Chapter 5

After three days of fruitless searching, Lois was coming to the conclusion that Clark Kent had dropped off the face of the earth. There was no record of Clark Kent in any database she could access, and some she was not meant to access. Clark had simply left the Daily Planet that day and two days later had stopped using his credit cards, his bank account and closed down all his auxiliary bills. She was totally baffled, how does a person in today's online connected society totally drop off the radar.

The searching had given her a greater knowledge of Clark Kent. Until he left he had been a punctual payer of bills, had a very good credit rating and sent most of his salary to a bank account under the name of M. Kent at a bank in Smallville, Kansas. None of that had surprised her but what had surprised her was the payment to the Smallville account had stopped a couple of weeks prior to Clark leaving.

Further investigation of the Smallville newspapers had revealed that a Martha Kent had died just prior to the fund transfer cancellation. That information had forced her to sit down on her chair with a heavy heart as she realized that Clark had not shared his sadness with her and had kept it all bottled up inside. "How could he not have told me, I would have listened," she thought to herself. Getting up she walked over to Perry's office to confirm what she was already dreading.

"Hey Chief, did Clark ever tell you about his mother's death?"

"Hi Lois, why don't you barge on in, Oh you already have," he sarcastically replied before he continued, "sorry I missed the question."

"Perry, did Clark ever tell you or Jimmy about his mother's death?"

"No, Clark never spoke about it with me. Why?"

"She was killed in a car accident just before he left the Planet and I didn't know anything about it, I just wanted to know if Jimmy or you knew about it."

"I doubt he told Jimmy as there is no way that boy would keep that sort of information to himself, he would have told me. Plus Jimmy was going through that phase where Rachel and him were continually fighting and he was a very angry unpleasant boy" Perry replied, before he looked up at the roof of his office and stared into space.

After a couple of seconds Perry refocused on Lois. "I remember that Friday, Clark came to me and asked if he could have Monday off. I was busy so I just looked up and said yeah, not a problem as long as he had his copy in by end of the day. He replied that he would have it all done before he left. I distinctly remember looking up as he was walking back to his desk and thought to myself that he was looking more hunched and beaten down than I had seen him for a long time but I just shrugged it off as we were racing to get the evening edition out. I always meant to ask him if he was ok but forgot over the weekend."

"His mother was buried on the Monday," she replied before asking, "Where was I that Friday?"

"Lois, you had Friday off that week. Remember that was the week of the fire at Jason's school."

"Oh God, that was that week!" she replied remembering back to that frightening Thursday when the schools boiler had exploded due to faulty wiring and the main block had caught alight. She, like a lot of parents when they received the news, had raced to the school. She was expecting that by the time she arrived that Superman would already have made an appearance and everyone would be ok.

To her horror by the time she got there, the only heroes there were Metropolis firemen. There was no sign of Superman. Lois had quickly walked away from the crowd and said, "Superman, Jason's school is burning and I can't see him, where are you?"

Within a minute, Superman had flown in and quickly got the fire under control. He had found Jason and flown him to Lois. She had looked up into his face and asked, "Where were you? Jason could have died, what took you so long to get here?"

"Lois, I . . ." and then he stopped talking and a look of anguished pain crossed his face. He took a breath and then continued "Lois, I can't be everywhere, I wish I could be but not even I can save everyone."

"Jason, why don't you go and sit in mummy's car?" she had said to Jason as she put him down and watched him get into the passengers seat of her car.

"What is more important than your son's life?" she had demanded as she turned to face him. "Surely your son should be the most important thing in your life?"

"Lois, I would know if he was in real danger, everyone I love I can hear their heartbeat, I had to make a choice."

"Choice!! Choice, listen to me Superman the only person who you should have been trying to save was your son, no one should be more important than that."

"Lois, I can't do this now, I have to go."

"Fine, fly away but you and I are going to finish this conversation."

He had looked at her with such an uncharacteristic look of sadness that she felt an urge to ask him if he was ok but she was still angry for causing her to feel such fear that she simply turned away and went to see Jason. Not hearing the swoosh that normally accompanied his leaving she had turned back and for an instant, only an instant, she thought she saw tears in his eyes before he disappeared from her view.

Refocusing on Perry, she asked "Why would he not tell us when he returned, we were his friends."

"No Lois, I think you had it right. We were work colleagues to Clark Kent and that was about all we were with him . . ."

To be continued . . .