A Note From Lara: Well, after my pathetic begging on the tail end of last chapter, I have some serious gratitude of pay out. I know, I know, I sounded really lame and pathetic last time, but it definitely paid off. (Now let's see if you can keep it up, lol)

Thank you all for your many fantastic costume suggestions. There were so many great ideas, I had a hard time deciding which one I liked the best. One of my favorite suggestions was the Green Lantern, which came up pretty frequently. However, since Hal Jordan hasn't been introduced in the Smallville continuum, I skirted away from having Clark go as GL... But there was another suggestion, which I liked so much, and it seemed to fit so well with the costume I'd picked out for Lois, I just had to run with it. So thank you Shadow Rider for Clark's costume idea. I'd also like to extend gratitude to PeterPan Tinkerbell27 for inspiring Lois's costume!

Lois handed the cabbie her fare, and pushed open the door of the taxi. She smiled sadly. If Martha Kent's fundraiser had seemed ritzy, it was nothing compared to the costume ball thrown by none other than Lionel Luthor, himself. There was a red carpet leading right out to the street and everything.

She was so out of place here; she was just a writer for a second-rate tabloid. Maybe it would be different if she was working for the Daily Planet, but she wasn't. She was here for the Inquisitor. Lois would be lucky to get a quote from some other reporter!

But the photographers lining the red carpet didn't seem to know that, as flashbulbs went off in her face. Perhaps it was because the mask hid her identity, they'd want picture of everyone, just to make sure they didn't miss someone important. Couldn't they tell she was no one special by her less-than-glowing transportation?

Lois made her way up the stairs into the Regency Hotel, crossed the lobby, and approached the tall doors leading into the hotel's largest conference room. Some kind of glorified bellboy stopped her at the door. "Invitation?" he asked. Lois dug in her purse, and flashed her press pass at him. "The Inquisitor?" he sneered at her.

She pursed her lips, returned her press pass to her purse, and pushed open the door to the conference room. Her breath caught as she surveyed the room before her. The decorations Luthor had arranged for were... stunning.

The entire room was a paradise of gothic-style columns and facades. The room was seven stories tall, complete with six balconies overlooking the main floor, and strings of lights adorned every one of them. One wall had been lined with mirrors, making the room seem twice the usual size.

Spotlights in various colors had been concealed somewhere among the balconies and shone down upon the dance floor, and a massive creation of cut glass (or even perhaps, knowing the Luthors, crystal) hung from the ceiling. Massive fountains had somehow been installed strategically around the room, and a full orchestra was seated in a corner.

It was all incredibly excessive without being gaudy or tacky. She had to hand it to Lionel Luthor. He might be a complete scuzzbag, but he had taste.

Lois walked slowly down the stairs from the mezzanine entryway, to stand in the central area. She looked around uncomfortably. Originally, her plan had been to bring a date, but Chloe had convinced her that she'd have more fun solo. Lois swore in her head for listening to her cousin. It was alright for Chloe to say you could have fun alone; she had Jimmy.

Lois looked at her reflection in the wall of mirrors, and was surprised. She'd been in too much of a hurry upon leaving the hotel room to check the final appearance of her costume.

The white satin domino mask glittered with beading and sequins, and there was a simple silver circlet across her brow, highlighting the darker tones in her hair. Her powder blue silk gown was cut long with many layers of petticoats in a medieval style, but with long, transparent gossamer sleeves. The boddice was skattered with tiny white rhinestones, and over the silk of the skirt was a layer of darker blue tulle. On her feet were an incredibly expensive pair of high-heeled crystal shoes.

Lois was completely unaccustomed to being any kind of beautiful. Being perpetually attractive was for the Lana Langs of the world. But tonight, Lois felt... stunning. And unlike the woman she was impersonating, she could make her own way in the world. She was Lois Lane- strong, ambitious, and... beautiful. It was time for Cinderella to come out of her shell and take on the world.

Clark fussed at the string of black elastic holding his mask in place. It had become entangled in his fake ponytail. He hated masks, he always had. They were even worse than awkward formal parties.

But he was here on Chloe's advice, and her plan, which was sound; sweep Lois off her feet, then reveal that it was, in fact, her 'frienemy', Clark. It made him nervous, it was risky, but he was head-over-heels in love with her, and surely she'd never accept Clark just for... Clark. Maybe it was a little childish, all this subterfuge, but he wasn't sure how else to go about it.

His superhearing had picked up on Lois's heartbeat almost the moment she'd stepped out of the taxi. He listened as it drew closer and accelerated briefly. And then she was in the room. He stared at her openly, subconsciously glad that his mask disguised his gaze.

She was absolutely stunning, in a long blue dress, and her hair curled in a way that displayed her long neck and accented her perfect oval face. At first, he couldn't determine what her costume was. Then his vision zeroed in on her, and he noticed the transparent slippers on her feet.

Cinderella, then. It seemed almost fitting. But unlike the fairy tale, Clark mused, both the princess and the prince were damaged goods. Before he had discovered his love for Lois, Lana had very nearly destroyed him, and she was still so perturbed by her breakup with Oliver...

Clark almost rushed up to her immediately and spoke to her, but he restrained himself. He wasn't ready, not yet. It would be better to talk to her alone, at least at first.

The party had started at seven thirty, and most likely would not be over until midnight or later. He had plenty of time. At least a half-dozen times, he was asked to dance by various members of the opposite sex. As there was little else to do, he accepted, smiling politely but distantly at each woman who took his arm.

Finally, Clark deemed that enough time had passed to make his presence known. He glanced across at the wall of mirrors, examining his reflection in the mirror. The plain white mask that covered a large portion of his face was firmly in place.

He glanced around the floor, trying to spot Lois. Clark spotted seven Cleopatras, some three dozen medieval princesses, four or so angels, and several others scattered through the crowd, but there wasn't a single Cinderella in sight. Perhaps she was on one of the balconies...

Using his X-ray vision, he scanned each successive balcony slowly, but there was no sign of Lois. His heart twisted. Maybe she'd left already, and this was all in vain... Suddenly, he noticed that the sixth and tallest balcony had a portion that extended outside the building. There was a woman standing alone outside... and yes, it was Lois.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Clark supersped out onto the balcony. Lois was standing there, leaning against the railing and staring out across Star City. As he approached her silently, he noticed in amusement that she'd taken off the glass slippers, and instead stood barefoot on the cold granite floor.

"It's a beautiful evening, Miss Lane," he said, pitching his voice somewhat deeper than normal. He didn't want her to recognize his voice.

She whipped around, her long, dark curls swinging gently behind her. "Who...? How do you know my name?" she asked softly. Clark stepped up beside her, and leaned against the railing. "Don't you recognize me? We've met before." It was a risk, he knew, but he just couldn't resist.

She examined what little of his face she could see. He wondered what she was thinking. "You look familiar... but, I'm sorry. I don't remember." He smiled enigmatically at her. Suddenly, Lois was staring at his mouth. "Wait, though..." She glanced around to be sure no one else was looking. "I guess the Phantom of the Opera is an appropriate choice, Green Arrow." she whispered.

Clark smiled. "Not Arrow. Just a friend of his. That night in the alley, he'd asked me to stand in for him. The night before, he'd been badly injured stopping a convenience store robbery. Didn't want to leave Metropolis to fend for itself against some of its less than savory denizens, so he called in a favor from me."

Lois was silent for a moment. "Oh," she said quietly. "You're a pretty good kisser, you know." Clark raised his eyebrows. "Likewise," he replied, as suavely as he could manage. His heart was busy jumping around. She thought he was a good kisser!

Meanwhile, Lois was mentally beating herself around the head. Had she really just said that? It was so... so... Lana Lang of her. She'd never been that type of girl! It was time to redeem herself, to show this mystery man who Lois Lane really was.

"You know, you demonstrated some other pretty incredible... talents... that evening," she said. Clark smiled wryly, but inside all the alarm bells were going off. He had kind of hoped she wouldn't remember his display of unnatural speed and strength. But his secret was still halfway safe. She didn't know that it was Clark Kent behind the mask.

"You mean my powers?" he asked bluntly. "Yes. That was kind of what I was referring to. So far, I've got you pegged as incredibly strong, and faster than a speeding bullet. Anything else I should know about?" Clark grinned nervously. "Honestly, Miss Lane, I'd love to chat with you about this, but I'd rather it didn't end up on the front page of the Inquisitor, and I'd rather not talk here. Perhaps another time?"

"You know I work for the Inquisitor? Have you been keeping tabs on me?" Clark shrugged. "You're the one who threatened to unmask my friend on the front page of that particular periodicle." Lois nodded in understanding, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief. All this quick thinking to avoid seeming to know too much was far harder than Oliver made it look!

"Well, if you don't want to talk here we can leave, why wait for some other time? I'm tired of being here anyway," Lois said. Clark smiled. "Where did you have in mind?" "How about... there's a tavern near my hotel..." "Too public. Perhaps Greenland Park?"

Lois nodded, and worked to get her feet squashed back into the crystal shoes. "Why did I ever buy these torture devices?" she muttered to herself. Clark laughed softly, and she fixed her patented Lane glare on him. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace, but couldn't restrain his laughter.

Twenty minutes later, they were seated on a bench in Greenland Park. Clark supposed they must look odd- a masked couple in costumes. Cinderella and the Phantom of the Opera... if it were daytime, they'd be drawing stares. But he didn't particularly care.

"So, what exactly do you want to know?" he asked. Lois bit her lip, thinking. "Well, let's start with my original question: do you have any other powers?"

He nodded. "In addition to enhanced speed and strength, I have superhearing, and X-ray vision." Lois's eyebrows shot up. "I also have heat vision--" Clark focused on the trash can across the path from the bench where they sat. It burst into flames, and Lois jumped. "--And I'm invulnerable." Clark used his bare hands to beat out the fire.

Lois's mouth dropped open. "Wow," she whispered, "You are... amazing. I mean, you're just... super!" Clark shrugged. "I'm also supposed to be able to fly, but I haven't figured out how yet." Lois simply blinked.

After a moment, she recovered herself enough to ask, "So... what are you? Some kind of genetic experiment?" Clark shook his head. "No. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said. He might be madly in love with Lois Lane, but he wasn't really ready to tell her all of this yet. He'd hoped for more time to explain things to her.

"Shoot," Lois said, crossing her arms and raising her chin. He smiled. She got so defiant when someone withheld information. It was one of the things he loved so much about her.

"Fine. I'm not human." "Yeah, you know, I kind of figured that." Clark's heart accelerated. That sharp, snappy remark was just so... Lois. Would it be really wrong of him to just kiss her, right now?

With a tremendous effort, he wrenched his mind back to the conversation. "Well, yeah, I've got a friend or two who isn't human, but I mean, I'm really not human. I'm an alien."

Lois laughed. "As in a little green Mars-man?" she asked, incredulity written in the set of her mouth. Clark smiled. "Actually," he said, completely unable to resist seeing her expression, "I know a Martian. He was a good friend of my father's. And as far as I can tell, he's certainly not green."

"And you actually expect me to swallow this?" she said with a chuckle. Clark didn't reply. He simply looked at her. "Wait... you're serious?" Clark nodded. "Completely, Miss Lane."

"So... do you mind telling me a little about your homeworld?" Lois asked. He smiled. His curious reporter... wait, his? Who was he kidding? No man could really claim Lois Lane. She was completely untameable, yet another thing he loved so much about her.

"I come from a planet called Krypton. It was an ice planet, all snowfields and crystal. Our star was red."

Lois nodded. "It sounds beautiful," she said. Then she shook her head. "This is incredibly surreal, you know? Talking about some other planet with a bona fide alien."

Clark sighed. "I prefer the term 'intergalactic traveler'. Alien just seems so... accusatory. Like it's a bad thing. I used to think it was."

"And now?" Lois whispered. "Now? Now, I'm not so sure. I've been doing a lot of thinking," Clark replied, and suddenly found that it was true. His powers really were a gift. Not one he'd have chosen, if he could have chosen, but a gift nonetheless.

Completely unaware that he was having an epiphany, Lois rushed on, "So... you're friends with Green Arrow. As far as I can tell, he's just an ordinary man. Yet he's out on the streets, helping people. Sure, he sometimes crosses into very illegal territory, but he's all for the little guy, you know? But what about you? I'm sure I'd have heard if some superpowered alien was out there beating up criminals."

Clark looked away. Suddenly, he felt ashamed. He should be using his powers to help people. How had he never seen this before? It was so selfish of him to keep the use of his powers for when people he knew needed him. The rest of the world had problems and threats... things he could help with...

"Ol- Arrow has been trying to convince me to do something similar for some time. I guess I haven't done something like that because... I guess I've been afraid. What people would say, how they'd react to me. Very few humans actually believe in life on other planets, and with movies like 'War of the Worlds' and 'Independence Day'... It's hard to say how people would see me."

"You know, you have really low self-esteem for a guy who can catch bullets in his bare hands," Lois said with a smile.

Clark laughed. No matter how deep into depression or self-loathing he had sunk in the past years, Lois had always somehow managed to cheer him up, and she was still doing it. She'd always been like a slap in the face, like the one bright ray of sunshine in an eternally dark world. But now she was so much more than that. She was more like the sun itself than just something as insubstantial as a sunbeam. And he needed her every bit as much as he needed sunlight- probably more.

"Perhaps," he said, still chuckling. God, he loved her. "Well, Miss Lane, I should probably be going. You've given me a lot to think about."

"Really?" she said coyly. "I'm not used to being somebody's muse."

Clark raised his eyebrows. "Well then, perhaps we'll both learn something from each other." Oh god, had he really just said that? Not only did it sound completely lame, but he had no idea what it was even supposed to mean!

Lois's brilliant smile broke across her face. "Is that supposed to mean that we'll be seeing each other again?" Her smile slipped for a moment. "But, I'm going back to Metropolis tomorrow."

"Don't worry about that. I'm only in town for a few days myself," Clark said. "But then..." Lois sighed in confusion. "Then how will we get in contact?" she asked.

"I'm always around, Miss Lane." Oh god, another totally cheesy line! What was wrong with him? But Lois didn't seem to be disgusted with the lameness, as she most assuredly should have been. No, instead, she was gazing at him with a moon-eyed look that seemed very out of place on her face. Maybe the question should be, what was wrong with her?

She stood up, and he noticed that she'd taken off her glass slippers again. "Shoes bothering you, Miss Lane?" he asked as she struggled to push her feet into the crystalline shoes.

"Yes," she growled. "I don't even know why I bought them, they cost a fortune, and they're so uncomfortable-- Damn!"

Lois had put too much stress on the delicate slippers, and the left one had shattered. "Are you alright?" Clark asked, kneeling quickly before her to examine her foot. A shard of crystal had lodged itself in her heel, and it was bleeding.

"I'll be fine," Lois said hurriedly. "I can deal with this..." "Miss Lane, you're bleeding. Let me take you home," Clark insisted. He expected her to put up a fight. Lois didn't like taking help from anyone.

But apparently 'anyone' didn't apply to superheroes in their formative years, because she agreed with very little alacrity.

With no further ado, Clark picked her up effortlessly. Her heavy dress made carrying her awkward, but he managed quite smoothly. She told him the name of her hotel, and he sped off.

Seconds later, they arrived at the front door of Lois's hotel. Without breaking speed, Clark zoomed through the lobby and up the stairs. He stopped at the door to her room. "Wow," Lois whispered.

There was a brief silence, during which the pair stared at each other. "Um... Miss Lane? You're going to need a key." "Oh. Right."

Lois rummaged around in her clutch until she found her key card. She ran it through the slot, and Clark pushed open the door to the room.

He carried her into the bathroom, where he set her down on the counter, and knelt in front of her once more, examining her injured foot. "The cut's not too deep," he said. Very gently, he gripped out the shard of crystal and pulled it out. Lois's breath hissed out between clenched teeth.

"Sorry," he said, now applying a dab of disinfectant. He glanced up at her, then looked back at the cut on her foot, and cauterized it with his heat vision. The bleeding stopped, and he heard her suck in her breath.

"Did I... Should I not have... Do I freak you out?" he stuttered. Lois smiled. "No, not at all. I just wasn't expecting..." Clark stood up to face her. He was incredibly relieved to know that Lois wasn't going to be... weird... about his powers. The temptation to kiss her was incredibly strong, and they were barely inches apart.

Suddenly, the other shoe dropped off her right foot and shattered on the tile floor of the bathroom. "Oops," Lois whispered. She leaned forward an inch. He leaned forward an inch.

And then his courage ran out. He didn't want to rush this. He'd already probably dropped too much in her lap this evening, with the alien business and all. He pulled back.

"Good night, Miss Lane. I'll see you around," he said, and turned to go.

"Wait!" Lois called. "I... I don't even know your name! What do I call you?" Clark smiled, grateful that he had a nice, prepackaged answer. "The name I was given at birth is... Kal-El," he said, and supersped out of the hotel room.

--

Another Note From Lara: Okay, maybe not my best work. It felt kind of rushed when I read back over it, but there was no way to do this half-revelation without it being just a little awkward. I considered all kinds of scenarios, including various killer robots, plane crashes, and a hostage situation at the party, but in the end I decided that I didn't want Clark getting into any heroics (yet). So a simple conversation with his soul mate seemed best...