Chapter 6

The pounding of a drum inside her cranium awoke her from her deep slumber. A bright light shone through her eyelids, penetrating her retinas and causing her head to throb even harder. It hurt to even think about opening her eyes. She resigned to lowering her head behind a solid object. Solid object? She thought to herself. Making sure her eyes were out of the light, she slowly lifted one eyelid to peer out. She blinked a few times to get the blurriness to clear, but as it disappeared, she instantly wished she had kept it shut.

She was staring at a body. It appeared naked, but she couldn't be quite sure unless she lifted the blankets to look. Her head hurt too much though, the pounding increasing as she realized she had a hand draped over the still form beside her. Her head was nestled in the crook if his arm, damp from sweat. Managing to crawl through the pain, she lifted her head up to stare at the face. She almost fainted as she was greeted by the one face she didn't want to see. Pale as a ghost, she ripped her arm off him, bringing about another wave of pain. "Ow." She said softly, raising her left hand to rub the front of her head. "What happened?" She asked herself.

The body beside her began to move and shuffle. Alarm bells went off in her head as she tried desperately to maneuver herself away from him. Suddenly, she fell off the edge of the bed. Her body came in contact with the floor, but she didn't feel it. Her head was the focus of her pain. Delirium set in as she desperately clutched at it with both hands. A cry of pain came from her lips as she hunkered into the fetal position.

Clark rubbed his eyes and looked to the ceiling. He was surprisingly well rested, considering the circumstances of the evening before. With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes. There was a soft groaning, and a few cries coming from beside. He quickly snapped his eyes open and looked over at the other bed. A frown set in as he wondered where Lois had disappeared to. A few more whimpers were audible, and he found them coming from a body on the floor between the beds. Lois was on the floor, clutching her head in her hands and groaning in pain. She looked horrible, her hair messy and her pajamas wrinkled badly. "Lois?" He asked with a shaky voice.

"Quiet." She replied in a whisper. Sprawling out on the floor, she hid her face from him.

"Are you okay?"

"Shh." She replied again, this time raising her voice a little. "Ouch." She said a second later, the pain of raising her voice taking hold.

Clark looked pitifully down at her. "Do you need any help?" He asked.

"No. Just shut up please." She replied, closing her eyes.

"Do you remember anything about last night?"

"No!" She said again, her anger rising. It caused her head to throb uncontrollably. "Just shut up." She ordered him, turning a deaf ear his way. She just wanted to lie still and let the pain go away.

Clark sighed again, lifting the blankets of himself and sitting up. Stretching his arms above his head and cracking his fingers, he slipped off the other side of the bed. He rummaged through his luggage bag and found what he was looking for. Heading to the bathroom, he filled up a cup of water and went back into the main room. He set a glass of water and two Advil beside her head. "Here you go." He said, standing back up and going back to his bag. He thought he could hear her muffled voice say thank you, but he couldn't be sure. Smiling to himself out of pity, he closed the blinds, darkening the room instantly. Again he heard her muffled voice, but he couldn't make out her words. With lazy hands, he slipped on a pair of jeans and grabbed a shirt.

He headed to the bathroom, to not only shower, but wallow away in the fact that she didn't remember anything. The next seven days seemed even more loathing by the second.

-

She must have vomited earlier since her stomach was actually calm. Another moan escaped her as she turned over and dropped the pills into her mouth. With the glass raised to her lips, she sipped the water down along with them, closing her eyes as she tried separately to cease the constant thumping in her skull. There was a knock at the door, but she dismissed it as her head pounding, but when it sounded again, she groaned in response.

"Lois, Clark?" Chloe asked from behind the door. Getting no response, she edged it open and peered in. Both beds were empty, her eyes scanning the rest of the room for their presence. Her eyes went wide as she heard the shower running. Her heart began to beat furiously as a grin split her morning features. Thinking that Lois might be in the shower with Clark, she tip toed towards the bathroom. On her way, she almost tripped over something, her hand falling to one of the beds to stay on her feet. There was groan from below, and her eyes drifted downward. Clark was in the shower alone, because Lois was lying on the floor between both beds, a glass of water lying sideways on the floor. The remaining water was flowing onto the carpet and dampening her cousin's tussled hair as it lay about in direst. "Lois?" She asked, bending down beside her.

"Chloe, is that you?" Lois asked, trying to turn herself onto her back.

"Yeah, it's me." She responded, wiping a streak of mascara from her cheek. It was puzzling why Lois still had make-up on.

"Help me up." Lois said weakly, reaching up to her cousin.

With a helpless smile, she lifted Lois up and sat her on the bed to her right. "You need a shower." She commented, smelling the sweat and alcohol on her."

Putting her fingers to her temples, Lois said. "Smallville is in the shower."

"Then you can use ours. Jimmy and I are both done." She replied, helping Lois to her feet.

"I don't know, I don't think I can make it."

Chloe shook her head as she slowly helped her cousin toward her room. It took almost two minutes, but she finally managed to get Lois into the bathroom. "Why were you on the floor?" She asked, helping her slacking cousin out of her pajamas.

"I'm hung-over." Lois replied, as if it wasn't unusual to wake up on the floor.

"I don't believe you. Tell me why you were on the floor." Chloe said sternly.

Sitting on the toilet, the top down, Lois leaned her head back and groaned. "I woke up and found myself in bed with Clark."

Chloe's eyes went wider than watermelons as her mouth hung agape. "You two didn't…you know?"

Lois groaned even louder and closed her eyes. "I hope not, because I can't remember a damn thing."

With a frown creeping in, she turned on the bathtub faucet and went to leave. "Can you get yourself into the tub?" She asked.

"I think so." Lois replied, beginning to undo the string on her pajama bottom.

"Good."

"Why?" She asked, looking over at her stouter cousin.

Chloe frowned deeply and said. "I'm going to have a talk with Clark, and see what exactly happened."

"Okay." Lois said weakly, slipping a finger into the warm bath water as she pulled her pajama bottoms off.

Closing the door, she blew out a heavy breath. The door next to her opened, Jimmy walking in with a bag.

"I got some coffee." He said.

"Not now Jimmy." She replied, her tone of voice sharp and demeaning.

"Something wrong?" He asked softly, drawing out a cup and handing it over to her. It took a second, but after he touched the hot cup to her bare forearm, she took it.

"Yes, and I need to go find out what exactly happened."

"What are you talking about?" He asked, taking out his own cup and throwing the bag in trash.

"Clark." She replied simply. Heading towards the adjoining room door, she looked back. "Knock on the door in about ten minutes and make sure Lois is still alive." When he looked puzzled, she said. "Lois is in our bathroom." Not bothering to see if he understood, she slipped into the other room and closed the door behind her. Throwing the curtains wide open, the light illuminating the room, she sat on a bed and waited for Clark to come out. She was going to give him a piece of her mind.

-

With his jeans and shirt on, his hair somewhat dry, he exited the bathroom. Instead of darkness, he was greeted with bright sunshine. He blinked a few times to get past it, and when he finally adjusted, he saw someone sitting on a bed. "Lois?" He asked, walking closer.

"No." Chloe replied.

"Chloe?" He was perplexed. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know Clark, but I sure hope you could give me some answers."

Clark fumbled his way over to the window and shut the blinds. He flicked on the lights for light. The early morning sunshine was reflecting off the snow outside and blinding him. "Okay." He said, slipping on a pair of socks from a standing position.

"First off, tell me why Lois woke up in bed with you?"

His eyebrows shot up instinctively. "What are you talking about?"

Chloe frowned at him and stood up. "Lois said she woke up in your bed. I guess she was spooning, or did you two do something I should know about. She was drunk Clark, I would never have thought you were the type-."

"What!" Clark cut her off. "What are you talking about Chloe? I went to bed by myself, and woke up to find Lois on the floor. If she was in bed with me it was entirely of her own fruition." As he let the words out, his eyes widened. He wondered how she had gotten into bed with him without knowing. "This makes no sense." He stated, slipping on his other sock and sitting on the bed.

"What do you mean?" Chloe asked softly, seeing that Clark was actually telling the truth. Her large alien friend tended to show his evasiveness when he tried to lie. Luckily he was a very open person around her.

"Last night, after I fell asleep, Lois crawled on top of me." He gulped loudly and looked to the floor, unable to keep his best friends gaze.

"She crawled on top of you?" Chloe was more surprised than before.

"Yes Chloe, she crawled on top of me."

"And?"

Groaning in frustration, he laid back on the bed. "I was sleeping, and she managed to turn me over and straddle my stomach." The memories were coming back to him, his neck going red in embarrassment.

"So?" Chloe asked, hiding her small smile.

"So!" Clark said with authority, clearing his throat in the process. "She kissed me."

With eyes wider than baseballs and a grin to match, Chloe sat down on the bed beside him. "What did you do?"

"Well, I kissed back."

"What?"

"I was dreaming Chloe, and I thought that I was still in my dreams, but oh god was I wrong." He ran a shaky hand through his hair.

She had come to give him hell, but she could tell there was so much more to last night that Lois could remember. "Then what happened?" She asked, egging him on just a bit.

Groaning again, he sat up and slouched. "After a few seconds I realized I wasn't sleeping, and I moved up against the back of the bed. She wanted me Chloe, she said so. I can't begin to tell you how much I loved hearing those words. I know you see me as honorable and gracious, but at that moment I almost slipped and did something stupid." He was feeling horrible about it, his head buried in his hands.

"But you didn't Clark. That's the important thing." She was trying to be reassuring.

"I guess so." He replied softly, his throat going dry.

"That can't be all?"

"It wasn't." He exclaimed, standing up and pacing. When he looked at Chloe, her eyes wide with anticipation and a small thin smile playing on her lips, he rolled his eyes. "I ran to the bathroom, trying to get a grip on everything."

"Are you sure you weren't gripping something else?" Chloe asked with a devilish grin.

His eyes went incredibly wide as he went redder than a tomato. "No, no, No!" He stammered. He began to pace even faster. "How could you say something like that?" He asked, running his hand through his hair again. When she simply smiled at him and laughed, he groaned and continued. "As I was saying, I was in the bathroom. I heard Lois crying, so I came out to see what had happened. She was hopelessly drunk, but I think you know that."

Chloe nodded and motioned for him to continue.

"She was in the other bed, crying to herself. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she was upset because she thought I didn't want her." He was close to punching the wall in frustration. His emotions were bouncing all over the place, but mainly he was angry that Lois couldn't remember anything.

"She was drunk Clark. I think we both know you're not one to take advantage of a woman who's intoxicated."

"Precisely." He exclaimed. "But she didn't see it that way Chloe. She saw it as rejection, and even if she was drunk, it killed me. I told her I wanted her too, but she continued to cry because I wouldn't act on it."

"There's more to it isn't there?" She asked, her eyes still watching him pace back and forth. Normally once Clark had spewed things out, he'd sit down in exasperation, but he was still walking around furiously.

"After I told her I couldn't do anything because she was drunk, she said that's why she loved me." He flopped onto the other bed face down. "She said she loved me Chloe. I know, she was drunk, but still, you have no idea what hearing those words come from her mouth felt like."

Not knowing what to say, she stood up and sat beside him. "What did it feel like?"

He moaned in pain, but managed to role over. "It felt wonderful, as if for the first time in my life a woman loved me for being me. I'm not her savior, her protector; I'm just a friend who got under her skin."

"Are you saying what I think you are?" Chloe asked with a lopsided grin.

"Yes!" He answered, his frustration at a whole new level. "And I'm scared, this isn't supposed to happen."

"Why not?"

Clark looked at her with bewilderment. "It's Lois." He said in defense.

"You point?" She asked, pushing him a little further. "Why can't you see yourself with Lois? It's obvious that you love her. Why can't you admit that?"

"Because then she wins." He answered, finally fed up with everything.

With a deep sigh, she stood up. "This is just some silly game you two are playing. You're putting yourselves through all this pain because you're both too stubborn and stupid to actually talk to one another. Sure, you're scared, but come on, grow a back bone Clark."

He stared at Chloe as she walked from the room and exited through the adjoining room door. Rolling over onto his stomach, he bit a mouthful of sheets, his frustration turning into pain as he groaned loudly for the hundredth time.

-

The rest of the morning had been awkward to say the least. Lois was hung-over; unable to walk quite straight as he had loaded the luggage into the back of the vehicle. The roads had all reopened, the plows working all night long to clear the snow off the roads.

Now the sun was shining, its brilliance bathing the parking lot and the vehicle as he drove to the front. Chloe and Jimmy were inside paying for the rooms, something he still wasn't comfortable about. He hated taking gratuities from others. As he pulled up to the office, he looked in the rearview mirror. Lois was leaning up against a window, her sunglasses on and a pillow resting between the cold surface of the glass and her head. It pained him that she remembered nothing, except waking up in his bed. Problem was that he didn't remember that part, so basically in her mind nothing significant had actually happened. To him though, it was a night he would never forget. Sighing, he slipped on his own sunglasses.

They had gone to the restaurant for breakfast, well, just Jimmy and himself actually. Chloe had gone right back to the rooms after getting Lois some coffee, leaving the two of them to eat in silence. He hadn't been sure if Chloe had told Jimmy much about what they had spoken of, but from the way the smaller man was glancing at him every once and a while, it wasn't much of a stretch to believe he knew something about it.

He spied Jimmy and Chloe coming back from the office. It always made him smile every time he saw the two of them together. Even in his own misery and pain, he could still take some happiness from the fact that his best friend had found someone who she truly loved. He wasn't a selfish person to begin with, but their happiness made him happy, and he hoped they would last so that he could take some solace in the fact that the week might not be too bad. Those thoughts disappeared as he heard a groan from behind his seat. Nope, it was going to be one hell of a painful week.