- - - Chapter Nineteen
I'm apologizing right now (lol, heartnut- guess I only got rid of most of my apologies…) for any answers to the questions that you don't like or that I get wrong. I don't know Superman's history incredibly well, so if I get something wrong feel free to correct me and I will come back and change it so it's right!
Things had arrived at a new 'normal' by the end of the following week. Clark flew over Jason's school on his lunch hour with Lois, both of them checking on him while he played at recess. The few times that he caught them he would scowl up at them, wanting to be left alone to play, and berate them at home. That didn't stop them from checking, though. Clark had finally come out of his silent streak. He wasn't his usual self, not joking as much as usual, and bumping into a few more people around the office without meaning to, but he was better than he had been.
Perry was extra careful with them for that first week, giving them time off to spend with Jason and get their nerves back, but then he decided they'd snapped out of it enough to get back to their old duties. He sent them to collect the questions for Superman two weeks after the originally scheduled time, and they were glad to have a distraction.
They spent the first half of the day in taxis traveling around Metropolis and a few of the larger suburbs, scheduling it so that they would arrive at Jason's school right at lunchtime and get to spend it with their son.
Jason was excited to see them, thinking they were there to take him home early when they arrived halfway through recess, missing eating with him but still getting to see him.
"Mom! Dad!" He called, running over to them from the playground to where they were bribing the taxi driver into staying put so they could leave the folders from the other schools where they sat.
"Hey munchkin!" Lois said, turning around and catching her son in a hug. "How's your day been?"
"Okay," he said, shrugging and giving his dad a hug. "Did you come to take me home?"
"Sorry, sweety," Lois said, chuckling; he'd been grumpy with them when they checked on him from above but when they came on foot he was happy to see them. "We're just here to get the questions for Superman."
"Oh."
"You got to write one, right?"
"Yeah, but I didn't."
"Why not?" It was Clark who asked. Jason just shrugged and looked up at him.
"Because I can ask you anything I want whenever I want," he smiled. "And besides, I couldn't think of anything."
"You kind of got them all out of your system that afternoon after Matt's house," Clark said, smiling when he remembered the questions.
"Yeah. I wrote down one of those to turn in, but… I wanted to ask when we're going flying next, but that's not something I'm supposed to talk about, so…" he shrugged again, looking sad. Clark bent down and picked him up. Jason was big enough that it would've been awkward for anybody else to hold his weight or to manage his legs, but Clark just happened to be Superman and more than capable of giving his six year old a proper hug.
"We'll go tonight after dinner, how about that?"
"Really?"
"Really, really."
"Okay!" He looked a bit happier.
"Now you should go finish your recess while we talk to Mrs. Peterson about rescheduling your conference," Lois said, shooing him away.
"Do we have to have a conference?" He asked, making a face.
"Yup," Lois said, smiling back. She liked to hear what her son was doing when he wasn't around her even if he didn't have any enthusiasm for it. "Have fun."
Jason didn't answer; he was already chasing Matt and Jenna towards the monkey bars. Clark smiled, Jason was already good at dealing with trauma and moving on, which would come in handy if he ever went into the family business. Journalism or being a superhero.
Mrs. Peterson handed over her thick folder full of questions with a small smile. "I think a few of them put in more than one after actually meeting Superman last week," she said with a shrug. She didn't like talking about the circumstances around their meeting of Superman, but she was glad to be able to say she had met him. "They were a bit excited."
"We've been getting a lot of that," Lois said, taking the folder and flipping through a few of the sheets of notebook paper.
"We should also reschedule Jason's parent-teacher conference," Clark said, pretending as though he'd just remembered. Lois closed the folder and nodded, looking up at Mrs. Peterson and switching from reporter mode to mom mode easily.
"Oh, you're the…" she trailed off, not sure what exactly he was, but Clark nodded anyway with a glance at Lois. She was smiling.
"Would it work for you if we just had it tomorrow night?" She asked, handing Clark the folder and digging her planner out of her purse.
"Oh, um," Mrs. Peterson walked around the (new) desk and pulled out her own planner, she had been staring at Clark trying to figure out what his title was or maybe where she recognized him from. "Yes, tomorrow will be perfect… right after school?"
"Sure," Lois said, bending over so that the planner rested on her knee while she wrote down the appointment.
"Thank you," Clark said, smiling at Mrs. Peterson and tucking some papers into the folder before stowing it safely under his arm. "See you tomorrow night."
"Yes, have a nice day!"
"You too," Lois said, following Clark out after the planner was safely hidden in her purse again.
They maneuvered slowly through flocks of children coming in from recess. Clark chuckled when he heard Lois complaining that it was like rush hour only shorter and less metallic. They saw Jason and waved goodbye when the flow of traffic wouldn't allow them to stop for long enough to exchange hugs. Jason didn't seem to mind not going home early, especially since he wouldn't really be going home so much as going to the Planet, a place he felt he'd spent too much time anyways. Clark's promise to take him flying later helped settle his dislike of school, too.
- - -
Lois and Clark had commandeered a conference room to spread out all the questions that had been written. Before they could even think of conducting the official interview, which they had promised to tape record so that the curious ears at the office could have something to talk about, they had to decipher the young handwriting.
Teachers seemed to have emphasized good penmanship on this assignment because it was mostly legible with a few extreme cases. All the questions had the first names of the child asking and the school that they were from so that they could be cited in the paper.
Two hours and way too many sloppily written questions later, they were finally finished sorting. They had put similar questions in piles together so that they wouldn't be asking the same questions in different words time and time again. It had taken some guessing, and a few dashes out to as other employees what they thought a particularly sloppy word or two were, but they had finally gotten it done.
Time for phase two.
Clark excused himself for the day, going to pick up Jason, and Lois gathered the questions they had chosen, all two hundred and thirty-two of them, in a folder and went up on the roof to flag down Superman.
Clark and Jason were waiting on the roof when she got there, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.
"That was quick," she said, glancing at her watch as she set the folder down on the ledge and searched her purse and pockets for her tape recorder.
"Front pocket on the purse," Clark said, but when she looked up his eyes were still closed and his face turned towards the sunlight. Nevertheless, he was right.
"We made a sonic boom, Mom!" Jason said excitedly. He was looking at his mother with sparkling eyes instead of enjoying the sunlight now. When she glanced back at Clark she realized that he was looking at her with the exact same sparkle in his eyes.
"Is it really safe for Jason to be going that fast?" She asked him, knowing it must be; Clark would never do anything to hurt Jason.
"Does it look like it hurt him?" Clark asking, knowing that she wasn't really mad at him.
"He looks fine," she shrugged. "I'm allowed to worry, aren't I?"
"Just wait till he learns to fly on his own," Clark's eyes were really dancing now, and Lois wasn't sure if she was looking forward to it as much as him. When Jason learned how to fly both of them would be able to leave her earthbound and alone while they saved the world… no, Jason wouldn't be saving the world at least until he was out of college if she had a say in it. She didn't reply to Clark's comment, just narrowed her eyes.
"So we have three hundred-plus questions to get through here, Superman," Lois said. "What do you say we get started… I think the gossip section is planning on sneaking onto the roof to get a peak, too."
"Well, we'll just have to disappear before they make it all the way up here," Clark said.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
"You were worried I'd want to pose for a picture?"
"'Course not."
"'Course not," he repeated, pulling the folder to him.
"What am I supposed to do while you do this?" Jason asked before Lois could click on the tape recorder.
"You can do you homework over there, honey," she said, pointing to a boxy-looking protrusion that could serve as a chair. "Just be sure to get our attention quietly before you talk so that we can turn off the tape… everybody is supposed to think you're off with your dad."
"I am off with my dad," Jason reminded her.
"True," Lois said, shrugging. "But nobody else can know that."
"I know."
"Let us know if you need help," Clark said, watching the boy walk over to the square and take a seat before emptying the contents of his backpack onto the cement beside him.
"I will," he said, his nose already in a library book.
"He came prepared," Clark said chuckling when he turned back to Lois.
"I think he's spent way too much time hanging out in the bullpen after school," Lois responded, shaking her head.
"That happens," Clark said, clearing his throat.
"Okay, so back to the interview," Lois cleared her throat too. They shuffled through the questions trying to find a good place to start.
"How about this one?" Clark asked, holding up a wrinkled sheet of notebook paper that Lois had had to rewrite the question in her own handwriting below the question the child had written.
"Okay," Lois said, grabbing the recorder and clearing her throat again before flipping it on. "So, Superman, you agreed to do this interview, answering the questions of the first graders from Metropolis and the surrounding area… why?" She asked, throwing a question of her own in to start partially because she really wondered what he had been thinking when he'd agreed to it, and partially because it was just a good thing to have at the beginning of the tape.
"Well, as evidenced by the video recently posted online, people are tired of hearing the answers to only the questions you feel need to be asked. Children can think of questions adults never would ask but would always be curious about, and it gets people like, what are they calling him now, the Lane Hater?" He asked. Many nicknames had surfaced for the still anonymous man who had posted his video the morning they had brought Jason home; most of them were not as nice as the Lane Hater.
"That among others," Lois said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Well, it gets people like him off your back, Miss Lane. You can write that I've come to trust you and the Daily Planet to publish what I say and what I do honestly and I don't feel that I need to talk to any other papers so long as that honesty continues."
"Thank you," she said.
"Of course," he replied. She shook her head at him, rustling the paper and holding up the first question.
"Okay, the first question is from Missy of Metropolis Elementary: What is your favorite color?" She glared at him like the question was the most important that could ever be asked and Clark smiled, fighting the urge to laugh at her.
"Blue," he answered, glancing down at the suit he wore. When he looked back up at Lois, however, his eyes were dancing with humor, remembering the colors from their first interview; she seemed to remember as well because she was blushing. "Most of the planet is blue; it's a very nice color."
Lois nodded, opening the folder and taking the next question off the top. "How fast can you fly?"
"I've never truly tested myself," he answered honestly. "I can go faster than the speed of sound but not as fast as the speed of light. Couldn't tell you the exact speed."
"Is Superman your real name?"
"No, my real name is Kal-El. That's what my parents named me when I was born," he smiled at Lois. She had tensed up when he'd started, thinking he was going to say that his real name was Clark. "Lois, you called me Superman in the first article you wrote about me…"
"I remember."
"And it seems to have stuck… At least I already had the shirt."
"Okay," she chuckled and reached for the next question, "Why is your suit the way it is; blue, yellow, and red with the big "S" on it; why not something different?"
"The "S" isn't actually an "S," or at least it wasn't when it was put there," he paused. "It's a Kryptonian symbol, it stands for the House of El and just happens to look like an "S," and that's just fine with me. As for the colors of the suit, that's just what they ended up being. No particular reason."
"Another few questions about the suit: do you wear it all the time? Do you have more than one? Why do you even have to wear a suit? Where did you get it?"
"Yes, I wear it just about all the time, not when I'm asleep. That wouldn't be comfortable. I have a few suits just in case something happens to one of them," his face darkened slightly. The only time he'd ever had to change his suit for anything other than cleaning had been when Luthor stabbed him and he'd had to leave the suit with his mother for mending. "And I do have to wear the suit. I have something like an aura around me so far as my indestructibility goes. As long as something is within half a centimeter of me it's indestructible. I would gladly trade the suit for jeans and a t-shirt if it didn't mean they'd burn up whenever I tried to help somebody in a fire or tear away from me when I break the sound barrier," he chuckled.
"I take it you learned this by experience?" Lois asked, unable to help herself; he had never told her any stories, just what had been on the tapes.
"Yes," he smiled. She motioned for him to elaborate with her hand, and he rolled his eyes. "My shirt caught on fire once, but the parts that were closest to my body weren't even damaged by the smoke."
"And where did you get the suit?" Lois prompted when he didn't start answering it right away.
"It was fabricated at the Fortress of Solitude, though I think it would be best if you didn't mention the Fortress. People might go looking for it and it's not exactly secure," his face darkened and Lois nodded in understanding.
"Okay," she said, she cleared her throat and continued, picking up the next question and stifling a laugh.
"Do you ever worry about wearing a cape?"
"What?"
"Have you ever seen the Incredibles?"
"Yes…" he said slowly, trying to find the relevance, and then it hit. He let out a laugh, one of the first real laughs since Jason had been kidnapped. "Yes, I have, and no, I don't worry about wearing a cape. I'm indestructible, so if it got caught in a jet engine I'd break the engine not the other way around. I'd have to deal with a lot of angry people if that ever happened, but…" he chuckled again. "No, I'm comfortable with my cape. It's saved my life before," he added more softly, looking Lois in the eye.
"Yes, it has," Lois said. "Moving away from your attire, what was Krypton like?"
"When?" He asked.
"I'm assuming Ashley of Miss Haily's Private School means before it was destroyed."
"It was very white," he said, remembering what he'd learned from the crystals, sad not to have memories of his own. "All of the structures were crystalline and pale. The planet was unstable though, so the cities were hidden underneath protective domes. I don't know much about it, I was very young when my father sent me to Earth. And again, I think it would be best if you didn't publish that part," Lois nodded. "When I went back it was a graveyard riddled with kryptonite. I almost didn't make it back," he admitted.
"Why did the Kings that came in the rock that landed in the park call you Lord El?"
"Because that's my name, or my father's name, at least," he said. Lois arched an interested eyebrow. "Krypton was governed by a council of elders of sorts. My father was among them and they were called lords. People were elected to the council, though, so the title would be removed if they were demoted. The Kings come from a monarchal planet, so they would assume that the title would've been passed down to me upon my father's death."
"Have you ever run into anything when you were flying? Like a bird or a plane?"
"No," Clark said slowly, Lois raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you didn't lie, Superman."
"Well, I didn't run into it, exactly… it ran into me."
"What?"
"A seagull."
"A seagull?"
"Yeah. I was just kind of flying about a week after your first article, and this seagull came out of nowhere and smashed right into my chest."
"Did it die?"
"No, it was only slightly concussed and very confused," they were both laughing now, and Jason was watching from afar, shaking his head. "I kind of held onto it until it figured out what happened and decided to fly away from the strange thing hovering in the air," he paused. "It took the birds awhile to get used to seeing a man flying through the air with them. I still scare them, but I avoid them, so…"
They both laughed for another minute before Lois managed to bring herself back to the task at hand. "Another flying question, what's flying like?"
"Well, you know that, Lois."
"Not the way you do."
"True," he said, tilting his head slightly to the side to look at her a moment before continuing. "It's like falling, only with complete control. Have you ever dreamt you were flying?" He asked, and Lois nodded. "Well, it's like that only real, I guess."
"So you dream, then?" Lois asked.
"Yes."
"Nightmares, too?" She already knew the answer to that question; she could always tell when he was having a nightmare and she'd had to wake him up more than once. The look on his face after he woke up from them was enough to break her heart some nights.
"Yes," his voice was a little darker. He had seen things nobody should have to see, and he had an infallible memory. He could never forget those terrors, even if the only way they managed to stay remembered was by resurfacing in his dreams. Lois seemed to realize this, and cleared her throat.
"Sorry."
"Not a problem."
"Do you like flying in the rain?" She asked, shuffling the papers in the folder; they still had a lot to go.
"No."
"Simple as that?"
"Well," he shrugged. "It's wet and uncomfortable. Hail is worse, I suppose. I usually fly above the clouds to avoid it."
"This one's Jason's: can you read books without opening them?"
"Yes, but it's not as fun," Clark responded as he had last time, smiling over at his son who was still deeply immersed in his library book.
"Do you have a favorite book?"
"To Kill a Mockingbird."
"That's a good book."
"I think so."
"How about your other favorites: food, movie, television show, song, beverage, place…"
"I don't get much time to sit down and watch movies or television, so I really don't have any favorites there. I'll eat just about anything," he chuckled. "I've swallowed bombs before and I must say I prefer anything to that aftertaste."
"What about songs?"
"I have a few," he shrugged. "I probably shouldn't say because that would be publicly endorsing the bands or something and there would inevitably be some sort of scandal or something pointless… I like the Five for Fighting song 'Superman,' I think they got it about right," he shrugged.
"And your favorite place?"
"Home."
"And where is that?" Lois asked, smiling because she knew the answer.
"Here."
"Metropolis?"
"Earth."
"Oh… Next question then, have you ever been to outer space?"
"I came from outer space," Clark said, raising an eyebrow. Lois held up the sheet of paper to prove that it wasn't her question. "And that's where I went when I was gone, back to Krypton… my five years of hell," he shook his head to clear the memories of kryptonite poisoning and the emotional devastation.
"I don't think that vocabulary is appropriate for an interview made of questions posed by children."
"Well it was," Clark said, sounding like a stubborn child.
"Fine," Lois said, glancing at their son, who wasn't paying them any attention.
"So, do you still have a space ship?"
"Yes."
"And it's just lying around somewhere?"
"No, I buried it when I came back… it didn't land very well, it would take a lot of work to get it back in the air let alone back into space."
"So you're stuck around Earth 'til you fix it?"
"Well, I'm stuck in this solar system 'til I fix it, but I'm not working on fixing it. I have no desire to leave this little blue planet ever again."
"You calling our planet small?" She asked, narrowing her eyebrows at him and smiling.
"Well, compared to a few I've seen…"
"How big was Krypton?"
"A little bigger than Jupiter."
"Hm," Lois said, filing the information away. "So good, not leaving us again, but… solar system?"
"I can hold my breath for a number of hours, and as long as I stay within easy view of the Sun I'll be okay out in space. It's not very exciting out there, though… just cold, and quiet. Which is nice sometimes."
"Which brings us to the next question; do you ever get headaches from hearing everything all at once all the time?"
"No," Clark answered simply.
"Oh c'mon," she said, turning off the tape recorder. "Can you be any more vague?"
"Well," Clark shrugged. "This is a Superman interview, Lois. People aren't used to hear me say more than one or two words, wave, and fly away."
"And isn't the point of this sort of interview to get people to know a little more about you? That you're not a complete alien who barely speaks?"
"Well, I am a complete alien…"
"You are not," Lois interrupted, looking offended. Clark's face softened into a smile.
"Well, you're probably going to just hear all these stories again when Jason hits puberty and starts getting his powers."
"Well then they better be good," Lois smiled and Clark rolled his eyes.
"You're sure I'm gonna get super powers?!" Jason asked, suddenly paying complete attention to his parents' conversation.
"Pretty sure, kiddo," Clark said, smiling. Jason looked ecstatic. "Not sure if you'll get all of them that I have, or just a couple, but you'll get them. We've already seen your super-strength, remember?"
"Yeah," Jason said, quietly thinking for a moment. "I hope I can fly. If I can't do anything else I want to be able to fly."
"I hope you can too," Clark said, and he meant it.
"We should get back to these questions," Lois pointed at the folder and Clark nodded. Jason already had his nose back in his book. Lois flipped the recorder back on and flipped over the next sheet of notebook paper, "Have you ever not wanted to be Superman?"
Everybody on the roof froze for a moment, Jason pulling his face out of the book to look at his father, and Lois holding the recorder stiffly in front of her. Clark sat still as a statue, pondering. "Yes," he answered softly.
"What?"
"Yes, there was a time when I didn't want to be Superman," he said more confidently. Lois waited for more. "There was a time when I was willing to, and did, give up everything to have a normal life. And then General Zod tried to take over the world," he was speaking slowly, deliberately, trying to get the tale across without giving too many secrets away. "That's why I was so late in 'coming to the rescue,' as it were… I realized that I can't have everything that I want. I have gifts and I've chosen to use them to help people, and I made a promise to do that. I've never regretted that brief, less than a week, of normality, but…
"There are choices that I have to make as Superman. I can hear everything, but I can't do everything. Sometimes saving one person means that somebody else doesn't make it and it's- difficult. There was a lot of guilt at the beginning when I was the one making those choices. I can hear the people grieving after I couldn't save someone just as well as I can hear calls for help," he said the last sentence softly before clearing his throat and moving on. "I had almost five years in a stasis pod recently to think about how it all works… when I came back the world had moved on, you wrote it in your own article, Lois," she cleared her throat nervously. "You really don't need me, but it's nice to be around," he shrugged. "I was back on Earth for almost a month before I came out in public. I wasn't sure if I was going to come back, maybe just live my life like a normal person, fly and pick up milk when nobody's looking," he chuckled. "But then there was that plane. There was nothing anybody, any human, could do. I'm the only one that I know of that can fly," he smiled, looking over at his son and adding "for now" in his mind. "It's in the odd occurrence when something goes wrong that you can't fix that its good to be here. I like to help, I like that I can help- sometimes I'd like a break, not a five year break, mind you, but I do get tired some days… to cite the Incredibles again, I'd like the world to just stay 'cleaned up' for once, but that's never going to happen. I won't be giving up anytime soon, though," he was smiling.
"That was quite the monologue, there, Superman."
"That's the answer," Clark said, shrugging. Lois paused before asking another question. The more she heard about the time she had forgotten the more curios she was to hear the whole story, and the more flashes she would get of it. She saw Clark walking out of a white crystal chamber wearing normal clothes and looking just like normal Clark, and wondered why the image made her chest tighten and her tear ducts clench. She turned off the recorder for a moment.
"You'll be telling me the whole story about Zod later," she assured him. He nodded solemnly and she turned the tape back on. "Okay, um, Heather, also of Metropolis Elementary, wants to know how Krypton was destroyed."
"The sun went supernova," he said calmly. "It was an old star, a red giant, dying. The scientists of Krypton were aware of what was happening."
"And they didn't do anything?"
"There was enough disagreement within the upper ranks, the council, that nothing was done. The council ruled that there was no danger, and they wouldn't allow anybody to speak of it and risk causing global panic. My father was a scientist and tried to convince them otherwise, he didn't tell the world, but he continued to try and persuade the council to change their minds; it didn't work."
"And so he sent you off the planet to save your life."
"Yes."
"Why didn't he come too?" Lois had long wanted to ask that question.
"He and my mother were ordered not to by the council."
"So they stayed and died?" Lois asked, astonished. "Don't Kryptonians have some sort of fight or flight mechanism? Save yourself when you can?"
"They had sworn an oath to the council," Clark shrugged. He didn't understand this part much himself, having been raised on Earth. "It's kind of a Kryptonian thing, but oaths are not broken."
"So you'll never break an oath?"
"I try not to," he said.
"Is that why you lifted New Krypton into space even though it could've, and almost did, kill you?"
"Yes," Clark answered simply.
"Well, thank you," Lois said, her throat was tense. Jason was looking at them again so Lois just cleared her throat and pulled out the next sheet of paper. "Where do your powers come from?"
"The sun," Clark answered. Again, Lois motioned for more information and Clark sighed. "I was born under a red sun, and then I was sent here to a planet with a yellow sun. My cells absorb the rays differently than a human's cells do; the red sun was so much weaker than the yellow sun that on Krypton my cells would've had to work a lot harder to get the things it needs from sunlight, like Vitamin D for humans, but the yellow sun is much stronger. My cells still work hard enough to absorb from a red sun, though, so the yellow sun overcharges my cells, in a way, giving me 'super powers,'" he said using air quotes.
"Note that Superman is using air quotes," Lois said, chuckling lightly. Clark rolled his eyes at her.
"Indeed I am," he answered before continuing. "It took awhile for my cells to adjust to the different light, I was very sick for awhile when I first arrived. Obviously, I'm doing a bit better now."
"Yes you are," Lois said, thankful for it. That could be why Jason was so fragile when he was younger, Lois thought, not noticing that Clark was waiting for another question. His Kryptonian cells were prepared for a red sun and they got a yellow sun. Makes sense…
"Next question?" Clark asked when Lois seemed to be lost in thought, staring at their son.
"Right," Lois said, moving on to the next one on the stack. They hadn't even taken a dent out of the pile.
- - -
It took the rest of the week to get the interview officially finished, and the weekend to get the article written. The reporters at the Planet were overeager to hear the tapes Perry had promised them, which Lois had grudgingly handed over after the article was complete. They played the tapes for what seemed to be the entire staff of the Planet, including the online reporters that never seemed to show their faces at the office. Clark had swept the place for listening devices, checking to make sure people weren't even recording his voice on their cell phones before leaving to get Jason so that he wouldn't accidentally give himself away by speaking at the same time his alter ego on the tapes was. The rest of the office was too distracted to notice he was gone, not that they cared that he was. Lois had wanted to come with him, but Perry insisted she stay.
The office seemed to be at awe with the ease with which Lois and Superman talked. Clark was right when he had said that nobody was used to hearing him speak with complete sentences. Georgianna from PR was even more devoted to Lois after hearing the recordings pressing her for details about the short, static-filled gaps in the tapes. Lois had explained that those were the times that he had had to run off to save the world.
"How come you never got him saying that he had to leave or something?" Georgianna asked. Again, it seemed like the entire office was listening for her response.
"He gets a look in his eye," Lois said honestly, "when he hears somebody that needs him. I always just shut off the recorder and went for coffee or something. I'd watch the TV and go back on the roof when he flew off from wherever he'd been needed and he'd usually be there waiting."
"And you'd just pick up where you left off?" Georgianna asked, prying a little too much for Lois's taste.
"Well, he has eidetic memory, and I had it all written down…" she shrugged. "He's Superman, he can do that, and I just tagged along."
Perry was ecstatic; so ecstatic, in fact, that he gave Lois and Clark the afternoon off the day the article was published. The following day, he assigned them to investigate the leaking of the footage of the events on New Krypton, a topic both of them were interested in learning more about. Jason's kidnapping had been swept under the rug, only mentioned briefly in the Planet, and the other major newspaper companies had followed suit out of respect for Lois, which had surprised her, to say the least.
Ha, got that done: thanks to all who gave me questions, it helped!