HOPE Y'ALL BEEN WATCHING SUPERGIRL CUZ GODDAMN IT'S MY FAVORITE MARTIAN!

Chapter Six: The Story Comes First

As human as Clark wasn't, it was still a shock to hit the icy water and it startled the breath out of him. Weighed down by a heavy coat and his own mass, he sunk well below the surface very quickly before his body straightened out, fighting the drag of his clothes and his lack of buoyancy. He'd always had to fight to stay afloat. He had been the heaviest of all his friends. He had mused once that he had a greater bone or muscle density than most humans, leading him to think that his alien species had evolved on a planet with higher gravity than Earth.

Wait, why was he coming back to that now?

Dammit! Focus!

His chest was straining already. He hadn't gotten a good breath of air before sinking and some of it had escaped in bubble-form. His first instinct was to pop his head back above the water and get a lungful of fresh air, to replace what had been startled out of his lungs.

But then he remembered Lois. Her hands were still bound and she had left a lot more skin exposed than he had. If numbness was already biting into his fingertips, then it must have been worse for her. At this temperature, it wouldn't take long for hypothermia to set in.

The lake water wasn't clear, but his eyes were much more sensitive to light and it was easy for him to pick out the other reporter's form, falling slowly through the water. Lois had sunk below him, but she was trying to swim, trying to coordinate her legs in a mermaid kick and flail her bound arms in an approximation of a swimming stroke. But it was a shuddery, jerky movement that wasn't getting her anywhere.

Through the water, he could hear her heartbeat pounding frantically and the strained groans she tried to hold her breath, though there wasn't much air in her lungs to begin with. Strange, it almost looked like she was glowing faintly, tendrils of red limming her torso.

Clark wondered if he was seeing the body heat leaving her.

I need to get her out of the water. It's too cold and she's bleeding body heat like a punctured artery.

Clark dove towards her with a burst of speed and power that would have matched a dolphin and seized the dark-haired woman around her chest, under her arms, and broke the chain of the cuffs with just two fingers. Lois had sunk below him more than ten feet, but fifteen feet to the surface was nothing to Clark. He oriented himself and pushed back towards the surface. He sacrified discretion for speed. With any luck, Lois would be just disoriented enough that she would just believe that he was a strong swimmer.

And he was, kind of.

They both broke the surface with great, heaving gasps, like iron bands had been lifted from their chests. The air was stinging to every exposed surface and Clark felt it prickle all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. Lois was shivering obviously now, spitting water out of her mouth. Her hair was completely plastered to her face, shining black in the pale October sunlight. She jerked spamodically under his arm, her arms and legs curling inwards in an instinctive effort to preserve body heat.

"Ms. Lane?" Clark inquired, pulling her a little closer. His body temperature was higher and he wasn't losing heat as fast. He looked around, wondering if it would be okay to try and fly back to dry land. He could always tell her that she had passed out.

"Hey... Smallville..." Lois gasped, spitting her hair out of her mouth too. Her teeth were chattering and he almost didn't hear the chug-chug-chug of an old engine propelling a boat towards them (the speedboat and its thugs were long since gone).

"Are you alright, Ms. Lane? Or is that an obvious answer?" Clark amended quickly.

"O-Obvious." Lois nodded, her head drooping back onto his shoulder. "Y-You asked why I... wasn't worried? Earlier?"

"About getting dumped in the lake, you mean?" Clark glanced over his other shoulder to see the position of the boat. It was definitely angling towards them and if he squinted, he could make out the grim-like but determined features of its captain. He started to swim, a little awkwardly, in the boat's direction. The sooner they got out of the water, the better.

"Yeah... Totally had a p-plan... Wasn't worried... 'Cause I knew ya wouldn't let me down..." Lois replied, grinning. If it wasn't for the fact she was soaked all the way down and shivering, turned so she could take advantage of his body heat, he could have believed it.

Clark wasn't sure whether to smile or frown. The reply did fall under Lois's assumed penchant towards looking out for number one, but at the same time, it showed a hint of selflessness and he could see a glimmer of what made her a good person. And maybe the sports columnist and everyone else weren't completely right about the sort of person she was.

"Didn't wanna g-get you killled- on your first d-day anyways..."

Clark smiled.

"At least I'll never forget it. It's been a hell of a first day already." he pointed out.

"Ain't o-over yet."

He looked for the boat again. It was coming up as fast as it could, but it was still too far out to reach at normal swimming speeds.

"Ms. Lane, I need you to do something for me."

Lois spat out her hair again. "S-Sure, since yer warm. What?"

"Keep talking. Stay awake." he requested. "There's a boat coming for us, but it's still a little ways out... I don't think it's Coast Guard though..."

"Bibbo." Lois said.

Clark blinked. "What?" He hoped that wasn't hypothermia setting in.

"Bibbo. I know 'im. Ev'ryone calls him 'Bibbo'." Lois elaborated. "Saw the r-rusty hunk earlier... He's good p-people."

"How did you meet him? Clark asked, in the interest of keeping her aware until they were out of the water and some place warmer.

"B-Boating lessons. Was fourteen an' my English was crap. Th' General didn't make me s-speak it enough."

"So you're bilingual?"

"German too."

The chugging boat slowed down and the displacing waves rolled over them. Clark had to tread the water a little more vigorously to keep the waves from swamping them. The boat's captain was hurrying out of the cabin. The boat was an outrigger fishing trawler christened "Ace o' Clubs". It was patched with rust, it hull bearing dents and scratches, and frankly, the whole tub looked like it was about to sink with nary a bubble. But Clark knew, with a certainty that he couldn't place, that the trawler was more water-worthy than it seemed.

"I can speak a little bit of German. Just a little bit, though." Clark told her. He had picked up bits and pieces of a lot of languages on his tour of the Eurasian continent. Tourist phrases, mostly, and a little from just listening to the locals talk.

Lois rattled off something between her chattering teeth that sounded like German but also curiously French. Needless to say, it wasn't Standard German and was rather unintelligible.

"I don't think I can speak that German."

"L-Local dialect, Smallv-ville."

A life-ring was Frisbee'd into the water just a yard away from Clark's position, tied to the boat with a rope. He lunged over to it and hooked his arm through the center hole, and then looked up at the face of Bibbo as the man began to tow them in. Squinty-eyed, mostly bald under his boat captain's cap, and with a physique that couldn't decide if it wanted to be muscular or overweight, he could have been the illegitimate child of Pop-eye the Sailor Man and the Sea Captain. But his face was open and friendly, prone to a lot of smiling, broad and toothy.

"'Ey, Miz Lane. Howdy do." Bibbo greeted them with surprising jovility, like he hadn't just pulled two sodden reporters out of the freezing waters of Lake Superior. He helped them over the side of the boat and Lois's legs all but crumpled under her.

"H-hey, been b-better." Lois replied, her teeth chattering.

Bibbo produced two scratchy wool blankets for them, unfurling one of them to throw over Lois's shoulders since she was visibly suffering worse for the cold. Clark accepted the other and wrapped himself in it gratefully.

"Youse lucky I saw ev'rything, Miz Lane." Bibbo admonished, like a concerned uncle. "That was stupid."

"An-Anything for the story. You know th-that." Lois reminded him. "Playing teacher to the n-new guy. H-Had to show him the ropes." she added. "This is Clark K-Kent, from Smallville."

"Pleased to meetcha, Mister Kent." Bibbo said, sticking out his free hand. It was stained with mustard, cold and clammy, but the handshake was friendly. "Howse you likin' the Planet?"

"It's a good atmosphere to work in." Clark hedged.

"H-He's lying. He was there like, half an hour." Lois translated, hitching the blanket up around her ears. "He don't know sh-shit about that mad-house."

"And we need to get you out of the cold." Clark told her, moving to stand so he could help her up. Blanket or no, they were both soaked to the bone and even the cold air would get to Clark in the long term, if he stayed wet.

"Hey, you look f-fine." Lois pointed out, giving a scowl.

"Nah, youse don't argue now. Youse need to get inside, Miz Lane." Bibbo agreed, helping Clark heft the reporter to her feet. Her legs wobbled and she grabbed reflexively at the more solid form of Clark. The blanket wasn't long enough to cover her legs all the way down, leaving them exposed to the wintery air and shivering much worse than the rest of her.

"Sorry about this." he said, then scooped her up into a bridal carry, blanket and all. Lois let out squawking noise, but otherwise didn't protest. He turned back to Bibbo. "Can you take us back to the docks, please? In Hob's Bay, not-"

Bibbo was already nodding. "Drop youse guys off on Hell's Gate,'kay Miz Lane?"

"Ooh, we can get c-coffee." Lois grinned. Hell's Gate Island was fine with her.

"Sure, we can get coffee." Clark agreed.

Bibbo started his return trip to the command deck and Clark carried the still-shivering woman carried into the cabin underneath (he ignored how he nearly tipped over on the lake swells).

It was clear at a glance that Bibbo lived out of this boat. The cabin wasn't much warmer (there was a space heater) and it smelled like a combination of grease, Vietnamese take-away, deodorant, and laundry that needed to hit the wash cycle, but it was out of the wind and there were no drafts. There was a hot plate and a rack of books to go with this year's calendar as the only decoration. Bibbo kept it tidy and somewhat Spartan.

"Ms. Lane, I'm putting you down." Clark told her.

"Y-You don't have to." Lois protested, but it was half-heartedly and she was already being lowered onto the neatly-made bunk. Clark sat down beside her and let her curl up against him.

"You're a f-furnance, Smallville." she told him, all but hugging him. "Must be awesome on w-winter nights."

"The dogs thought so." Clark agreed. Having been rebuilt following the Tornado of '84, the Kent farmhouse wasn't as subjected to nearly as many drafts as the old incarnation, but the current set of canines, Dusty, Hubble, and Krypto, had decided that the only acceptable place to spend the winter nights was snuggled up to Clark.

"Then you have smart dogs." Lois nodded. Her shiverings were starting to abate and the chattering teeth had stopped. "D-D you mind me clinging like this? You're just really, really warm."

Clark shook his head. "No, it's fine. I have a higher tolerance for cold." he said, shrugging. He leaned over to start poking buttons on the space heater until it came on with a hum and a draft of luke-warm air. "If I asked you not to do anything stupid like that again?..."

Lois snorted. "Not happening. That's how I get my stories. When they try to kill me, that means I'm on the right track." she said. "You saw Planet Colon back there, didn't you? He's involved. That must be the m-meth lab. We tell the police and I get the story up on the front page and the city gets their urban renewal underway."

"But that was a gamble, Ms. Lane. You had no idea if those guys would actually let me go." Clark pointed out. If these were the kinds of risks she took to get the story, then it was no wonder that people thought she was crazy. That people accused of her just looking out for number one. Of course she was looking out for number one. There was no one else doing it for her.

"I know..." Lois nodded. "But we're not dead, so it's a win-win-win all the way around." She grinned. "And that's why I know people like Bibbo Bibbowski."

She said the name so fast it sounded like dribble.

Clark blinked. "Blibble what?"

"Bibbo Bibbowski." Lois repeated, taking care to enunciate this time. "Good guy, little absent-minded, but he sees everything. Make friends, Smallville. Make friends with everyone." she advised.

Clark suddenly became very aware of the fact that Lois had molded herself to his side in the name of getting warm again, her hands fisted tightly in the folds of the wool blanket. His arm was tucked around her shoulders, his hand pressing in just under her armpit. They were squeezed so close together there was hardly an inch of breathing room between them.

Clark felt a blush of heat crawl all over his face and down his neck. It wasn't like they were in a compromising position, but this was probably the closest he'd been to a woman, physically, in quite a few years. And Lois was- er... Firm. Firm in all the right ways. Taut. He could feel the muscles under his hand quivering with small shivers.

"Smallville?"

"Yes, Ms. Lane?"

"We just dodged a murder attempt by a drug cartel and we're going to live to tell about it. I think this is the part where we make out like a pair of horny teenagers."

"Say what?!"

For a gut-wrenching second, Clark could see it happening. Right there, right on Bibbo's tidy bunk in this oddly smelling room, Lois stripping off his shirt and pants and taking hold-

No! Bad thoughts!

Clark tried to figure out where to move his hand that didn't seem quite so... suggestive.

"I said I think I could go for some coffee." Lois corrected, peeling away from his side a little. She smiled, practically telling him she was still aware of what she had said and didn't intend to take it back. "You should wear tighter shirts, Smallville. I don't know why you'd want to hide such broad chest under a shirt that's a size too large. It makes you look sloppy."

The blush of heat intensified.

"Ex-Excuse me, Ms. Lane?" Clark sputtered. Tighter shirts? Broad chest? She was saying that when he had just imagined going down on her?!

"Let's get some coffee, after we get the cuffs off my wrists and I buy you some dry clothes. And a new tie." Lois offered. "How 'bout it, hayseed? You can be the gentleman and pay for the croissants."

The Bean Counter was Lois's favorite coffee shop in all of Metropolis. It was a little out of her immediate way on Hell's Gate Island and a touch pricey, but what you got for the dollar was more than worth it. The coffee was often imported, but it came hot, rich, and black and as bitter as you wanted it to be. No fancy flavorings or mysterious sizing choices. Just coffee.

Lois ordered her usual Colombian roast with a dash of cream to go with the buttery croissant and the chocolate chip cookie she doubtlessly deserved for having taken a dip in the freezing lake (and survived). Clark, meanwhile, practically worshipped a European blend that he had grown fond of whilst abroad, but he couldn't find it in any American stores. Now that he knew where to find it in Metropolis, he would probably become one of the Bean Counter's regular patrons.

The Bean Counter also had a quiet atmosphere that called to writers and artists or overwrought college students that needed a quiet place to study. A little haven in the hustle of the city. Music that sounded like a fusion between classical and jazz echoed softly out of the speakers. The patrons were the sort that kept to themselves, wrapped up in whatever projects they were working on.

Lois had spent quite a few evenings here squirreled away in the corner working on her Pulitzer-winning editorial. She wouldn't call the memories fond, since she had spent those evenings in a caffeine-hazed frenzy and it was a small miracle that her butt hadn't lost its shape.

"So, you can speak some German." Lois said conversationally, once they were tucked away in her preferred corner in the back of the shop.

Clark shrugged. "Not the dialect you speak." he said. He touched his new tie, the one Lois had bought for him just as she'd threatened to. It was silk and she'd told him that it matched his eyes. "Did you grow up in Germany?"

"Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, just north of Baden-Wurttemberg. The dad is General Sam Lane of the United States Army." the dark-haired woman said. "I can speak Standard German too, but Pfalz was just more commonly used." She broke off a piece of croissant. "How about you? Any more languages in that bag of tricks?"

"Uh, a little bit of everything, I guess." Clark tried to tally up the number of languages he had learned phrases in, but stopped when the count went past six. "I did visit a lot of countries while I was overseas. It's just been a few years since I last had to speak anything other than English on a regular basis."

"What, you never used your vast knowledge of the Romance languages to impress girls?" Lois had known some guys who played that card. She would admit that with the right tone and volume, any language could sound sexy and the Romance languages were particularly lyrical.

"Um... No, I suppose the opportunity never came up." Clark said, tapping his mug of coffee in a nervous way.

It was hard for Lois not to smear a hand across her face in dismay. For a guy who was as well-traveled as Smallville here, he was surprisingly vanilla. No scandalous stories, European flings, foreign jail-time, or a brush with a famous celebrity. It was like he had gone across Europe in the most boring, straight-forward way possible, following all the maps and the guidebooks to the letter.

He didn't even use his knowledge for evil.

I had no idea that it was possible to backpack across an entire continent yet have no sense of adventure. Lois thought, a groan rumbling at inaudible levels deep in her throat.

"Is there something wrong, Ms. Lane?" Clark asked. He had tilted his head and was frowning softly.

"No, not really. Just amazed you have so few interesting stories about yourself." Lois admitted. Well-traveled, broad-chested, good-looking, exactly her type and intelligent to boot, but as interesting as the conservative neighbor with the stamp collection, the inhumanly neat house, and the biker-gang paraphernalia that he wouldn't talk about.

What had she done to deserve this?

Clark smiled in an innocent, entirely unassuming way. Oh, there were some very interesting stories about himself. Lois would foam at the mouth to hear them in full. But he had already vowed to keep his extraterrestrial origins a secret. Technically, that extra-governmental agency and its not terribly sane leader were still sniffing around for him and he didn't want to give them any idea of where he was now. Besides, he was human in all the ways that counted the most and that was the only thing people needed to know about him.

"So let's talk drug cartels." Lois said, changing the subject to the more pressing one. "What do you think we're dealing with, Smallville?"

"Why are you asking me?" Clark wondered.

"Funny thing about having a partner is that I'm supposed to ask for their opinion." Lois explained. She crossed her arms. "Besides, I want to hear your take on this. What's your small town opinion? Localized cartel or do you think they have financial backing from one of the big boys?"

"Like the mob? Are there even any mob families left in Metropolis?" Clark asked. He had done his reading up on the city he'd planned to call home for a long time. Metropolis didn't have nearly the problem with mob families as other cities. Not anymore, at least. The others had been driven out when decorated police captain Ron Harper had decided to pull an Untouchables. He and his band of men had scoured the streets clean on the mobs' taint. Most of the families had migrated to safer havens of Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Clark didn't think that any had stayed to risk destruction while Captain Harper had grown increasingly vigilant about removing the last of the organized crime from the city.

"Oh, you're so working from old information, Smallville." Lois said, grinning. "Strictly speaking, from the official political standpoint, there are no mafia families in Metropolis. Unofficially and off the record, we still have the Gazzo family, though most of them are in jail, according to my research, and they're mostly scrounging with the bottom-feeders. We also have Sofia Gigante, who could be a one-woman mob by herself."

"Who's she? Exactly?" Clark asked.

"She's seven feet tall, built like a brick shit-house, and she can split granite with her face. More importantly, she's a member of Metropolis's last great crime family." Lois explained. "If you want to hook the big fish, you cast your line for the Gigantes. But you do it real careful-like."

"Is she dangerous?"

"Let me re-phrase that. Sofia Falcone Gigante."

Clark blinked. The name 'Falcone' registered as familiar and he must have heard it before for it to be familiar, but he couldn't begin to imagine where he heard it or read it. Lois saw this and rolled her eyes at his lack of knowledge.

"She's the daughter of Gotham's mafia kingpin Carmine Falcone." she explained, gratified to see recognition on his face. "Glad you've heard of him."

"Only in passing. I didn't grow up in a big city." Clark reminded her. Much like the dealings of Lex Luthor, news on Gotham's mob families didn't always make it all the way out to Smallville and when they did, they were hardly important.

"I'm regretting every second that you didn't. You've got some catching up to do." Lois told him, picking up her coffee again. "The Gigantes have been pretty quiet lately, though word is that Grandpappy Vincent died during the spring at the ripe age of seventy-nine."

"Er, Ms. Lane?" Clark started. "Again, maybe we should mention something to the police?"

"We will. Just not right now." Lois assured him. "Right now, we are enjoying our coffee and recovering from our little swimming lesson. The cartel can think for a few hours that we're dead. Lull 'em into a false sense of security."

"But we are telling the police?" Clark pressed.

"Remember this, Smallville: The story comes first." Lois said in an instructional tone. "Unless it's life-threatening. Since we have reached that stage, we'll tell the police."

"And- when you don't reach that stage?"

The black-haired woman grinned. "I keep plugging away." she said, grinning even wider. "I'm more cautious than the horror stories would make you believe, farm boy. I know when to cut my losses and run."

"Perry seems to think otherwise." Clark pointed out.

"Perry has a very different definition of what 'too far' is." Lois explained, waving a hand dismissively. Then again, everyone's definition of "too far" was different. "I don't know why he worries so much. He knows I can take care of myself. You don't need to play bodyguard, Smallville. Just be useful and pupate into a beautiful butterfly."

Clark blinked. "Pupate?"

"Into a butterfly." Lois repeated, nodding.

She turned the dismissive wave into a fluttery motion that, more or less, signaled she was done with this tract of conversation. Clark let her shut it down, because she was reaching for her phone. It was more productive for Clark to give his delicious coffee the attention it deserved.

"I love Wayne Tech smartphones. They're so waterproof." Lois said fondly, watching the screen light up, just as bright and functional as ever. Her phone was under warranty so it could have been replaced if the water had damaged it, but Wayne Tech guaranteed their phones to such a degree that if a replacement was needed in the case of damage, you would also be refunded the full retail price.

Of course, you had to prove that it was an accident, but honestly, who destroyed a four hundred dollar phone on purpose?

"Perry?" Lois grinned manically as the editor picked up. "Don't worry, the rookie's still alive. Listen, I got a hell of a scoop today. You're going to hate it just as much as you'll love it."

There wasn't a formal quitting time at the Daily Planet, as it operated twenty-four hours a day and through the holidays. People were in and out of the building at all hours. There were some employees whom Lois swore actually lived there because she had never actually seen them leave or arrive. But for the newsroom on the fifty-seventh floor, people generally started to pack it in just after six o'clock in the evening.

Clark had just logged off his computer when Perry White made his way over. Over the course of the day, he seemed to have aged a few years, but he smiled broadly when reached the new hire.

"Kent! Nice to see that Lois got you back here in one piece." the editor-in-chief said. He looked the younger man up and down. "That's not what you were wearing this earlier."

"Ah..." Clark ran his fingers over the new suit. It was a much more tailored fit, at Lois's insistence about looking presentable if he was representing her, and a handsome charcoal gray that did suit him rather well, he had to admit. "My other clothes got a bit- ah, waterlogged. It was an accident. Ms. Lane already offered to have them dry-cleaned."

"Well, she must tolerate you. She doesn't do anyone else's laundry." Perry commented, amazed. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Like I said, it was an accident." Clark repeated. In a manner of speaking, it had been. But it seemed better to downplay the severity of the incident. The editor-in-chief had atrocious stress levels, Lois had told him, and there was no need to make them worse.

Perry raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? How was it out there today?"

"It wasn't too bad, honestly. I learn best when I'm thrown in feet-first and that's Ms. Lane's style, so it worked out." Clark said, a little happily. It had felt like a productive first day. "She was very informative."

Perry canted an eyebrow curiously. That was a first. No one had called working with Lois 'informative'. Stressful, aggravating, dangerous, insanity in motion, but never 'informative', not when it ended with the purchasing of new clothes and coats. Most of the prospective partners gamely stuck it out through the first day, but always came up to him with the complaint that they didn't think they could keep up with her and didn't want to try.

It was too early for Perry to say that he had found the match made in heaven, but he was going to be optimistic for the short term.

"Hey, you heard the rookie, Chief! He's fine." Lois called out, as she passed en route to the flat-screen television mounted on a pillar near Clark's new desk.

"Don't call me 'Chief'." Perry ordered.

"Sure thing, Chief."

Lois reached up to turn up the volume. Always on and always tuned to the news, it was the local station and the Daily Planet's own Josh Coyle was sitting at the evening news-desk. Clark pushed out from the desk for a better look at the screen. Coyle was already into the next story about an anonymous tip had led to the discovery of a meth lab in a warehouse at Reeves Harbor. Among those caught red-handed had been Homer Colon, the last slumlord in the West River. Coyle had had years of experience at keeping his voice neutral, but when he mentioned that the city was actively seizing the property that Mr. Colon had once owned, there was a detectable note of glee.

"Finally." Perry clapped a hand on Clark's shoulder. "Good work, Kent."

"Hey, I helped too." Lois scowled.

Perry smiled beatifically at his ace reporter. "I know you did."

"Oh, I did a write-up on what I saw." Clark told the editor, gesturing to his computer screen. "It's just a summary. I wasn't sure if I'd seen enough for a full article..."

"You'll get the knack." Perry assured him, leaning over to peer at what was on the monitor. "Print it off and give it to Lois. Technically, it's still her story- Don't smirk like that, Lane, it gives me the willies."

Lois dropped the smirk that made her look like the Grinch.

Perry clapped his hand on Clark's shoulder again. "You did good today, Kent. I'll put you down for something substantial tomorrow. Probably the fall-out from this little shit-storm."

"Thanks, Mr. White."

The editor smiled. "I told you, it's 'Perry' to you." He patted the younger man's shoulder some more and then withdrew. "Go home and get some rest, Kent. It sounds like you had a busy day."

"I had a busy day too." Lois informed him, like she was fishing for some sympathy.

Perry just waved a hand and waded into the depths of the newsroom to check with the rest of his general assignment reporters. Lois made a grumpy noise and resigned herself to a long evening at her desk with an article for company, making a mental note to get some more coffee and actual food if she was expected to last the next hour.

"So," Clark turned towards her. "Apartments in Little Bohemia, huh?"

Lois smirked her Grinchy smirk. "Pelham too." she nodded. "I'll print you off the listings."

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