4.

"Thank you!"

Martha smiled cordially at the gaggle of press gathered before her then stepped aside, allowing Lois to take her place. "Okay, settle down, kids. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to me," Lois announced, pointing to a particularly anxious reporter in the front row.

Martha stepped off stage, touching Chloe's shoulder as she passed her. She exited into the hallway and immediately found Perry White leaning expectantly against one of the pillars in the main foyer.

"Well played, Senator." He grinned at her, tucking his pen into his jacket pocket and moving toward her.

Martha breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. I've spent most of my life avoiding the press."

"What's changed?" Perry chuckled, reaching her.

She smirked. "Not much." Putting down her purse, she reached up release her hair from the clip that held it up, as Perry watched with meticulous attention. "Sorry. This is making me nuts." It was shorter than he remembered, but just as dark, cut to about halfway down her neck, and had fallen in sporadic waves having been held back all day.

She hadn't meant for it to be so alluring, but her companion's devilish grin told her otherwise. "But of course, if the voters can agree on anything, it's that they cannot possibly take a female senator seriously unless her hair is neatly pulled back without so much as a fallen strand." She rolled her eyes at the notion. "Make no mistake, sexism still runs rampant in U.S. politics." She paused, studying him when she noticed his eyes were a bit glazed over and his mouth hanging open slightly. "Perry?"

"What?" He asked sharply, snapping out of it quickly. He had always known she was beautiful, he had known it for over five years, but before now – the hair combined with the moderately revealing outfit – he hadn't realized she was so…sexy. "Sorry. I guess I'm still not caught up on sleep," he lied, badly.

Martha grinned to herself, thinking he was a better journalist than he was a liar. Ironically. "So. Where are we off to?"

"Come on," he said, gesturing for him to follow her out of the building. "We'll take my car."

"You have a car?" She questioned incredulously. "In the city?"

Perry shrugged. "I guess you could say I'm sort of a hypochondriac. I have a natural aversion to this city's lack of sanitation."

"Fair enough."

Martha glanced back at Lois on the stage, still fielding questions from unruly reporters, then followed Perry onto the streets of Metropolis.

Once they had disappeared from the general vicinity, Clark's super speed landed him in the main foyer of city hall. He looked around, then followed the sound of buzzing paparazzi until he found Lois and Chloe, clearing out the room after the conclusion of the press conference.

"Clark." Chloe smiled, attempting to mask her surprise at seeing him as she walked his way.

"Chloe, where's my mom?" Clark asked with urgency.

Chloe frowned, then glanced over at Lois, who was walking toward them, looking frazzled and relieved to be rid of the chaos. "Where's the fire, Smallville?"

Clark ignored her, looking around the large, gradually emptying room for a glimpse of his mother. Chloe nodded to herself, having instinctively figured it out. "Ah. I think someone got my text message."

"I didn't have to." Clark shook his head solemnly. "I was watching the conference on C-SPAN."

Lois smirked. "I'm impressed."

"Where did she go?" He pressed them.

"Clark, you just missed her," Chloe replied. "She's having lunch with Perry White."

"Where?" Clark asked, and both girls could see he was ready to speed off toward their destination with but a second's notice.

Chloe reached forward and touched his shoulder, steadying him. "Hey. Relax. It's just lunch."

"Yeah, don't go trying to pull any…interventions there," Lois added. "She's excited about this. She couldn't get off that stage fast enough."

He sighed heavily, obviously distressed by the idea of his mother dating again. He walked over and sat down on the edge of the stage. Lois and Chloe followed, unsure how to react.

"You think she's really serious about this guy?" Clark questioned painstakingly.

Chloe shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, Clark. It's only been a couple of days."

"But she's happy," Lois observed.

"And Lord knows Perry's crazy about her," Chloe continued.

Clark looked up, still unconvinced but visibly comforted by this notion. "Yeah?"

Chloe nodded fervently. "Yeah."

"He's not going to hurt her, Clark," Lois assured him. "And if he does, I'll knock his block off."

Clark chuckled. She had no idea.

--

"You're fifteen miles over the speed limit!" Martha exclaimed, rolling down the window and watching as the signs quickly disappeared on the highway.

Perry merely grinned, struggling to keep his eyes on the road and not on her. "Well, I've only got an hour to get you back to Metropolis for that meeting, Senator, you leave me no choice."

Martha laughed, rolling the window up again to keep the sound of the wind from drowning out her voice. "Whose fault is that? You just had to take me to that little restaurant in Granville."

Perry feigned offense. "I thought you said it was worth it."

She reached over, placing her left hand on his arm and flashing him a genuine smile. "It was."

At her touch, he turned to look at her and found he could not look away for several seconds. "Perry," Martha said quietly, a knowing, slightly self-deprecating grin on her face. "Perry, you might want to…" She gestured toward the road ahead.

He shook his head and turned his gaze back to the highway. "You're going to get us killed lookin' like that, Martha."

She giggled, pulling her hand away and turning to look out the window. When her hand left his arm, he felt almost unnerved, as if he wasn't sure he could live without her touch now that he had experienced it. Embracing a sudden surge of confidence, his right hand reached out and took her left. She smiled, and didn't fight him.

"I miss this," Martha said quietly, with a faraway smile.

"What?" He asked.

"Happiness." She hadn't meant for it to sound corny, and he didn't take it that way. He knew how hard happiness was to come by as well she did. He squeezed her hand in agreement.

Perry was about to respond, to expound upon his own particular brand of happiness, that kind she had brought him in the past few days, but both were suddenly distracted by the billows of smoke pouring out of the hood. "What the hell…" They both sat up, pulling apart their hands, as Perry immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road.

He slammed the door shut upon stepping onto the concrete and approaching the hood. Martha exited the car more meticulously, warily moving toward the source of the seemingly endless smoke. Perry opened the hood, the excess smoke practically causing him to topple over. Martha waved away the smoke as she moved closer, gesturing for him to step aside.

"What are you doing?" He questioned, utterly confused.

She looked back at him incredulously. "I've lived on a farm for the last twenty-seven years. I know my way around an engine."

He couldn't help but smile. That was certainly a side of her he could never have predicted seeing. Stepping back a bit, he waited for her to perform her investigation and come to him with her diagnosis. After a few minutes, she stepped to the side, where he stood, and coughed a little from the smoke. "Well."

"So what's the word?"

Martha sighed, blowing the hair out of her face. "I don't have a clue."

Perry burst out laughing, causing her to chuckle as well. "Well, you sure had me fooled."

She flashed him a sheepish half-smile. "Truth be told, I was usually standing to the side handing Jonathan the tools when he asked for them. Or just providing my usual brand of charming conversation," she quipped with a self-mocking tone.

"I would expect nothing less," Perry replied, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. "Triple-A."

Martha nodded, walking around to the back of the car. He followed, waiting for his insurance to pick up on the other line. "May I?" She questioned, gesturing toward the trunk.

"Be my guest." He watched with amusement as she hoisted herself up onto the trunk, crossing her legs daintily, looking around for rescue as if they had been shipwrecked. "Uh, hello? Yes. This is Perry White."

Martha tuned him out as he spoke to Triple-A, wondering why she wasn't more distressed about this. Normally she would be slightly frantic, anxious to solve the problem once it had been located. But now, sitting on the trunk of Perry White's '97 Taurus, leaning back with her palms on the surface, she felt completely calm, almost as if she were on vacation at a little-known hideaway on the East Coast. After a few minutes, with Perry still on the phone negotiating to get a tow truck, Martha realized that was little to no chance she would make her meeting with City Commissioner at four. Perry took a few steps in the opposite direction, to keep from accidentally yelling in her ear as he continued "negotiating," and Martha took this time to phone Lois.

"Hi, Lois." She plastered a fake smile on her face, even though she knew Lois wouldn't see it. "Do you think it would be possible to reschedule the City Commissioner? No, everything's fine. We just ran into a little glitch. Where am I? Uh. Well, we uh…broke down on the side of the expressway. No, no, we're fine. Triple-A's on the way." She glanced uncertainly over at Perry, still on the phone. "I hope. Yes. I'll call you as soon as we make it back to civilization. Okay. And Lois? Whatever you do, do not tell Clark about this, all right? Thank you. I'll talk to you later. Bye bye."

As she dropped her phone back into her purse, Perry flipped his phone shut and approached her, frustrated. "We're looking at least an hour."

She nodded. "I figured."

"You're going to miss your meeting," he admitted, obviously feeling guilty. "I'm sorry."

Martha chuckled, hopping off the trunk. "Hey, unless you had this whole thing planned all along, you've got nothing to be sorry for." She stood before him, looking up – he was not quite as tall as her husband had been, but still enough that she would have to stand on her tiptoes to be eye level with him. She smiled warmly, adjusting his tie as she had always done for Jonathan. "Commissioner Floyd isn't going anywhere."

He beamed at her. No one had fiddled with his appearance in years – no one had cared enough. He placed one hand over hers, both hands resting on his chest, and with his other, he pulled her in closer. She felt a little piece of her start to melt.

"You know something?" Perry asked softly, his smile widening when he saw how innocently and expectantly she looked up at him. "I could flat fall in love with you, lady."

Martha felt her breath catch in her throat, and she blinked back the tears that were gathering in her eyes. Tears caused by three years of inexperience, three years of loneliness, three years harboring very little hope. Her right arm slid up around his neck, pulling him closer as their bodies pressed against each other. Their lips mere centimeters apart, she raised a challenging eyebrow. "I'm going to hold you to that, Mr. White."

All at once, their lips had met, their arms tightened around each other, his fingers running through her hair, her high heels running up his pant leg. Right there, on the side of the road. He couldn't get enough of her – his hand slipped up under her jacket, and when their lips parted briefly refill their lungs with air, he ran his fingers over her lips gently, admiringly, before lurching forward to devour her again.

It wasn't until an impeccably well-kept Porsche pulled up alongside Perry's green Taurus that they were aware of where they were. The owner of the enviable foreign car stepped out of the driver's seat, the slam of the door causing the couple to break apart.

He pulled off his sunglasses, a scandalized grin spreading across his face.

"Mr. White. Mrs. Kent. What a surprise."

--

TBC.