Chapter 2: Collateral Confusion

Italy. For the first time since waking up to this mess, she forgot about Clark. She forgot about the mysterious marriage and even the fact that she slept with a moody farm boy from Kansas. Right now, all she could think of was…

"I can't pay for any of this"

Clark was amazed. How could she think of their financial situation when there were a lot more stressing matters at hand?

Before he could get a word in edgewise, she looks around for her purse. "Have you seen any of my stuff?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if memory serves me right, it's been exactly thirteen hours and an odd number of minutes since we left Metropolis – or so I assume – " something suddenly struck her. "How did we get here if the last place we were was Metropolis? It takes just as many hours to cross continents if we checked in last night?"

He couldn't answer that. For the life of him, he didn't know how to, especially when he himself didn't remember.

"Maybe we should get the facts together before we start hypothesizing"

"I can't believe we're in Italy"

"There's a lot of things we can't believe right now"

"What do we do now?"

"Talk to the desk clerk maybe. We could make the excuse that we were incredibly drunk last night – "

"No way," she scoffed.

"Why?"

"Because we weren't drunk last night, believe me, I have a very strong immunity to alcohol. Better than my father even"

"Somehow, I'm not surprised"

"Look, let's just ask what happened. I have too much of a headache and too little strength to play detective"

Clark sighed. They've only been married a few hours and already she's bossing him around.

"Can you believe him?" she voiced out forcefully. "Calling us happy newlyweds. What are the people here on?"

They went to the lobby to get some answers. It turned out that the room was a present for them by the owner of the establishment after Clark had apparently helped him out of a jam when a thug attempted to steal his car.

"Maybe we did look like the happy couple"

"And aliens live on Mars," she quipped, stubbornly.

Clark rolled his eyes. He could show her but he kept himself at bay. He didn't want to make things even more complicated than it already was. How can he be so stupid as to marry Lois Lane of all people?

"We're right back where we started this morning"

"That was an hour ago, Lois"

She ignored him and started looking around the hotel room again, and again, she found nothing.

"Where is my purse? ID's? Hell, even the passport? Nothing. Nada. How the hell did we make to Italy without so much as a driver's license?"

Clark made the mistake of holding up their…

"Don't you dare!" she said, snatching the marriage certificate from his hand. "You shouldn't be carrying this around, you'll give people the impression we're married or something"

"We ARE!"

"You're not helping, Kent"

"What do you want me to do? I'm as in the dark about this as you are. I'm freaking out too, you know. I don't see why we can't tell my parents, they'll understand"

"Uh huh – No!"

"You're so pig-headed, you know that?"

"I'll take that as a compliment"

"Don't!" and then he went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

He splashed his face with cold water even though he couldn't necessarily feel the chill.

She's an insufferable, ungrateful, egotistical human being of a woman. God, where does she come off being the victim? I'm just as confused and upset by all this as she is and she's yelling at me as if it was all my fault.

Gotta admit, she looked beautiful even when she's pissed.

Splash!

Thinking about her wasn't doing him good at all.

"I got it!" he heard from outside his door.

"You've got what?" he asked in spite of her.

"The answer to our prayers"

"Thank God"

"Not God," she smiled, a first. "Hotel Security. They've got the front lobby and all the hallways monitored, even the elevators. We can take a peek of the tapes and see exactly what happened"

He raised his eyebrows. "Is that a good idea?"

"If you've got something better, please share because that's all I got"

He sighed, a regular occurrence around her. "Let's get those tapes"

"Whew! That was close," she said, closing the door behind them. After some lying and careful espionage tactics, they finally make their way into the security room while the guard is preoccupied with a lady friend Lois uncharacteristically paid to distract him.

"I can't believe you did that," he said, wanting to lecture her on the evilness of her ways.

"Relax, it's harmless. Besides, we're in here to watch ourselves, not anyone else. It's practically an entitlement – "

"Yet it runs dangerously close to breaking the law"

She threw him a smirk, she was there on a mission and she's going to complete that mission. Her… their future depends on it.

"All right, here we go." She works the keyboard with surprising familiarity.

"You can read Italian?" he wondered aloud.

"Shh… Yes!"

"Can you speak it too?"

"Generally, to read Italian, it works better when you can actually speak it"

He sighed. "A 'yes' would've been fine"

She smiled and thankfully for her, he didn't see it.

"Hurry up," he encouraged quickly.

With a final tap, "There! Found it" and Lois's image appear on the screen, it looked like she was checking in.

"Can we have audio?"

"Aren't we a little testy?" she teased. "And there you were twenty minutes ago thinking this wasn't such a good plan"

He simply shook his head, avoiding her quips as best he can but she always had a way of getting under his skin and she was barely even trying.

Damn her.

"Ok, here we go…" she said and the screen played back for them.

Lois approached the concierge and speaks to them fluently in Italian. "Buona sera, stiamo controllando dentro. di Lois Lane Kent." After a moment. "Grazie" she said leaving the counter.

She put a hand to her forehead in deep frustration. "I checked in as Lois Lane Kent," she expresses in disbelief. "And where the hell are you at?"

He shrugged. "I'm the wrong person to ask that"

The two turn back to the screen watching Lois of last night walk inside the elevator.

"Well, this is boring"

"Just – give it a minute," he said, patiently all the while using his super hearing to make sure the security guy wasn't anywhere near catching them.

"Wait, there I am," Clark points out.

"Wow," she said, commenting on his black tux that fitted him perfectly.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Good security systems, that's all"

Clark made his way to their hotel room with flowers behind his back. He slowly but confidently gave the door a couple of knocks. Lois opened it, looking beautiful in her white gown.

"You really do fit that suit very well"

Lois rolled her eyes and tried not to be affected by the comment made affectionately to the man she's trying to convince herself isn't a man qualified to even be her husband, let alone romantically interested in.

Clark shrugged. "They're rented"

"You could've bought them and kept the price tag hidden"

"You should've came with me when I picked it out"

"We would never have made it out the dressing room"

"Now that you've mentioned it, you should've definitely came with me," he said, pulling the bouquet of white lilies from behind his back. "I tried to get red roses, but hotel management was threatening to charge me for thievery if I touched their garden."

"Is that really me talking?"

She looked up at him from the monitor like he was some alien from outer space or something. "No, it's David Copperfield pretending to be you. Of course it is, even that's obvious."

"Um… Lois, I think you should turn it off now"

"What…why…" she turned to the monitor. "Oh"

They were going at it in the hallway. Kissing. Moaning. Groaning. Live action foreplay at it's best and the two stars are Lois and Clark and neither of them currently knows what to think. They could almost barely think of anything at all.

His eyes go wide, his face flustered and brewing a deep red as his previous night's self kisses Lois everywhere.

As for Lois, she scrunched her nose and watched with curiosity. The scene, though shocking, subsided quickly leaving her a little impressed.

"We're not half-bad, especially you"

He looked at her like she's grown two heads. "Are you serious?"

She shrugged. "It's no use denying it now, we're both married – and apparently – post marital sex has been conducted. The only thing calming me down now is that small fact that she – or I – depending on how you look at it, is enjoying herself"

He opened his mouth to say something but not a sound escaped his lips.

There last view of themselves is them closing the door to their room and a large sigh is heard from both of them, making their situation even more awkward.

"So – " she began.

He stuffed his hands in his pocket and avoided any kind of eye contact.

"So"

A beat.

"We should get out of here," she said quickly.

"I agree," he followed.

To be continued…