(3/14)
The staff meeting could've gone better, Clark thought, letting himself into his new apartment.
He ended up with an assignment on Lex Corp, and Lois caught him staring at her at least half a dozen times. He knew he hadn't made a very good impression on her, but he turned into a basket-case when she was around. Her resemblance to his dead best friend was just too distracting.
It hadn't helped when Mr. White talked about pairing them up on investigative assignments. If there was one thing he couldn't afford, it was to get too close to her. Or anyone, for that matter.
He had a plan; a secret. No one could come between him and that, it was too important.
Clark tossed his single bag of groceries on the counter and hit the message button on his answering machine. There was nothing, as usual.
The evening spread out before him, as empty as they had all been since he left home. Short of a major crisis, it looked like it would be him and the TV for the night.
He moved through the apartment, turning lights on as he went. When he got to the bedroom, he threw his jacket on a chair and loosened his tie. Sometimes he regretted choosing a profession where he had to wear a suit every day. It was a far cry from the flannel and jeans he'd grown up in.
The one thing that Chloe had endlessly teased him about.
He told himself that he had to stop thinking about her, but the thing was, he had never stopped. He blamed himself for Chloe's death every day for the last seven years.
It was yet to be seen if he could work with her practically identical cousin every day without having a nervous breakdown.
Worse yet, he didn't know what she would do to him if she found out that he hadn't been there when Chloe needed him the most.
Lois felt like she had been running laps around the newsroom all afternoon. It had been almost a month since Clark had unexpectedly walked back into her life, and she had almost been too busy to notice ever since.
Almost.
She noticed that he wore his hair quite a bit shorter now, and always combed and parted on the side. She still had no idea what was up with the glasses. Clark always had ridiculously perfect vision.
Then again, there wasn't a whole lot that made sense in her world anymore. She had spent every minute of the last few weeks trying to concentrate on their Lex Corp story with Clark always trailing her like a shadow. She had wanted to say something to him about that, but didn't see any point in making things more awkward than they already were.
Besides the constant distraction of her past, there had been a hot story buzzing around the Planet offices for the last two weeks.
A flying man had been seen around Metropolis, which, while odd, wasn't exactly the weirdest thing she had ever heard. Supposedly, he was some sort of superhero - busting criminals, saving small children, plucking kittens out of trees...
They were calling him Superman, but she wasn't sure that was official.
The main reason the city was abuzz was because no one had ever gotten a good look at him. Lois pitied Jimmy Olsen, one of the Planet's young photographers, because Mr. White had the poor boy out almost all day every day, trying to get a good photo.
It hadn't happened yet, and Lois tried to reassure Jimmy he wasn't going to get fired because a hot subject was being elusive on purpose.
She hoped she was right. Perry White could be incredibly unpredictable and ruthless.
This new phenomenon in Metropolis had also been pushing her to beat her deadline on the Lex Corp story. She wasn't having much success with anything except her sources. Neither she nor Clark could get in to see Lex.
When she asked Clark why he couldn't get in to see him, he muttered something about having a past and tried to change the subject.
But of course, she knew their past. She knew the spectacular blowout that had led to the end of their precarious friendship.
She knew everything, and every day she had to go on like she wasn't the girl that had died for him and his secrets.
TBC