Chapter 1: Morning After

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Clark ate his breakfast salad alone in silence while Lois sat by the window ignoring him. Every bite reverberated through the hotel room with a loud sound. They were both afraid to continue looking around in fear of finding out more of what happened the previous night.

Crunch.

"Will you stop it?"

Clark dropped his fork in his salad, startled by her outburst. "Sorry," he said, apologetic. They've had uncomfortable silences before but this was down right excruciating.

"Ugh!" she bellowed.

Lois stood and paced back and forth in front of him. He can tell she was having a hard time justifying and rationalizing what's happened, and frankly, so was he. They really can't remember the last 12 hours and it's scaring them both.

He stood. "Maybe I should call my parents," he reached for the phone but Lois pulled him back.

"No!"

It's the first time since he awoke with his arms around her that he's touched her. He felt a current pass through them and he was quite sure she felt it too. She quickly yanked her hand back.

He didn't know what that meant.

"Let's figure out what happened first before we start jumping to conclusions," she said, attempting to sound in control. He knew otherwise.

"We're married, Lois," he reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. "According to what? A couple of rings that could've come out a crackerjack box. Come on, Clark. I need more proof than this"

Unbeknownst to her, he already knew that the rings were real. The gold band around his finger couldn't be more golder if he had mined it himself.

She finally starts to peruse the hotel room in hopes to alleviate her concerns. Breathing deeply in, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, feeling paper brush his hand. He curiously removed the content out and looked at it.

His eyes go even wider, falling back down on his seat.

He sighed. "I think we really are"

At the same time, Lois caught a familiar item in a trash bin and she immediately felt the need to faint.

"Yeah, I think so too," she agreed softly, disbelief washing all over her face.

He held out his findings to her while she does the same.

"It's a receipt, for a wedding license," he said, hoarsely but as calmly as possible. He didn't want to give off the impression he couldn't handle the problem.

She held her findings in front of her without the same amount of dignity.

"Last night wasn't innocent," she said, slowly bringing up an empty condom wrapper in between them.

They stared at one another with uncertainty.

Could this day get any worse?

"I thought if I ignored it, I could just be imagining it." Lois stared at the receipt she took from Clark's hand and looked at it intently.

"Are you – are you sure we did?"

"I know my body, Clark," she sighed deeply. "We…" she didn't know if she could verbally say it out loud, and he wasn't helping at all. "We…"

"I know, Lois," he tried to comfort her, but it didn't help.

"We…"

"Yeah"

"We had sex!" she said in disbelief, rising from her chair aggravated, disappointed with herself, and most of all, confused.

"Look, we'll figure it out." He held her shoulders firmly with his hands in hopes to assure her that she wasn't alone, but she stepped back away from him. Somehow, remnants of the previous night were creeping its way to the surface and he didn't know what to make of it.

"This is too much." She paused. "Do you think this receipt has a 30 day return policy?"

He glared at her.

"I highly doubt that Lois"

She sighed in response to that. He really wasn't helping at all.

"This can't be happening"

"I know, but it's happened to me before – "

The admission caught her attention.

"It what?"

He looked away guiltily. "Senior year. Alicia Baker"

"Oh yeah," it dawned on her. She had totally forgotten all about the crazy teleporting ex-girlfriend of his. Come to think of it…

"What exactly happened between you two – I mean – when you two got married?" she didn't want to sound insensitive at a time where cooperation on both parties are essential to getting past this ludicrous day.

"She had a certain amount of control on me," he explained vaguely.

"And that would be – "

He sighed, uncomfortable revealing this to her. "There's this meteor rock, and it's red. It makes people who come in contact with it lose their inhibition – like they could do things without consequence"

"And you think maybe we were both exposed to it?"

"It's the only plausible explanation I could think of. We wouldn't have done it otherwise"

She shrugged, unconvinced. "Well look around you. I don't see any red meteor rocks. Or red of any kind on me. Even our champagne isn't red wine"

Their thread of hope was becoming thinner by the second.

"Maybe we were just drugged," he recommended.

She shook her head. "And how do you explain the four star hotel, the accommodations, the perfect view of Metropolis out our window and – "

"Lois," he cut her off.

"What?" she asked, exasperated.

"That's not Metropolis"

She walked back to the window looking at what she thought was Metropolis.

Oh my God.

"I think we're in Italy"

To be continued…