Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except Lacey, and believe me, she wishes I didn't. Everyone else belongs to Warner Brothers, DC Comics and all sorts of people that are not little old me.
Seven
Sometimes there are certain situations in life that can throw a person for a loop. Situations that cause one to have an epiphany. Working in the newsroom of the Daily Planet, there were at least four people who have each had their own at some point.
But only one was currently dwelling over it. Of course, seeing as she wasn't in the newsroom working, it made it a lot easier to be sidetracked by her thoughts. Lacey was actually doing the unthinkable.
She was playing with the plush Easter Bunny toys at Wal-Mart. Oh, but she wasn't alone. She was sitting on the floor of the aisle with two random kids and the three of them were having bunny races. Oh yes, the local employees were real pleased with them. So maybe she wasn't completely dwelling on her problems. Not when there were toys to play with.
"So then George is going to go and save the world as Superbunny." Explained the little girl, who Lacey had dubbed Rose.
The little boy with her, who Lacey had decided to refer to as Mickey, stuck his tongue out. "Superbunny? That is so lame. I'd rather have Batbunny."
The pair exchanged childish insults before they turned to Lacey, or as they called her, 'Tak'. "What's your bunny?"
Lacey had been picturing Superman and Batman as rabbits and she was enjoying the mental image plenty when their question brought her back to reality. "My bunny?" She brought her bunny closer to her face and scrutinized it. "I think.. Hmm.. I think my bunny is Sailor Moon."
"Sailor Moon is a wimp." Mickey announced with a disgusted look. "Batman could totally beat her."
"Oh yeah? Superman can beat them all!" Rose said and smacked Mickey upside the head with her toy.
Before a full-fledged bunny beat down could begin, their mother quickly swooped in to claim the kids, apologized to Lacey, and was already in another aisle while protesting loudly at the kids' shenanigans.
It was so fast that Lacey was pretty sure she had mental whiplash. She shook her head and got off the floor, still clutching the bunny. "That was entertaining."
It had also managed to distract her for about five minutes. Unfortunately, her dwelling thought process was returning. As she absently looked at more of the Easter items on sale, she thought about her situation.
Ever since their little trip to Smallville, things were just a little bit awkward between her and Clark. Of course, he didn't seem to notice, but maybe it was because Lacey was doing her best to hide it. Maybe it was a big fat case of denial. Maybe that was just the way things were with them. Meh. She was probably overanalyzing things. In fact, she knew she was. She was falling into her own little trap and it was bugging the hell out of her.
No, that wasn't it. Honesty. That's what it was. Clark was her friend under false pretenses. She knew about him, but he didn't know about her. That was the core of the matter. Not the bantering, the possible flirting, the kisses, no. It was all about that one stupid thing that brought her here in the first place.
"Fuck." Lacey muttered and clutched the bunny tighter. She knew what she was going to do.
Clark had been fixing himself a cup of coffee when there was a knock on his apartment door. Feeling curious about who would come by, he headed for the living room, sneaking a peek through the front door with his x-ray vision. He was pleasantly surprised at who was there. Clark adjusted his glasses on habit as he opened the door. "Hey. How did you get up here? You didn't buzz."
Lacey smirked at him and breezed on inside without an invitation, a shopping bag swinging in her hand. "I slipped in with this guy carrying some really seedy looking lawn chairs. I'm positive they were evil and plotting world domination. The chairs, not the guy. Anyway, it saved me the trouble of spending a whole two seconds of buzzer pressing. Go me and my lazy ass." Once she reached the coffee table, she spun around. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
Clark closed the door and smiled at her. "No, I was just fixing some coffee. But even if I were doing something, that probably wouldn't stop you."
"Of course not." Lacey settled onto his couch without a care. "I'd just tell you to stop whatever it is you're doing and convince you to give me your undivided attention."
"Just how would you do that?"
She reached into her bag and pulled out an all too cute stuffed rabbit. Lacey shook it in his direction. "By using the Bunny of DOOM. Look at her face. How can you resist it? She has perfect bunny ears and a perfect bunny nose." She placed it on the top of the sofa and pat the bunny on the head. "I've dubbed her Vancouver."
Clark shook his head as he headed for the kitchen again. He poured a couple of cups of coffee and brought them back to the living room, where he offered one to Lacey before he sat down next to her. He didn't need to ask and she didn't need to say thank you. It was just the way they were. "Why Vancouver?"
"Because it sounds good with Horatio." Lacey said with a grin. At Clark's blank look, she took the time to sip her coffee before explaining. "The penguin. His name is Horatio. Horatio and Vancouver. He's a penguin that works as a phone psychic and moonlights as a lion tamer. She's a bunny that races cars in a Mach 5 replica while trying to escape her seedy past as an exotic hula dancer in Alaska. Together, they fight crime."
Clark let out a laugh and shook his head again. "How much sugar have you had today?"
"Not nearly enough." Lacey mumbled, forgetting for a moment that Clark would catch that. She set her mug down on the coffee table and turned serious. "We're friends, right?"
His amusement had waned as soon as he'd heard her mumbling. Whatever was going on obviously had her worried. If he were being honest, it was starting to worry him too. She was watching him now, as if trying to read him. "Of course." He was honest. They were friends. He trusted her.
Lacey chewed on her lower lip while staring into those damn blue eyes of his. She took a breath. "Ok. So I never told you how I know.. Things. Well, I've decided that I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you everything. And you have to save any calls to the local asylum until after I'm done, got it?" Without waiting for him to reply, she said something he did not expect.
"I'm from another reality. One where you're fiction. A movie character. Comic book character. Tv show. Fiction." Lacey watched him and took note of his wide eyes. Clark opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand and cut him off. "And this isn't the first time it's happened to me. The first time, I was stranded in Middle Earth. The movieverse, not books. Then it was a reality with Harry Potter and Buffy combined. Then Supernatural. All are fiction where I'm from."
To say he was surprised was an understatement. He wondered if she was playing a joke on him, but her expression, her tone, body language, it all showed him how serious she was taking this confession of hers. Either she was crazy and believed what she was saying, or she was telling the truth. Clark was leaning toward the latter.
"How did this happen?" He asked. It was just a starter question, but it had to be simple enough to answer.
"I don't know." Lacey sighed. "I mean.. in Middle Earth, I was there to stop these two meddlers, what are known as Mary-Sues, from screwing with reality. I did. I was there all the way to the end of the second movie. After Helm's Deep, I woke back up in my living room."
He set his coffee down on the table. "How did you know it wasn't a dream?"
"Because when I woke up, I had a ring that Galadriel gave me." Lacey glanced at her hand where it used to be. "The second time, one of those Mary-Sues had survived Middle Earth and was claiming to be a goddess or some bullshit. She was killing people, kidnapping them, ladeda, tried to reshape reality into her own twisted version of perfection. I was dragged in to be her foil by some chicks that also claimed to be goddesses. It was a whole screwy thing. Good versus evil, cracked crossover style. I got thrown around by a soulless vampire, nearly got munched on by him too, and had a rerun of my time with Sue before. And when I woke up? I had a Hogwarts robe and a stake."
Clark was finding this almost unbelievable, but he sat and listened. It was actually kind of entertaining. "And Supernatural?" At least that might explain her slightly warped obsession with the tv show.
"That was the most recent.. It was.." Lacey grew a little withdrawn. "Was right before I woke up in Perry's office. It was different than the others. I ended up road tripping with them. The Winchesters were.. They just were. And I don't.. I don't really want to get into the details of that one." She took another deep breath. Some things she still wanted to keep to herself, if only so she didn't have to think about them. "I was still able to contact my family when I was with them. I had access to my accounts, everything. I wasn't as cut off like I was the other times. But when everything was said and done, I thought I was going to wake up in my house with like a shotgun or, with some hope, an Impala." Or a Winchester, she mentally added. Who wouldn't want a Winchester?
Clark frowned at her, his eyes filled with concern. He wasn't going to pressure her to explain what she didn't want to, so he moved on. "Did you?"
"I woke up at my desk in the Planet." Lacey said and leaned back. She closed her eyes as she rested her head on the couch. "The difference this time is that I've had no signs of what I may be here for and that I had an entire identity ready made for me upon waking. I don't know why. I don't know how. All I know is that I've been someone's plaything for the past few years and frankly, I'm sick of it."
She went silent and Clark didn't know how to respond. He just stared at her as she sat there.
"Can you reach your family here?" Clark asked hesitantly. He was sure she couldn't go see them, not after what he found out around Christmas, but maybe--
"No." Lacey cut his thoughts off. "I tried everything. My phone numbers all led to dead ends. I'm effectively stranded and cut off from them." She opened her eyes and they were filled with acceptance. "And with all honesty? I don't think I'm going to find a way back."
"You can't give up hope like that," Clark started to say. His first instinct was to reassure her that she'd go back, but his second and more selfish reaction was to hope she didn't. It was very unlike him. "If you-"
"I'm not giving up hope." Lacey shook her head and sat back up. "I'm accepting it. If I get back? Ok, keen. If not, then well, I'm not going to spend my time following false leads or thinking what if. I did that the first two months I was here. It got me nowhere and I ended up wangsting about like some drama llama emo kid. So I said screw it. If I'm going to be here, then I'll live my life the way I did back home. By annoying the hell out of everyone around me and living in denial. It's how I show I care. Or that I dislike people. Works either way."
At Clark's questionable look, Lacey smiled. "The only problem was that I ended up actually getting along with everyone's favorite little boy. That led to me actually getting along with Lois. And then…" She trailed off with a shrug.
Then what? She couldn't just leave it off at that. Clark had to ask. "Then what?"
"Then you came back to the world." Lacey grinned mischievously. "I decided that you were going to be my new target. Hence the-"
"Hints and the teasing." Clark finished for her. He sighed. "Why am I not at all surprised?"
"Because you know me pretty well by now." Lacey reminded him and gave him a slight nudge. "But back then.. You were getting a little emo."
"I was what?" Clark couldn't contain the confusion.
"After you came out of the hospital." She paused and stared at him carefully. "You were.. You looked a little lost. I get why, but I decided that someone needed to keep you from angst valley. So I dubbed it my unofficial mission. I mean, I could have tried manipulating Cat into doing it, but somehow that would have given me mental images I never ever want."
It wasn't the 'mission' that got his attention. It wasn't even the mention of Cat and mental images. It was the fact that she said she understood why. Clark wondered if she knew about Jason. It was something he hadn't told her, but if he were fiction where she was from.. "You know about.." He trailed off, hoping she'd finish.
She did. "Jason?" Lacey nodded and picked the bunny back up. Hop, bunny, hop. "I know. But like I said before, doesn't mean I'll say anything." She flashed him a worried look. "You know I wouldn't. Right? I mean, I know I'm not the greatest person in the world, but I'd never say a word about--"
"I know. I trust you." Clark smiled at her. And he did. He had questions. Heck, he had plenty of them; it was the reporter in him. But like she did on New Year's for him, he could do the same.
He'd accept it. After all, it didn't change a thing. It gave him new insight to her, but she was still-- Clark's thoughts froze as Lacey stood up and headed for the door. "What are you doing?"
Lacey shrugged. "I figured since I did what I came here to do, I'd go home. Let you process and decide if I'm loopy or just a pathological liar."
"You don't have to do that." Clark insisted. He stood up and repeated out loud what he had been thinking moments before. "It doesn't change anything."
"Actually, it does." Lacey said. "I know things. Not just about you, but others. When I say I'm not going to share everything, I mean about others too. I'm one big secret keeper for everyone. Maybe I could get a codename or something.. Are there even any good codenames left in the cosmos?"
"Does this mean you know what's going to happen?" Clark found himself asking. That's right, he was ignoring her ramble about codenames.
She laughed. "Oh, hell no! I'm not vision girl or something. I stopped knowing what would happen after your hospital stay. And before you ask why I didn't say anything about things to come then, would you really have believed a cranky bitter woman that you didn't know?"
Clark thought about that and couldn't help but grin. "I don't know if I'd use the word cranky."
"I was going to say bitchy, but I thought I'd be nice to myself." Lacey rolled her eyes with a smirk and opened the door. She felt a hand on her arm and she looked over at Clark, who was now standing next to her. She arched an eyebrow and posed a silent question.
"Let me get this straight," Clark spoke slowly and cautiously. "You have no idea what may or may not happen now."
Lacey really hoped he wasn't going to start fishing for information. If anyone was going to do stuff like that, it was going to be her. "Just color me clueless." The smile on Clark's face set off her warning alarms. "Why?"
"That means we're on even footing." Clark was confident about that.
"HA!" Lacey punched him lightly on the arm. "You wish. I always have the upper hand. People just don't like to acknowledge it." Denial? Hell yes. Lacey was cloaked in a shroud of the stuff.
"I beg to differ." Clark argued. "If I wanted the upper hand, I could get it."
Lacey wasn't having any of it this time. He was getting all the winning hands way too easily lately. It had to be stopped. She knew it. He knew it, though he wouldn't admit it. The cosmos knew it. No no no. Lacey wanted to have all the cards and she was going to get them.
She narrowed her eyes at him and poked him lightly on the chest. "Not this time, blue." Of course, she had to think fast. How could she one up him? He was the one wh.. Well, she could, but then that would..
"Fuck it." Lacey muttered. She threw out her lingering doubts, wrapped her arms around Clark's neck, and pulled him down for a kiss.
Clark only had a second to comprehend the fact that she was the one to instigate it this time, because before he realized it, he was once again standing alone in his living room. The door shut firmly behind Lacey as she left him dumbfounded.
He couldn't help but chuckle. She'd won for the moment. But tomor-
Why did he have a plush bunny on his head?
