To whom it may concern (if you are thinking about suing me): I own nothing having to do with Superman (except for overpriced t-shirts), Smallville (except for seasons 1-5) or anything remotely connected to WB, CW or whatever they call themselves now. Erica's da' bomb!

Chapter 4: Swept Away

Lois was in a sad mood. She wasn't sad that often, so she didn't quite know how to handle it. She could do grouchy, annoyed and a pretty good towering rage. But sadness wasn't part of her usual repotoire.

Lois was having a hard time letting go of the last story she wrote. An ex-husband deadbeat locked himself in an apartment with his former wife and three kids. He was in a seven hour standoff with police before he killed himself. But not before he took the lives of his ex-wife and kids. Lois had used her connections to get into the crime scene, and wished she hadn't. She couldn't get the images of the kid's faces out of her mind. So scared, helpless and broken. Her famous iron resolve had cracked, and she ran out of the small apartment and thrown up in the hall. A few cops snickered at her, and she said nothing. She fled to the safety of the Daily Planet. She sat at her desk, absently chewing at a knuckle.

Clark looked over. Lois was very disturbed, he could tell. He knew that she had seen some horrific things, but those kids affected her very deeply. He went around to her, pulling his chair with him. He sat next to her and took one of her trembling hands in his.

"Lois…it's okay to talk about it" Clark offered.

"I'm fine, Smallville" said Lois, brushing him off. In the past six months, Lois and Clark had become more than partners, they had become good friends. But Lois still needed to assert herself sometimes as the senior partner. "Really, I'm okay." That usually made Clark back down.

But, Clark was having none of that. "No, Lois, you're not okay" he said.

Lois looked at him in shock. He had never stood up to her before. Clark continued, "You saw something terrible. You can't keep things like this inside, or you'll snap."

Lois rolled her eyes. "Clark, you lived your life in rural Kansas. I'm a big city girl. I can take it…it was nothing."

Clark shook his head, "It wasn't nothing,, Lois. It never is with kids." Clark took her hand again and stared into the distance, remembering. "When I was in Uganda, I came across a scene of tribal violence. Armed men had come into a village and taken all the children. They marched these starving kids for three miles along a dirt road. Then…" Clark started to choke up, "Then the killed them all. Beat them to death so they wouldn't waste bullets. There were thirty children in all, dead on the side of the road. Mothers holding broken little bodies…"

Clark stopped, his perfect memory recalling the heat and smell of the gristly scene. Lois reached up and caressed his cheek with her free hand, looking into his eyes. That snapped Clark back to the present. He looked at Lois, suddenly aware of how close they were. He straightened. "Anyway, Lois, everyone needs someone else to lay these things on. I'm here if you need me."

Lois nodded. "Thanks, Clark. I appreciate that." She sighed. "It's just…the police couldn't do anything to stop it. They could only sit outside and let it play out. Sometimes I think that humanity won't make it."

Clark nodded, "Humans are capable of terrible things. But, also capable of incredible things. Like the nuns who feed the hungry, or the doctors who heal the sick. There is goodness everywhere."

"Sometimes, it's so hard to see" said Lois sadly. "There's little inspiration nowadays."

Clark said, "Maybe one day, someone will come that will bring back the light." He looked at her strangely, "Do you believe that one person can make a difference to the whole world?"

Lois shrugged, "Maybe. But, that would have to be a special person, and different from everyone else. People today are hung up on differences. Race, religion, nationality…part of what gives us our individual identity also makes it hard to work together. Your one person would have to be so special that everyone could look up to them."

Clark smiled, "Maybe one day, that person will come." Sooner than you think, Lois. Clark was wearing his special suit underneath his conservative work clothes.

Lois and Clark both looked up as Perry called them in his office. They got up, but before Clark could take his hands back, Lois rose on her toes and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. Clark raised his eyebrows in shock. Lois smiled, "Thanks, Smallville. For everything."

Clark was a little distracted in Perry's office. The spot where Lois had kissed was still tingling. His heart rate, which hardly ever went above 30 beats per minute, was racing. Perry was congratulating Lois on another good story. Then, he dropped the bomb. "Lois, I just got word that the maiden voyage of NASAs new low-orbital space plane is a go for tomorrow. And…they are letting one reporter from the Daily Planet in on the ride. How would you like to be the first reporter to file from orbit?"

Lois jaw dropped. "Are you kidding? I'll take it!"

Perry looked at Clark, who was a little abstracted. "Now, Kent, I know that you could do it too, but Lois has seniority, so she gets the story."

Clark smiled, "She deserves it, Chief." Lois smiled her thanks at Clark. "Do you have any assignments for me?"

"Well…normally we would leave this stuff to the Inquisitor, but several mugging victims are claiming that a flying man saved them from attackers." Said Perry.

Clark shuffled his feet, nervously. He had been out 'practicing' several nights now, and rumors were bound to be floating around by now. "Uh, really?" he asked sheepishly.

"Now, I know what you're thinking, Clark. But, there is that Green Arrow chareter in Star City, and the clown who dresses like a Bat in Gotham." Said Perry. "Maybe Metropolis is getting it's very own vigilante. We sure need it."

Lois and Clark stared at Perry. He threw up his hands, "Oh! Come on!" he shouted. "We do what we can, exposing corruption and fighting for truth, justice and the American way. But this city is sliding into hell. The police that aren't crooked are overworked and under appreciated. People are afraid to go out at night. If there is a mysterious do-gooder out there, he needs to be in the public eye! Give the no-goodniks a reason to run and hide!" Perry turned and looked out his window, taking in the city skyline. "This place has been my home for fifty years. I can't believe that Metropolis can't be saved. Why do you think I push everyone so hard? The good people of this city have to rise up and take it back."

Perry finished and turned to the stunned pair. "So, Lois, you get the space plane. Kent, you get information on our newest crime-fighter. And both of you better knock my socks off with your stories!"

The duo left Perry to his thoughts. Lois looked at Clark. "You know, I'm almost jealous of your assignment, Clark."

Clark blushed. "Yours is pretty great, Lois. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!"

Lois nodded. "Yeah. It is. But, after our little talk, it would be great if it were true. I mean, a flying man? Even of it is some kind of rocket pack or something, that's better than nothing. One man, making a difference…"

Lois packed her things and left the office, while Clark sat at his desk, gathering his thoughts. The timing is right. I should be a public figure. Kavelash demands that I be a guiding light. I hope that I'm up for the task.

Lois was securely strapped in to the comfortable leather seat, patiently enduring the droning of the engines at 37,000 feet. If that condescending prick giving the briefing stares at my chest one more time, I'm going to do something violent.

Lois was in good company. The Vice-President, as director of NASA was on the flight and receiving a dry briefing on the new space plane. With him were several senators, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (an old buddy of her father's) and a few aides.

The little squidge continued with his briefing, "Now, gentlemen, and Miss Lane." Lois rolled her eyes. Yes, she was the only female on the flight, and yes, he had to single her out in just about every sentence. "Once we reach an altitude of forty thousand feet, the conventional engines will shut down, and the solid rocked boosters will engage. This will provide what we term 'near-escape velocity'. The shuttle will be in a low earth orbit at this point."

Lois closed off her ears at that point. He seemed like he was reading right out of the press packet. She could get Clark to look at it when she was safely on the ground. She looked out at the earth, spread before her and remembered the conversation she had in Perry's office yesterday. She secretly thought it would be wonderful to be able to fly without a plane. She had been skydiving several times, and loved the quiet after the chute had opened, when the ground was so far beneath her she felt like she was standing on a cloud. Lois shook herself out of her reverie and snapped back to the present.

There was a bank of monitors on the wall of the plane in front of the audience. Cameras were placed outside the plane to record images and flight data. A pair of F-16s flew alongside with cameras filming the shuttle, as well as providing a radar picture of the plane in flight. Lois put her concentration on the displays, noting that their altitude was at 39 thousand feet now. She checked her seatbelt again and waited for the fun to begin.

Clark had already written the story and decided to sleep in. He was in his pajama pants and a white t-shirt, floating three feet above the couch. Fox News played gently in the background while he read a new romance novel from the library. Lois had teased him mercilessly for a week when she found out about his addiction to Harlequin. Clark couldn't help it though. He never thought that he would find romance himself, so he lived vicariously through books. His attention wandered, however, when he realized that the heroine he was picturing in his mind looked exactly like…Lois. Clark was so shocked that he fell onto the couch. What am I doing? I can't think about Lois like that!

Clark began to pace. Sure, he valued Lois' friendship. And, he thought that she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. She was fun, smart, tough…it seemed like he could go on for hours about her. He even liked the way she chewed on the end of her pens when she was trying to spell a word.

Clark stopped in shock. I think that I'm in love! Once, he thought he was in love with Lana Lang, the girl next door. But, he had realized that was a crush based on infatuation, combined with raging Kryptonian hormones. He had unknowingly gone through puberty at seven. But this feeling, it was completely different. Oh, God! I AM in love! With Lois Lane! Clark's heart began to soar. This feeling that accompanied his self-discovery was more intense than anything he had ever felt before.

Clark stood in one spot, rooted. He was spinning. Wow! What do I do now?

A breaking news story from the television interrupted his thoughts, chilling him to the core. Lois! Clark looked at the suit, draped over the back of the couch, and knew that it was time.

Lois didn't have any technical knowledge of the shuttle, but even she knew that something wasn't right. The small pop of the booster rockets that the annoying man had paused for was instead a deafening roar. The camera trained on the rear of the ship confirmed it. The whole tail was on fire. Intercoms in the cockpit picked up the crews frenzied efforts to regain control. Lois watched, horrified, as the fire was doused, not by the automatic extinguishers, but the lack of oxygen. She heard the pilot on the radio, talking to their escort craft. The engines had fired stronger than expected. They were too high and couldn't restart the regular engines. The tail had suffered too much damage, and they wouldn't be able to control the craft once they re-entered the atmosphere. The craft began to shake and buckle, as Lois prepared for the end.

Captain Statham, US Air Force, watched helplessly as the vehicle pulled farther and farther away. "Golf-Niner, this is Golf-Two," he called to his wingman, "Do you have a blip on your radar, over?"

"Golf-Two, this is Golf-Niner, that's a roger. It's moving fast, way faster than a missile!"

Captain Statham looked out his canopy as the red and blue streak flashed between the two F-16s. "What the hell was that?" he shouted.

"Uh, it looked like a flying man?"

Lois heard the radio report, but couldn't believe it. She looked at the monitor showing the radar picture. Sure enough, there was a blip, moving quickly toward the shuttle. She looked at the belly camera monitor hard, trying to see what the pilots had seen. It began as a blue and red speck in the exact center of the monitor. It grew to an image of a man. A rather handsome man in a tight-fitting bodysuit and red cape. Lois would normally have come up with a snarky comment about the outfit, but she was numb from her head to her toes.

Clark's heart was thumping in his chest. He had to save Lois. He had never flown this fast before. He approached the plane from underneath, thankful that it wasn't spinning out of complete control yet. He scanned the frame and selected two spots. He punched through the ceramic heat tiles and gripped the aluminum frame, slowing the craft's descent. He slowly killed their forward momentum until he was holding the craft stationary, thousands of feet above the earth.

Lois was in shock. She pinched herself, just to make sure that this wasn't some last ditch effort of her brain to deal with death. The man looked into the camera, took one hand off of the plane, and waved at them. Lois waved back, before she realized what she was doing and dropped her hand, embarrassed. No one noticed, because they were all waving too.

The man began signing into the camera. Lois recognized sign language from her required courses in college. M…E…T…R, Is he saying Metropolis? "Is he trying to say, he can take us to Metropolis?" she asked. The man nodded. Lois frowned and stood, moving closer to the screen. He was captivating. "Can you hear me?" The man nodded. "Uh," Lois looked at the VP, noting his shell-shocked expression. The others weren't in much better shape. "Okay, then. Take us to Metropolis." The man nodded and looked up. He looked back at the camera and made a gesture across his waist, like buckling a belt. "You want us to buckle up? Can you see us, too?" she asked, stunned. The man again nodded. He waited until Lois sat and buckled, then turned the plane and rocketed back to the east and Metropolis.

Clark set the plane down on the tarmac at Metropolis International Airport. Police and fire trucks were already racing to the damaged aircraft. The door opened and the emergency slide came out. Clark watched them evacuate the plane. Lois was the last one out. So much for chivalry. Clark, seeing she was fine, turned to leave.

"Hey! Wait!" Lois shouted after him. Clark hesitated, turned to see her running up to him. She stopped three feet away, staring at him with the strangest expression. For a moment, Clark thought that she recognized him, then she asked, "Who are you?"

"A friend" replied Clark. He leapt gracefully into the sky and left a speechless Lois Lane standing alone.