ignored Superman as anything but a journalistic intrigue.

He sighed. She believed him to be too innocent for her, and in ways he wanted nothing more than to never know, she was. He'd held her, rocked her to a drunken slumber as Superman, knew some of the terrible things that her father had done. Knew that her mother was the silent criminal, keeping vigil for the monster that only shed his human skin around his daughter.

He was too innocent for her, but that didn't stop him from trying to help make things better.

"I'm not doing it," he repeated.

"You really think that this is a cover for something."

He sat up in his chair and typed in his search on his laptop. "Superman was there, Lois. He saw Lex get out of the limo and followed him in with his X-ray vision. He heard Lex and Dr. Curfman discussing something about where the money should really go. What should really happen with it."

"But he didn't hear just what?"

"He was straining to hear through the windows because of the lead in the building. It was throwing me off."

"You mean the lead?"

"Yeah."

"Then it was throwing him off."

"What?"

"Him. You said 'me'."

His heart lurched. He slipped up a little too often around Lois. "Right."

He hoped she'd leave him to his work soon. He was mostly finished with his search on Dr. Brian Curfman but there were a few more details he needed to procure.

"KENT!" Perry's usually benevolent voice was beyond exasperated. "Get in here! Now!"

The slamming of his door was followed by hoots and hollers from the printing room staff and Jimmy walked by him. "Way to go, Clark. I haven't heard him that pissed off since Lois received the restraining order from Senator Powel."

"That was not my fault, Jimmy! He's over paranoid."

"Finding you in his bedroom closet after throwing you out of his office, penthouse and limo is being overly paranoid?" Clark got up from his desk and headed towards the door emblazoned 'Editor in Chief' and swallowed hard. There were times when he really, really hated that damn door.

"Why don't you ever haunt around me like that, Lois?" Jimmy asked and sat down on the corner of her desk.

"Because your seventeen. I have a restraining order and be considered a pedophile."

"Is that the only reason? 'Cause I turn eighteen in three months."

Clark opened Perry's door and entered, only to be assaulted at once.

"I give you a simple job, Kent. One. Simple. Job. One that I thought even you couldn't screw up. But no, I was wrong. I give anything to you or Lane that has to do even remotely with Lex Luthor, or LexCorp or any of the above and you find a way to-"

"Superman is my source," he blurted out.

Perry nodded. "That what I thought. He's always your source. He seems to have it in for Luthor, too."

"This paper's purpose is to tell the truth."

"Yes, but-"

"Superman is fighting for a safer world. To protect that truth."

"Clark, I-"

"Are you saying that Superman has ulterior motives when it comes to Luthor? Are you saying he's lying?"

If there was anything that Clark believed in, it was protecting the innocent. It was all he really had left. The moment that he'd discovered that he had to protect them from Lex, had been a life-altering, heart-obliterating one. But he'd never once lied or looked for the evil in Lex. It just kept showing up, chipping away more and more of the farmboy inside.

I want to see the good in him. I want that more than anything. Even if I can't have him, I want him to be a good person. Like the man he was struggling to be back in Smallville.

Perry had lost all of his steam and sat down. "Damn it, Clark."

"I know."

"I just wanted something… I don't know. Just go."

"That article?"

"Will be printed in tomorrow morning's paper. Front page."






To be continued...