Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or You've Got Mail.
A/N: Sorry I haven't updated for a while. I've been really busy with school. Just to let you know, Thanksgiving already happened in the story. I decided not to include it because I didn't have any inspiration for it. Oh, and the man, Michel, is the Michel from Gilmore Girls. Enjoy!
Chapter 5: The Lies of the Liars
The next morning Kristen woke up determined. She was going to complain to the Daily Planet about the article on her fashion. Luckily she had friends in high places. Lois Lane was one of her best friends and she knew that Lois would help her out. She decided that she would drop by the Daily Planet during her lunch break.
Tom shuffled into his bathroom tiredly and started brushing his teeth. He then dried his wet hair with a towel.
"I'm leaving for work Tom!" Paige said sticking her head in their bathroom.
"Bye, have a good day." He said groggily.
He hadn't had much sleep at all the last night. His dreams were full of Lana and memories of them together. First the happy ones like when they had gone on picnics and hung out, but then they turned sour and Tom re-lived the nightmares of all the fights and arguments they had had. Tom shook his head as if he were trying to shake away these painful memories.
When Tom was finished getting dressed he drove to work. When he walked into work he saw Lois marching towards him.
"Welling, today I need that article on the current event and I need you to fill out these." She said handing him a large manila folder.
"Deadline?" Tom asked walking to his desk.
"Article is tonight, paperwork tomorrow." She said walking away to start her busy day.
The first thing Tom did was check for e-mail from smallgirl. There was one titled 'Hygiene'. He opened it curiously and started reading. It read:
I read in an article that commercials for hygiene products can be destructive to our popular culture. They brainwash us into thinking our skin is smelly and scaly and utterly hideous and the only remedy is the use if their particular product. They make you think your hair is a gnarled mess of dried spaghetti, unless you use their particular conditioner. It also said that these ads cause mass insecurity to permeate the nation, which is why TV shows about stupid people-court T.V, police shows- are so popular. The people need to feel superior to something after watching these commercials. The clincher is that the sponsors of these TV shows are the skin care products. The upshot of all this is that the nation's declining literacy rate can be blamed entirely on moisturizing cream. Really an odd, yet interesting article.
Who would write an article like that? Tom thought.
"Hey did you read my article? Front page." Lois said dropping a newspaper on his desk. He saw it was the same article that smallgirl had been talking about.
"Oh, yeah." He said.
Of course, Lois. He thought.
"Hey are you going to get coffee for everyone?" she asked.
"Yes, but I need to know what you want." Tom said.
"I don't know. I come back later and tell you." She said walking away.
Kristen's Office
Kristen opened her e-mail as she sipped her coffee. She opened the one from IL59 titled 'Coffee'. It read:
The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy a cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino!
Kristen grinned and laughed, as she was drinking a tall, decaf, cappuccino. She typed back and continued to smile.
"Tall, decaf, cappuccino!" Lois hollered from her office.
"Ok, thanks!" Tom said getting up and leaving.
Kristen's office
"Kristen!" Audrey yelled.
"Yeah?" Kristen said looking up from her e-mail.
"Phone, line two." She said peering in.
"Ok, thanks," she said picking up the phone, "Hello? Oh, Scott I thought you were one of my clients."
"Nope. What are you up to?" Scott asked.
"Oh, just typing an e-mail."
"To who?"
"Oh, ya know, just work stuff." She covered.
"Ah, well, just calling to see if lunch is still good." "Oh! Lunch! I completely forgot! Well, I have to stop by the Daily Planet beforehand, but I'll meet you there. And it can't be too long because I have something else to do afterwards." Kristen said remembering that she had scheduled a Starbucks date with the mysterious 'Tom' at 2:00.
"Ok. See ya then sweetheart."
"Yeah, bye." She said urging to hang up.
When she finally got Scott off the phone she glanced up at the clock. 11:00. Well, I guess I'll leave in a little bit. She thought as she started typing again.
The Daily Planet
"Ms. Lane?" a French man knocked on the door.
"Yes, what is it Michel?" Lois asked impatiently as she continued to fill out paper work.
"Your good friend, Kristen, she just called and she'll be here in 5 minutes and she says that she needs to talk to you about something urgent. And Matilda Bothwell needs to see you. There's a problem with the layout for tomorrow." Michel finished up.
"All right. Thank you Michel. Will you wait for Kristen downstairs?" she said standing up.
"Of course. It will be my pleasure." Michel said.
"Thanks." Lois said leaving her office busily as Michel went to the bottom level to wait for Kristen.
He straightened his suit jacket and made sure he looked spiffy. Soon he saw Kristen heading through the door, smiling as she saw Michel.
"Hello Kristen! So nice to see your bright and shining face again!" Michel said with his thick accent.
"Thank you Michel, it's good to see you too." Kristen said as they kissed each other on the cheek.
"How's your fashion going?" Michel asked.
"It's good. We miss you though."
"Yes, it pains me terribly not to be in your department with you," he said as they waited in the elevator, "But if you ever have a job opening I would love to take it, but, you know, Lois won't let anyone take me."
"That sounds like her." Kristen said as they walked out of the elevator.
When they reached Lois's office where she was sitting at her desk again, Michel opened the door and led Kristen in.
"Well, darling if you need any fashion tips at work, you know where I am." Michel said leaving.
"Of course Michel," Kristen said turning to Lois, "And how are you?"
"Great, so what's up?" Lois asked getting right down to the point.
"Well, I actually came to complain. You see yesterday an article went out on my fashion department and e and let's just say that it's one of the meanest and poorly judged articles I've ever read. And that's putting it bluntly." Kristen added.
"Really? Well, I never had the impression that any of my people have bad taste and poor skills, but I could be wrong. It's probably McLaggen. He's not that great, I've been waiting for him to slip so I could let him go," Lois said, "In fact let's ask Tom. WELLING!" Lois yelled as a dark-haired handsome man walked by her door.
"Yes Lois?" he said with a little whine in his voice.
He turned and saw Kristen sitting across from Lois. He smiled at her and she smiled back adding small wave, which made his emotions go crazy. Lois didn't notice any of this though and she continued to babble.
" Kristen here is complaining about a rude article on her fashion that was written recently. Do you know what she could be talking about?" Lois asked.
Oh, shit. What am I going to do? Tom thought to himself. Maybe I'll just lie and they'll drop it.
"No, I have no idea." Tom lied.
"Maybe we can just get a copy of the article." Kristen suggested.
"No." Tom said.
"What?" Lois and Kristen asked in unison.
"No, no, n… Noah Brady might have a copy." Tom saved.
"Right, Michel get Nah Brady to bring me a copy of the paper from yesterday." Lois said into an intercom.
Crap, I'm screwed. He thought. He had shot himself in the foot. Maybe he could just leave…
"Welling! I need you to stay here please." Lois said.
Tom reluctantly turned around and stood there. They sat in silence for a moment until Noah showed up.
"Here's your paper." The red-haired man said.
"Thanks Noah." Lois said standing up with Kristen.
Tom held the paper and thought. Maybe if I could distract them I could burn the article with my heat vision. But I promised not to use my powers. What do I do?
As Tom had an inner battle with himself, Lois walked over and tried to take the paper from him.
"Can I have it?" she asked as Tom held on tight to it.
"What's the magic word?" Tom asked trying to buy time.
"Come on, give it to me."
"The word please. Oops, I just gave it to you."
"Please."
"Please what?"
"May I please have the paper?"
"Ye-oh! What a nice bracelet you have!"
"Welling! Give me the paper!"
"Ok, here." Lois flipped through it and said, "If I didn't know any better I'd think that you wrote that article…"
"What?" Kristen asked as Lois trailed off.
"I can't believe it." Lois said. Kristen walked over to the paper and saw who wrote it.
"YOU wrote the article!" she asked furiously.
"Yeah but I was in a bad mood, I didn't mean it." Tom shrugged sheepishly.
"I can't believe this!" Kristen practically yelled. "I can't believe I fell for it and to think I actually…UGH!" she said frustrated, "How could you do this?"
"I didn't think that Lois would publish it." Tom shrugged yet again.
"Don't you dare blame this on Lois!" Kristen said pointing a menacing finger at him.
"Well, I didn't really read-" Lois started but was interrupted.
"UGH! You are such a… you don't even want to know what you are!" Kristen yelled.
Could this get any worse? Tom thought.
He thought to soon. His friend Noah poked his head in and said, "Tom, your girlfriend called. She wants you to call her back."
"YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!" Kristen screamed.
I guess it could get worse. He corrected himself.
"Yeah." Tom said. He couldn't think of anything else to say. He didn't want to be too mean.
"You told me to meet you at Starbucks today! You are one of the biggest liars I have ever met!" she continued on her rampage.
Right as Tom was about to say retort back Michel came in and said, "Kristen, your boyfriend, Scott, called and he said that he's waiting for you to call him back."
"Thank you Michel." Lois said as he left.
"Oho, so you have a boyfriend?" Tom said, "And here you were getting pissed at me for having a girlfriend when you yourself have a boyfriend. Tsk tsk tsk." Tom decided to continue while he saw her cowering.
"I guess I'm not the only liar."
"Well at least I have the decency to not write mean things." Kristen said.
"Will you just GET OVER it? It was a stupid little article! I'm sure no one read it because no one is interested in you and your trashy stupid fashion and nobody wants to read about a lying, cheating woman." Tom finished up coldly.
"Welling, that's enough. Please leave." Lois said.
Tom obliged and left. He saw Kristen sitting down with Lois hugging her. She had mixed emotions; she looked on the verge of tears, and yet she looked determined and really pissed off. He couldn't decide if he was happy that he had won or sad that he had just lost a good friend.
Later,..
After Lois had seen that Kristen was all right and had sent her home she headed out her office.
"Michel did you call Kristen's boyfriend and tell him that she couldn't make it?" Lois asked as she walked to Tom's desk.
"Yes, he was acting quite nervous and was chatting my ear off with questions, so I tried that thing they use on TV with the candy wrappers and it worked." Michel said copying something.
"Good, listen I'll see you later I need to talk with Tom." Lois said walking up to Tom. He was sitting at his desk finishing his paperwork.
"Welling, we need to have a chat." She said.
"Oh, hi Lois. Sure go ahead." He said. Even though he had been avoiding her all day for this reason, he thought he might as well give in before she got to nasty.
"Ok, I'm gonna give this to you straight. Listen I can't have you going around and mouthing people off. You can lose your job and so can I. I can guarantee that it won't look good publicity wise. I don't care how stressed, tired, sad, hung0over, or whatever you are, but you may not do that to ANYONE anymore. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Now, I do blame myself for that article. I should have checked it over. Hell I shouldn't have given you that assignment anyways. So for that I am sorry."
"That's ok. Thanks a lot Lois."
"Just be lucky that you're such a good writer, because believe me if you weren't half as good as you are I would have kicked you out already."
"Yeah, yeah." Tom said.
"Oh, and by the way Kristen wants your number." Lois said.
"What?" Tom asked perplexed.
"Just joshing' ya Welling. Loosen up," she said getting up, "Well I've got places to go and people to see so I am closing' up! Later Welling!"
"Bye." He said smiling.
She has the energy of a 2 year old. He thought.
He packed up his stuff and filed his paperwork and turned in his article to Michel and finally turned off his computer. He hadn't gotten a response from smallgirl and he was hoping that he would.
Oh well. What a day. He thought as he headed out.
A/N: Ok I know it's kind of sad, but things will get better. I promise! And I'll try to update soon! Now R&R!