-1Chapter 10
Stress
Saturday evening - Lana's house
"…and then I came to," Lana said, "on top of a dead Genevieve Teague, with blood all over the crystal, and Lex coming in the door."
"So, let me get this straight," Clark said. "The last thing you remember is fighting, and losing to, Genevieve Teague…but when you regained control from…Isobel…Genevieve was dead."
Lana nodded her head and said, "Yeah, and Lex saw me with the bloody stone while I was right on top of her. Oh, one other thing I almost forgot: that tattoo I picked up in Paris disappeared sometime during the fight and has never come back."
"No more signs of Isobel?"
"Nope. Ding-dong, the witch is dead!"
"Yeah, but, she was dead to start with. Still, it's good she's gone."
"You're telling me," Lana said. "If she still had access to my credit cards, I'd have a closet full of hooker boots, leather corsets, and thigh-high stockings."
Clark rubbed his eyes quickly and said, "Nothing wrong with that."
"Oh," Lana said, "so you'd like it if I had a closet full of that stuff, huh?"
"What man wouldn't?"
Lana pulled her shoes and socks off, tucked the socks in the shoes, curled her legs underneath her body, and said, "Don't get me wrong, a little bit of that stuff can be fun to have around to wear for someone special, but that was the only kind of clothing that Isobel wanted to wear."
Clark's hands headed back to his eyes, as he said, "Maybe we ought to talk about something other than the 'evil slut's' fashion sense."
Now that I know about the hormonal trigger for his heat vision, Lana thought, teasing Clark could be a whole lot of fun!
"What's the matter, Clark? Don't you like 'aggressively sexy' women?"
"Oh, I do, umm…sometimes anyway, it's just that, if I'm going to be helpless to resist a woman, I'd like it to be because she flooded my mind with powerful emotions, not because she pinned me to the wall with magic."
"I'll keep that in mind," Lana whispered in his ear.
Summoning what remained of his self-control, Clark said, "As for your story, you were clearly acting in self-defense and, even though no one besides you, me and Lois will believe it, the death itself was caused by Isobel." Clark stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankles, and said, "Huh, I finally have something to thank Isobel for and she's not around to hear it."
"Thank her? For what?"
"Saving your life. I'd say that's something to give thanks for, don't you?"
"Oh, all right," Lana groused. "At least my ancestor was good for something."
After that, Clark and Lana spent hours just talking…about nothing in particular, but everything in general. The more time they spent together, the harder it became for Clark to leave, but neither he nor Lana was quite ready to make the commitment of self that each would have required to take that step.
After a lingering goodnight kiss, Clark drifted to his car and headed back to his hotel. He was in no hurry to get there, since sleep was still far away.
Who could sleep after a night like tonight? Clark thought, as he pulled out of the driveway.
Lana puttered around the kitchen for a few minutes, making sure everything was neatly put away before she dressed for bed. A set of pale blue pajamas made of a light cotton weave was perfect for the warm nights of late Spring in Kansas. The sleeves were short, but the pants went right down to her backless house slippers. The scuffing sounds of Lana's slippered feet on the stairway treads were the only sounds in her house as she came back downstairs to watch a DVD.
As she perused her movie collection, she started looking through her romantic movies and finally found the one she was looking for, at the back of the alphabet where it belonged. She slid the disk out of its sleeve in the 200-capacity carrying case, popped it into the DVD player, and pressed the play button on her remote. As the opening title sequence for "While You Were Sleeping" came up, Lana was searching her kitchen for some chocolate.
I thought I had an emergency bag of Dove chocolate candy in the pantry, but…oh, that's right, I ate that last week while wondering if Clark was going to show this weekend. Rats!
The only chocolate turned up by her rapid search was a canister of Nestlé's Quik powder.
It's the only chocolate in the house right now, she thought, so I guess a tall glass of Quik will have to do.
By this time, Clark was just pulling into the parking lot of the hotel. Partway across the lot, he pressed a button on his key fob that locked the car doors and activated the high-tech security system.
Clark took entered the lobby and rode the glass elevator up to his suite on the fifth floor. Like all other suites in this newly-built facility, his overlooked the central atrium. This was a security feature that allowed hotel security to watch a guest all the way to their room, and to keep an eye on anyone trying to steal from the rooms.
After changing into his drawstring, white silk pajama bottoms, Clark flipped through the pay-per-view choices on the hotel's in-room TV before turning it off and picking up the book he was currently reading, "The Brothers Karamazov" by the Russian master Fyodor Dostoevsky.
In the normal course of a day, Clark did not have much time for reading, but he always managed to sneak in at least fifteen minutes at the end of the day before he went to sleep, and on nights where sleep would not come, he read a lot more than that. Clark was always surprised by how much reading he got done that way.
The problem was, he was getting too much reading done these days. Sleep was more and more becoming a precious commodity. The stress of having to live up to his reputation as an award-winning journalist was an ant's pimple next to the Mt. Everest of stress engendered by the life and death choices he made everyday as Superman. When multiple emergencies required his help, at the same time, how was he supposed to choose who lived and who died?
Those he had been unable to save always commanded his thoughts in the wee hours of the morning, and, over time, the weight of these deaths was growing, growing to the point that Clark didn't think he could take it anymore.
His two nights here in Smallville had been his best sleep in many months. All Clark knew was that Lana was a balm for his tortured soul. He knew he could go on without Superman, but more and more, he was becoming convinced he could not go on without her. Within minutes, Clark was fast asleep, his head propped against the headboard, the lights on, and the open book laying on his chest.
An hour later, Lana was unable to keep her eyes open during the last part of her movie and finally gave up, shuffling off to her bedroom after shutting off her DVD player and TV.
Sunday morning - Clark's room
An insistent thumping sound brought Clark to his senses shortly after eight in the morning.
Who the heck is that? Clark wondered.
Not wanting to leave the bed, he x-rayed the door to see who could possibly be knocking at this unholy hour. What he saw was not going to make him any happier. Outside his door, sporting his ever-present bow tie, was Clark's very own remora, Jimmy Olsen.
Clark threw open the door and pulled the full-time photographer, and part-time Clark-worshipping sycophant, into the living area of the suite by his shirt collar, slamming the door closed behind him. Clark frog-marched Jimmy right in front of the white leather sofa and shoved him backward. Jimmy staggered until his legs hit the front of the sofa, which caused his legs to buckle and he fell back onto the sofa.
Clark stepped right in front of Jimmy, which caused him to tower over the slightly-built young man, and said, "What are you doing here, Jimmy? Did I ask for a photographer on this? Perry and I both know he was put up to sending me out here. He doesn't have any real interest in an out of the way town like Smallville. The only thing in Smallville that would have ever interested him died a long time ago."
Wilting before Clark's verbal onslaught, Jimmy fiddled with his camera case and said, "Well, I…I…oh jeez, Clark. Lois came back yesterday, and after she talked to Perry, she told me where you were. She said you were working on a 'hot' story and would need an ace photographer. I volunteered and she told me where you would most likely be staying. She was right too, Clark. She sure is smart." Seeing the impatience building on Clark's face, Jimmy continued, "I circled the parking lot and saw your Audi right off and the lady at the counter was so nice. When I told her I was here to meet my boss, she told me right where to find you."
She probably told you so you'd leave her alone, Clark thought darkly. I hadn't planned on getting up before the crack of noon. Now that the Energizer bunny is here, I'll never get back to sleep.
"Remind me to thank Lois for her thoughtfulness the next time I see her," Clark said, as he rolled his eyes. Her thoughtfulness in pouring salt in my wound by sending this fice dog after me will not be forgotten. Though, if she knew how much this lame assignment has come to mean to me, I think she would have held off. A joke is one thing to Lois, a chance like I have now is something else. She'd respect it, give me every chance to make it work, and, secretly, she'd cheer my every success. Best friends do that and Lois has been that for me for a long time.
"…and don't you worry, Clark, I brought everything I need for this assignment. I'm ready to go!"
"Okay, Jimmy, I'll see if there's something for you and that fancy Leica of yours to do. Give me a few minutes to get myself together and we can go have some breakfast, okay?"
"Whatever you say, Clark."