Author's note: Hey all! I know you're patiently waiting for the next part of BML and PYL, and I'm sorry I've not gotten them out yet. I've been sick (I soooo hate sinus infections) and haven't been able to put the right finishing touches on them (cuz my medicine-induced mind has been REALLY fuzzy). I hope you guys don't mind me being a bit ADD with my unfinished Smallville stories, but I realized I had some more finished than others and thought I'd keep moving those along.
For the one below - I know it's been forever, but this chapter and the next deal with the alternate universe Clark/Lois/Ollie. I didn't actually watch the Luthor episode in S10 so, all of this is just me doing my own thing. Again, I found it really hard not to have a redeemable Clark so...
Here we go! :) Hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear what you think! :)
Hugs,
M
The Two Worlds, Two Words Series: It Matters
He had exhausted all the possibilities. He'd tapped his resources. He'd even gone to the source, Lois Lane herself.
Still, he came up empty.
The video played out before his eyes like it had done a thousand times before. Nothing was different. Nothing had changed. The same rooftop. The same Lois. The same Clark. The same actions. The same results.
No, nothing had changed.
Yet everything had.
Oliver Queen squinted at the screen zeroing in on one face.
Hers.
Eyes, claimed by defiance and fear, had widened with wonder. Filled with hope. Then shattered in a way that pierced his heart.
Every. Single. Time.
"Dammit, Kent," Ollie muttered under his breath. "What did you say to her? And why does it matter so damn much?"
A whirlwind named Lois Lane blew into the abandoned building Ollie had been using for months as a base of operations. Until the run in with Clark Luthor a few weeks back, Lois hadn't even known of its existence. Or at least, Ollie thought she hadn't.
That changed the moment she crashed into his restraining party and shielded a writhing Clark Luthor from, of all people, him.
She'd surprised him that night.
And every day since.
Oliver glanced at the clock. Right on schedule. Something she'd rarely ever been for him.
He braced himself for more surprises.
"Ollie?" Lois poked her head around a pole and squinted into the darkened space where Oliver had set up camp. "Hey." She offered a small smile when she saw him. "Sorry if I'm late. I know you wanted to patrol early tonight, but I had a stroke of genius that had to be pursued..." Hazel eyes, now adjusted to the darkness, narrowed suspiciously. "You ok?"
"Yeah." Oliver Queen snapped his laptop shut and pushed himself away from the desk. He forced his tone to be light and undisturbed as he rounded the desk for a routine hug and kiss. "And it's ok. I know how crazy your deadlines get. Besides, you really aren't late at all."
"Oh. Ok, great." Lois responded with less enthusiasm and more distraction than he'd expected. Then again, that could be because her entire focus had instantly shifted from him to a pile of folders she was digging out of her bag and dumping on his desk.
"What's that?"
"Research." Lois explained without explaining. "And a lot of it. So, I will be quite busy tonight. Which means you are free to go save the world." She gazed up at him, her research forgotten and her expression unreadable. "So..."
And as usual, Ollie knew the question before she asked. Not because he could read her mind. No, a veil had dropped between them so heavily he felt as if he barely knew her. But by the sudden worry-laced excitement in her eyes, if he had to hazard a guess...
"...how's our patient today?"
Yep. He'd been right.
"You know, it's amazing how you're able to call a psychopathic killer a patient without blinking an eye."
"Ollie..."
He shrugged off her disapproving tone and rounded her to head for the bar on the other side of the room. "He's the same. Sullen. Silent. Suspiciously subdued."
"You think it's an act?"
Ollie poured himself a quarter of a glass and downed the drink, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat and past his lungs. For a moment, his bruised heart didn't hurt.
But only for a moment.
"Ollie?"
"I think...that I don't know what to think."
"What do you mean?"
"Why are we doing this, Lois?"
Her weary sigh filled the room. Without even looking Oliver knew her arms were crossed defensively in front of her and her chin had taken on a defensive tilt.
"You know why."
"Yeah. Save a Clark, save the world. Blah, blah, blah." Ollie turned to face her. To face what he hoped would be one moment of truth. Especially since they'd had precious few of those in the past two weeks. "Why are we really doing this?"
"Because it's the right thing to do. Beyond that, does it really matter?"
"You tell me."
There was a faint echo of an accusation in that statement.
Lois' hard swallow was barely noticeable, but Ollie caught it and the faint tremor of her lips. He also noticed the way her gaze shifted and softened, as if seeing something beyond, something he couldn't fathom or even guess.
All of it happened in the space of a heartbeat. Because in the next, Lois tried to end the conversation with a well-worn reason as she closed distance between them and offered him a soft smile.
"We've been through this. You're a good man. A hero. Saving people is what you do."
"Yeah, but even I can't save them all. And I've certainly never expended so much energy in saving anyone else." Oliver conceded deflecting her attempt to appeal to his better nature.
"Ollie..."
"Ok, fine. So maybe it doesn't matter why we're bending over backwards to save a Luthor. At least..." Oliver pinned her with a look and drove home a more salient, if not obvious, point. "...not nearly as much as what he said to you."
Shaking her head, Lois scoffed at Oliver's attempt to once again pull out of her what had happened that night on the roof with him. With the 'other' Clark.
"You think that's why we're doing all of this? Why we're putting our lives on hold, lying to our friends, risking a confrontation with Lionel, hiding a murder in this abandoned building? Because of what he said to me in a five second conversation?"
"Aren't we?"
Lois countered, her expression tight and even. "No. We aren't. And if you don't know why we're doing this, Ollie, then maybe you shouldn't be."
Oliver Queen's heart sank. For with that one pronouncement, Lois had divided them. They were no longer 'us' and 'we' and 'our'; they were 'you' and 'me' and 'him'.
And he had a choice.
He could take the out she was handing him, walk away and never look back. Or he could ignore every doubt plaguing him and be the good she expected of him.
The choice wasn't hard.
So Oliver Queen swallowed the pride and fear that was threatening to choke him, accepted her challenge and challenged her back.
"Oh, I know why I'm doing this, Lois. And she's standing right in front of me. The real question...is why are you?"
Ollie entered Clark's green-tinted cell.
"Dinner's served. Not that you're going to eat it."
He allowed the door to slam shut and lock behind him before he advanced into the room, making his way to the table across from the makeshift cot Clark was using for a bed. Sliding the tray onto the table, Oliver made a cursory inspection of the sparsely furnished, dimly lit room laced with just enough kryptonite to keep the 'super' in Clark subdued but not enough to send him into a fit of pain, then turned his full focus on the shadow standing silently in the corner.
His plump arms were crossed over his massive chest. His usually slicked back hair was ruffled and falling in harsh curls on his pale forehead. His jaw was tight, his lips parted as he calmly claimed the air around him then released it in long, even breaths. His blue eyes were trained on the night sky, visible only through a tiny window near the warehouse's impossibly high ceiling.
"You need anything else?" Ollie inquired then waited. "So you're sticking with that whole 'silence is golden' rule, huh?"
When the usual silence greeted him, Ollie shrugged and tossed a familiar quip over his shoulder. "Alright then. See ya later, Sunshine."
Clark's gravelly voice stopped him at the door.
"You're right."
Ollie slowly turned to face him, his eyes narrowed warily. "So you can speak."
Not taking the bait, Clark Luthor continued. "There's a secret panel in Lionel's office that opens into another room."
Curious, Ollie stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited for the big reveal. Because she suddenly had a feeling there was going to be one. Or not. Given this was Clark Luthor he was dealing with, it really could go either way.
"Ok, and?"
"It's for surveillance. You should be able to find a recording of what happened that night. On the roof. Between them."
"How did you..."
A smirk ghosted Clark's lips. "You've only subdued my powers, not wiped them away."
"You heard us." Oliver surmised, not at all surprised or offend or anything else one should feel when finding out their private conversation had been hijacked by a pair of superpowered ears.
"Every word. For two weeks now." Clark confirmed. "If you want to know what he said to her, find Lionel's surveillance tapes."
"I have my own, thank you very much." Ollie quipped as he turned to go.
"Visual, but not audio. That is the problem, isn't it? You can see them together, but you don't know what they're saying." Clark paused, his gaze meeting Oliver's, who had turned back to face him. "Lionel has both from various angles."
"Why the roof?"
Clark's gaze shifted and his jaw worked in agitation. "It was a special meeting place back in a time when I dared to defy him. When I was worthy of..." Clark stopped short and shifted uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and tried to continue. "After that..." Stumbling once more, Clark pulled in a calming breath and swallowed hard. "Let's just say, my father went to extensive lengths to make sure I was never alone again."
Noting the raw emotion in Clark's expression when speaking of the past, the disdain in his voice when saying Lionel's name, Ollie truly wondered, for the first time in two weeks, if Lois was right. If there really was something good in him worth saving.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Like I said...you're right. Whatever he said to her that night, why she's doing this..."
Clark's hard swallow was barely noticeable, but Ollie caught it and the faint tremor of his lips. He also noticed the way his gaze shifted and softened, as if seeing something beyond, something he couldn't fathom or even guess.
Suddenly, piercing blue eyes met brown. Suddenly, Oliver Queen understood the man standing before him. And suddenly, they had a common need.
"It matters."
tbc...