Usual Disclaimer: Standing on the shoulders of Giants, Men can see far. Anyway this story is inspired by a host of sources, most notably Superman Returns. I hope that I'm doing all the characters justice. Trish is referenced courtesy of Speakfire.

"Where have you been, Clark?" Lois asked, standing up from her desk. It was a few minutes past nine and Perry had just called Richard into his office. She walked over toward him.

"Oh, hi, Lois." Clark took off his fedora hat and casually tossed it up over his head and directly onto the hat rack that stood near the entrance to the bull pen.

"I thought you were already training to be an Editor the way you've been coming in early all week." Lois casually socked Clark in the shoulder.

Clark nervously backed away. Taking off his long coat, he reflected that this place just wasn't the same without Chloe. He wondered what had become of her.

Of course when he'd been here with Chloe, she'd worked in the basement, close to the printing presses, not up here in the bullpen. Clark hung his coat up below his hat. "Oh, this morning, I was out gathering facts on the recovery efforts around the city following the earthquake week before last.

"It seems that Superman helped out with clearing the rubble. And now the city's building inspectors are all working overtime checking foundations and plumbing and everything else. Apparently the Department of Public Works has flown some inspectors out from Los Angeles and San Francisco. West Coast inspectors know more about the sort of structural damage they need to try to find in iron work inside the skyscrapers. It seems that many of the structural improvements made after Dark Thursday years ago held up quite well. It will all be in my article."

"Oh," Lois was thoughtful for a moment. "You finished up our serious story on the black out and now you're doing a bunch of feature work, hmm?"

"Yup." Clark smiled in his semi-confident milquetoast way. "It seems to be what your uncle-in-law, the Editor-in-Chief, wants me working." He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. "I think my next one is going to be on private elementary schools, and the pressures parents put on their kids to succeed so early."

"Hmmm." Lois looked in Clark's direction but she wasn't seeing him turn away and start toward his desk. Her mind was miles away and years in the past. "What do you remember about General Zod?"

"Oh him?" Clark froze. "Why are you bringing him up? He turned slowly back around to face Lois. "Didn't Superman finish Zod off once and for all years ago, before I left to see the Lamas in Peru?"

"I saw something Richard was working on. Apparently the Man of Steel bared his soul to Richard about the whole thing," as Lois commented on Richard's conversation with the Man of Steel, looks of relief and jealousy fought to control her face. "And I just can remember it. Any of it. I remember doing that dorky expose in Niagara Falls for Perry and then nothing until the astronomers with Hubble Space Telescope reported sighting Krypton. According to the datelines in the Daily Planet that was about four days later."

"Well, gee, Lois," Clark pointed straight up in the air at an angle with his right index finger, "That was what, five and a half years ago? Why worry about four days from five years ago? And don't you have to decide what to wear to the Pulitzer Ceremony tonight?"

"No actually, I don't." She turned and grabbed her dress bag from where it was hanging on the cubical wall. "I'm wearing a dark purple neo-classical Grecian dress, with a cream colored sash." Lois partially unzipped the bag and showed Clark part of the dress. "It's just like what Diana's wearing. Except hers will be a very deep red, deeper even than Superman's cape."

"Just like Diana Princess of the Amazons?"

"Yup."

"Wouldn't that be a fashion faux pas?"

"Maybe. But it's what she and I have done every time we're in public together since I met her. She's Jason's godmother, did I ever tell you that?"

"Really?" Clark looked amazed and aghast all at the same time. "Who's his godfather, Bruce Wayne?"

"Close. It's Wayne's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Apparently, Richard's father worked with Alfred and my father during their mutual covert operations days, years ago."

"You don't say." Clark looked perplexed like his whole world had gone pearshaped.

"I do say, scouts' honor." Lois saluted. "And did I tell you who his father is?" She whispered and curled her finger indicating he should come closer.

Clark came closer.

"His father is," Lois whispered even softer this time, "Superman." The last word came out barely as a breath but Clark could have read it on her lips even without super hearing.

Clark froze. He turned pale. He looked like he was going to throw up.

Lois burst out laughing. "Oh Clark, the look on your face was priceless."

But Clark wasn't looking at her anymore. His attention was riveted to one of the monitors were a scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was talking with another from the Space Agency's Very Large Array. They were discussing a computer virus that seemed to have infected their computers after processing the message the radio telescopes in the Array had pulled down apparently from Krypton.

"So, Clark, when are we going to talk? You disappeared on me the other day when you went to Trish's school."

"I took the train, Lois. It has wifi now. I brought my laptop. I had to work."

"Well?" Lois stood there flashing her 750 Watt smile, with fists on her hips and elbows straight out.

Clark was grabbing his coat and hat, "Lois. I have to go. I have to see a man about a house."

"You'll be back for the ceremony this evening, right?"

"Of course. I'm signing a lease. Not buying. Not yet anyway." And with that Clark scooped up his Blackberry and walked to the elevator.