After waking from an inconsequential dream in which a friendly dragon taught her how to speak Italian while making grilled cheese sandwiches, Lois discovered she was still stuffed into one of the poorly padded seats at the airport, using her jacket wrapped around her purse as a pillow and wished she was back with the dragon trying to get her to say 'fettuccini' around a mouthful of sandwich. The dream was better than reality. In the dream, Clark had the potential to pop up and criticize her language skills; in reality, the only one likely to do that was her travel-buddy Richard White, and that just wasn't the same.
Richard was a whole new field of awkward. They'd met at the Sparrow, commiserated for an hour as strangers who meet in bars are wont to do—she'd just lost her writing partner, best friend, with no warning, and he'd just ended a two year relationship with a woman named Andrea—and ended up at his hotel. The next morning, she'd walked into the bullpen to see him in Perry's office, laughing and going over paperwork.
In an attempt to avoid the man she had soon discovered to be Perry's nephew, Lois had spent the next three days pounding pavement away from the bullpen, but it could only last so long. Richard had flirted the entire afternoon she'd spent at her desk, sitting in Clark's empty space. It took a half an hour to write up her travel requests and two minutes to come up with a 'Searching for Superman' campaign to feed Perry. It took Perry less than a minute to attach his nephew to her for the duration of her travels no matter Lois' protests.
It wasn't that she didn't like Richard White. He was very likeable. He was charming and polite, had a nice smile. He was kind, kept her tickets and paperwork in order while she stressed out about Clark and Superman, and spoke enough languages for them to navigate international airports with less than the expected number of bumps. He kept her sane, but she hated that she had to rely on him.
"Lois, you awake?" the man in her thoughts asked, appearing in her peripheral.
"Yes," she grunted, levering herself upright.
"Good. We have a spot out on the next flight. We have to get moving to the gate, though; it's literally the next one out."
"Damn," Lois put her jacket on and gathered her carry-on and laptop case. "No chance for coffee?"
"Not unless you want to wait for a different flight."
Grumbling, Lois followed him through the terminal. Richard didn't laugh, but his eyes sparkled when he glanced at her. The wall she'd put between herself and her travel partner melted a little at the sparkle. She even laughed when he complained about never having to wait in line to get on a plane when he was the pilot.