Previously:
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She pressed a button on the phone in her hand to reactivate the LCD screen. When she clearly saw his pained expression, she gave up on tempering back her 'downplay' gene - in her defense, it was usually the only thing that was successful against Clark's 'broody' one.

"Don't look so guilty, Kent. I mean, yes, you did crash my investigation, and you were the one who turned the handle that sent us careening down into this pit… but you meant well."
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And now:
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Even with her words, Clark couldn't help but to feel guilty. She had been kidding when she had mentioned that a flick to the head could cause a concussion, but he had once done just that to her. Sure, he hadn't been himself at the time, having been mind-controlled by a blonde magician, but the fact remained that he had intentionally inflicted injury upon her. If she ever had prolonged suffering from the effect of numerous head traumas, he would bear the weight of some of the blame.

"Relax, Smallville. It's nothing to worry about. I didn't lose consciousness and my memory is intact. Just… forget I even said anything. Once we get out of here, you can take me in for a body scan if you want, but right now we need to concentrate on living though this. Deal?"

Clark nodded distractedly but knew that he could neither forget nor ignore what had happened. He made a mental note to keep tabs on her breathing patterns to make sure that everything stayed on the upside.

She flashed the phone above her. "Where is this tunnel you saw?"

"Behind you," he answered, pointing it out. "If I lift you up, you should be able to reach it."

Lois crossed her arms and peered up at the crevasse. She seemed to consider his theory for a few minutes, before shaking her head. "We don't know where that goes. It could be another hole."

Clark's lips got caught in something between a smile and a frown. "The voice of temperance and sobriety, right?" He shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to try," he said, repeating her earlier argument.

She met his eyes and he could see that she was gauging his suggestion against their other options – which just happened to be nil and nil. The phone's screen flicked off again and this time she let it remain that way.

"There's still the problem of getting you up there with me," she countered.

"It's not that far up," he said. "I can jump." Now that they were standing, the branching tunnel was just under four feet above his head. Even without his leaping ability, it wouldn't be hard to reach.

"Either we try that or we run the risk of becoming skeletons down here because I'm not getting any other ideas right now," he added when her silence spoke volumes about her doubt.

"These walls are pretty close together," she observed. "We should be able to just climb up them using resistance. That way we can nix the idea of the tunnel all together and get back to the top."

Clark chuckled. "You may be dressed for a Mission Impossible but you forgot the suction gloves. There is no way you could put enough pressure on your foot to do that…" He didn't feel the need to add that the metal walls of the chute were too slick for that idea anyway.

"Fine," she grumbled, giving in.

"Fine," he answered, equally exasperated. His guilt over being the one that got them into this situation had him pulling out the stops. He had to find a way out – and he had to do it without his powers - or at least without obvious use of them. He was not going to go the easy way out and knock her unconscious. He was going to have to use brain over brawn this time.

With his back pressed against the wall, he slid behind Lois and placed his hands on her hips. The tight space made it impossible to be behind her without their bodies touching and he thought that for a brief moment he'd felt her shudder. Frowning, he realized that it actually was rather cold.

"Today, Smallville…"

Snapping back to attention, Clark tightened his hold on her waist and lifted. He was careful to make it seem as if the effort was somewhat taxing, even pausing and grunting before giving the final push and extending his arms above him.

"Can you see it?" he called, tilting his head up. Immediately, he brought his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. He hadn't meant to ogle her….

"Yes… whoa." The sudden movement had caused his grip to slide a little. "You okay there?"

"Uh, yeah. Sorry" He gritted his teeth and stabilized the hold. "How's that?"

"Good. Okay, I'm going to climb in."

Clark helped her slide into the opening. A few seconds later her head peeked out over the ledge. "Okay, your turn."

After motioning for her to slide back from the entrance, he bent his legs and jumped high enough to be able to suspend himself by his hands. As soon as he was in that position, he pushed against the walls with his feet and scrambled to hook his elbows onto the landing. Lois was still on her knees from when she'd climbed into the tunnel, and she helped him pull the rest of his body up next to hers.

Once they both were situated, Lois flicked the phone light on again and turned in the direction of deeper into the tunnel. In the distance he could faintly make out the outline of another handle like the one he had turned earlier, except this time, it was connected to a door.

Lois turned back to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well?"

---

Dead end. It was a dead. She should have known it – scratch that – she had known it. She just hadn't wanted to believe it.

But her eyes didn't fail her where her damned undiminished hope did. There was no way around the fact that it was a dead end.

Leaning against the wall and looking across to Clark, she sighed. She needed to think. She needed to… Shaking her head, she groaned and ran a hand through her hair. If there was anything she needed right now, it was a hair tie. She was already cooped up in this ridiculous outfit – so underdressed for a mineshaft adventure.

There was a certain outfitting one needed to have for falling into mineshafts – and other troublesome things like that. For one thing, you didn't wear leather from head to toe. It had no insulation and when wet and cold, it was hardly supple. Another thing – and the list was actually quite long – you needed a radio of some sort. Radios could be rigged to send out transmissions even when they were designed to be receivers. She knew how to do it… you just would need one of those handy dandy all-in-one survivor knives… which was also on the list. A list that also included a flashlight, Lois thought as she rubbed the back of the phone with her thumb.

With a grunt, she pressed and held the button to turn it off. She didn't need the light to show her what she already knew.

It was a dead end.

"We should go take a look."

Lois's head shot up. She could barely make out his features in the dark. "I don't want to," she replied. "I already know what's behind door number 2." It was an irrational fear- but then again, most fears were.

"So, what do you want to do?"

Anything but that, she thought to herself. The only thing she could do about the inevitable was delay it. "Can I ask you something?"

She didn't wait for permission. "Why Lana?"

"Wha - huh?"

She didn't need to see his face clearly to know what expression was on it – she had even surprised herself with that question. Her intention had been just to start a meaningless conversation that would buy her enough time to come up a way out of their current situation that didn't involve a door and a turbine handle. As was often the case, her mouth had spoken before her mind had issued a warning.

"What did you say?" he asked.

She couldn't back down from it… "I said, 'Why Lana'?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" She paused in thought trying to carefully form her question, but now that she was trying to seek it out, her mind was stubbornly blank. "I guess what I'm asking is, why the obsession with Lana Lang? The girl constantly does everything in her power to make you her past and yet you still trail behind her like a sick puppy. What is the draw?"

When he remained silent, Lois began to think that she had crossed the invisible line in the sand that defined the boundaries of their relationship. She could never be sure what those boundaries were because usually, when she pushed, he gave, and vice versa. Maybe she had pushed too far this time… his strange obsession with the girl-next-door was really none of her business.

"She's the one," he finally replied.

Lois realized with a start that she was relieved that he hadn't been insulted after all. In the same instant it struck her that she valued her friendship with Clark a lot more than she had credited… and that she had missed him during her self-imposed exile… or at least had missed their banter. Yes, that was it.

"The one," she repeated, focusing her thoughts back on his words. "The one. How do you know?"

She heard the slight rustle of his jacket rubbing against the wall behind him and knew he was shrugging. "She just always has been."

Lois failed to hold back a scoff, but she tried to cover it by clearing her throat. "God, I wish everything were so simple."

---

Clark frowned into the darkness. He could clearly see Lois sitting across from him and he had clearly heard her scoff after his last remark. "It's been anything but simple," he muttered in return.

"Oh, I don't mean it like that. I admire that you can know something like that with such certainty. I thought I knew…" her voice trailed into an almost inaudible sigh.

"Oliver?" He immediately wanted to pull back the word. He had known the circumstances of their breakup – in fact, he had known more about them than Lois. In turn, he had seen how it had hurt her and he hated to know that he had played a role in it.

"Yeah," Lois replied, unaware of his inner dialogue. "I almost made a really big mistake."

Clark didn't know how to respond to that confession. He couldn't imagine where Lois could have made a mistake in the relationship when Oliver was the one who had almost killed her… unless she meant her encounter with the Green Arrow…

"A mistake?" he asked, mentally groaning when his voice cracked.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice. "I was going to let myself love him," she replied quietly.

Clark's head shot up and he renewed his focus on her face. She was staring off into the distance unseeingly. "Lois, I don't think it's ever a mistake to love somebody."

"You wouldn't," she said with a smirk. "And you're right… It actually takes a lot of strength of character to love someone unconditionally, but that's not what I'm talking about. With Oliver, everything seemed perfect on the surface. I had this really great guy, and he loved me… and I… liked him a lot. I was willing to let that be enough."

Clark was surprised that she was revealing something like this to him. He knew that more than anything, Lois hated to be vulnerable in any way. There were times in the past when the two of them shared quiet conversations like these in his loft, but that had been before he had gotten preoccupied with the fallout from the Phantom Zone. He actually felt quite a great deal of relief that they could slip back into their friendship so easily. He had missed it.

"What changed?" He really wanted to know. For some reason, something inside of him was hanging onto her words as if there was a revelation for him hidden in them.

"A kiss…" she said sheepishly, as if she didn't really want to admit it.

Clark found that he had started leaning forward and forced himself to sit back. "Must have been some kiss," he jeered, teasing her gently.

"It was. I told you about it - the Green Arrow. I was so determined, thinking that it was Oliver that I… well, anyway, there was something there – a spark, a connection, a…"

"…Fire?" he finished before mentally slapping a hand over his mouth. If he wasn't careful, his mouth was going to get him into trouble… more trouble, that is.

"Fire, yeah, that too. It reminded me of everything I was willing to give up for a small slice of security."

She stopped and looked across the passageway to him, squinting so she could make out his face. "I'm about to tell you something really girly, but if you repeat it to anyone I'll deny it," she warned.

Clark held up his hand. "What happens in the mineshaft stays in the mineshaft," he promised solemnly.

Lois seemed to find his promise worthy. She nodded and continued. "I want to find true love," she said quickly, as if saying it fast would make it less of a revelation.

"I want to meet that person that keeps me on my toes while making my knees go weak. I want the one who's strong where I'm weak, but whose strength of character complements mine. Someone who tilts my world on its axis whenever we are in the same room together, but sets everything right with one touch. I want to be driven crazy from the spectrum of emotion that he makes me feel… I want a love that is ignited by passion, by challenge, and by complete faith."

Clark was thunderstruck. As Lois described what she wanted in love, he had felt as if blinders were being taken from his eyes. In his determination to make things right… to make them normal and simple, he had made the mistake that Lois was trying to avoid. He had settled.

"Lame, huh?" Lois chided.

"No." The force of his response surprised them both. He tried again, gently, "I mean, I don't think it's lame to know what you want..."

"Well, anyway, the spark I felt when I kissed the Green Arrow Bandit reminded me that passion is a part of who I am… and it should be a part of what I do as well."

Clark licked his lips. "So, you think you might… um, have feelings for the Green Arrow?" Yep. He knew he was asking for it… but, there was something exhilarating about walking into a dangerous situation with nothing but your wits about you.

"No," Lois laughed the notion away, taking his wits with it.

"But the kiss…" he said. He stopped short - was he pleading about a kiss? And better yet, why was he pleading about a kiss?

"If it were just the Green Arrow that I felt that with, then I'd say yes, but I've felt it before…" She suddenly stopped and blinked as if realizing what all she was sharing. Her eyes widened briefly before she sobered her expression, cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her pants. "Well, enough chit-chat. What's our plan again?"

Clark's mind spun as once again, Lois's change of topic and pace left him reeling.

And once again, she answered without waiting for his response. "That's right, we don't have a plan."

He shook his head in amusement and grinned. Lois Lane was one of a kind.

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TBC