They'd had an oddly normal night at the farm, simply hanging out and catching up just like they used to do, except for this time, the wall that had always been up between them was gone. She asked him about what it was like growing up, when he first realized he was different, and how he first found out about his origins. He told her all about how he lifted an oak bed over his dad's head when he was two and how he discovered he had super speed when he got lost for an entire day while playing tag in Palmer Woods when he was six. He told her how when he was fourteen, his parents finally showed him the spaceship in their storm cellar and he began to learn more about his origins over the years. For the first time in her life, she got an insight into the real Clark Kent.
Not only did he tell her about his childhood, but she found herself opening up to him about hers. She had always been a closed book; it was easier that way. No one could hurt her if they didn't know her weaknesses. But something about the way Clark was finally completely open and honest with her made her want to do the same. So she did. She told him about never really knowing a real home or having something as simple as a childhood bedroom. She talked about how her mother's death completely changed their family dynamic and how quickly she had to grow up. She even confessed her jealousy over his seemingly normal family and life when she first met him, which only made them laugh.
It was the first time in forever that things were just easy with them. They didn't talk about the future or Zod or any impending crises. For a few hours, they simply got to be friends again and she was grateful for it. They also thankfully didn't have any more near kisses or close calls in the romance department, which was largely due to her constant vigilance at keeping a five-foot barrier between them at all times. Just the way he looked at her was enough to make her willpower crumble and she couldn't exactly not look at him without raising any alarms. Instead, she turned into a rabbit every time he tried to sit anywhere near her. By the end of the night, she was sitting on the piano bench just to avoid brushing shoulders with him.
The problem was that she knew she wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer. Every time he smiled or even looked at her, she wanted to throw herself at him. When he brushed by her and she caught a whiff of his scent, images of his naked Adonis-on-steroids physique hovering over her filled her brain and made it short circuit. She knew him so intimately on a physical level, but to him, she was practically a stranger in that department. It was beyond frustrating, both mentally and physically. Part of her didn't even know why she was keeping him at a distance anymore, but every time she thought about throwing caution to the wind and laying one on him, a little voice in the back of her head told her not to. Not until she knew she wasn't going to scare him off and he wasn't going to break her heart.
The next morning, Clark was already gone by the time she came downstairs. He had mentioned that he might not be there when she woke up in the morning and she thought nothing of it at the time, but she couldn't help but notice the small twinge of disappointment she felt at not seeing him. In any case, she didn't have time to lament on it. She had a certain red-headed rat to go see.
It was strange walking into the mansion. She kept seeing flashes of red and hearing the whooshing noises from the Kryptonians' speed as they moved, but she knew it was just in her head. As she walked down the hallway, she could hear a strange thumping sound, the rattle of a chain, and soft grunts coming from the room that used to be Lex Luthor's office. For a minute, she faltered, wondering what the hell sort of scene she was about to stumble into, but relaxed as soon as she saw a Tess armed with a wooden staff, going toe to toe with a punching bag.
"Seriously... what is it with you and physical violence?" she asked as she entered the room. Immediately, the redhead's body tensed and she spun around to see who had interrupted her. Tess was normally good at keeping her thoughts and feelings masked, but there was no doubt that she was shocked to see Lois standing there in front of her. But the surprise was only there for a moment before a catlike grin grew across her face.
"The last time you and I saw each other, things did get a little... physical, didn't they?" she asked. There was humor in her tone, but it was only reserved for her. Mirroring her expression, Lois put into action the exact plan she had gone over all day yesterday: blame Tess. It's what she would have done had she not remembered anything that happened to her, so as long as she could make it believable, she was sure she could fool her.
"And then what happened, Tess? Inquiring minds want to know," she said. The grin on Tess's face simply grew at her veiled accusation.
"You don't remember," she said. The way she said it was a statement, not a question, which meant that she believed her. Good, she was selling it at least.
"Well, a three-week concussion can do that to you. But I think that you bonked me on head and then held me somewhere," she said, hiking an eyebrow up and crossing her arms. An amused laugh escaped her lips as her cat eyes gleamed at Lois.
"Held you? That's wishful thinking, Lane. When I came to, you were already gone. We never did get to finish what we started, though. Little rematch?" she asked, gesturing to the wooden staff still in her hands. Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head and smiled.
"I won't fight you, Tess. I just came to tell you that I'm not leaving the Daily Planet," she said with conviction. While it was another practical thing that a Lois with memory lapse would do, it was also the main reason she had come to see her. She needed her login information back if she was going to be any use to anybody.
"You were never leaving, Lois," she said, turning around to go put up her staff. "I fired you."
"Well, I'm not gonna get into the whole 'she said, she said' thing with you," she said, watching as Tess turned to look at her again before pursing her lips. "But I do have friends at The Inquisitor and they would just love to run a story about LuthorCorp's CEO and her plans to launch a hostile alien takeover of the world."
Tess did her best to cover up the flash of panic that flashed across her face with a questioning look, but Lois saw right through it and knew that she had finally struck a chord. Still, she knew that she wouldn't back down that easily. A small chuckle escaped her as she walked back towards Lois, staff in hand, no doubt a subtle threat.
"Except no one would ever believe you," she countered. Lois merely shrugged her shoulders in indifference.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But do you really want the attention?" she asked. That was the moment she knew she had her. The fake smiles and the aura of authority had dropped and instead stood a woman who was sincerely weighing her options. She knew Lois wouldn't back down unless she actually did kidnap and hold her somewhere, but that would raise too many questions for the ever-stealthy Tess Mercer. She didn't need to say anything for Lois to know that she'd won. Her face said enough.
"I'll see you at the office," she said simply and turned to walk out the door. As she was leaving, a young, dark-haired guy was standing in the doorway with a tablet in his hands. He stared at her quizzically, probably knowing she had vanished for three months, then clutched the tablet a little closer to his chest, which set off immediate alarm bells in her head. Opting for her first choice when it came to espionage, she looked him up and down, then snorted.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" she said with a laugh, rolled her eyes, then kept walking, ensuring her footsteps echoed down the hall for a beat, before she slowly crept back towards the room. Young or not, he knew something and she was going to find out what it was.
"Stuart. What is it?" Tess asked, annoyance evident in her voice. Lois rolled her eyes at the drama, but briefly wondered if she sounded like that when she was talking to Jeff. Note to self: try not to sound like the Wicked Witch when dealing with interns.
"Um, it's about your missing Kryptonians here," she heard him say and every cell in her body went on full alert. They hadn't had one lead since she had returned to the future, but somehow this high schooler had tracked them down.
"I extrapolated a dozen potential destinations and I think I know where they're pit-stopped in Metropolis," he said. She felt her heart thumping against her chest. Waiting, she prayed that one of them gave her a clue as to where they might be hiding, but after a pregnant pause, Tess simply told him he'd done a good job and that she'd be ready to go check it out in ten minutes. Without another beat, she took off as quickly and quietly as she could down the hallway. The last thing she needed was Tess catching her eavesdropping right after she had managed to argue for her job back.
As soon as she made it to her car and on the road, she hightailed it towards the highway and called Clark. Even though Chloe probably would have been the better choice when it came to hacking, her last encounter left her wary of her cousin's state of mind. Aside from that, at the end of the day, Clark was the one who should be in charge of anything that had to do with the Kandorians. Of course, they were there to help him and give him advice, but there was no one else more equipped to deal with Kryptonians than one of their own.
"Hello?"
"Hey, got a second to hear about your fellow foreign friends in hiding?" she asked.
"You found Zod?" he asked, incapable of hiding his obvious trepidation beneath the interested tone. She wanted to scoff at his unnecessary fear for her wellbeing, but the thought crossed her mind that maybe he was actually scared for himself and she restrained herself.
"Not exactly. But I think I know who has: Tess," she said. When he didn't comment, she continued. "I went to the mansion to get my job back and while I was leaving, I overheard her barely legal assistant telling her that he may have found where they're hiding."
"Where are they?" he asked.
"I'm not sure, but somewhere in Metropolis. I figured between your ability to super sleuth and Chloe's eye in the sky, you'd be able to track them down," she suggested. She wondered how his conversation with her would go or if he'd even let Lois know what she found. While she hoped he would, she couldn't be too sure with the way their relationship was at the moment. Sooner or later, she'd need to ask him what had really happened when she disappeared.
"I'll let her know and see what we can dig up. Good job, Lois," he said. Her face flushed at his compliment and she was thankful that she was alone. The last thing she needed was Smallville knowing that a simple pat on the back could make her blush.
"Thanks! I'm headed to Metropolis now, if you need any backup," she said. She hated how noticeably desperate she sounded, but she hoped that was just in her own head. When he paused without reply though, her stomach plummeted to her feet in embarrassment.
"I think we can handle it from here," he said and she felt her face go even redder than before. "But… I could use your help with something else."
Thank God. Clearing her throat, she switched her phone to her other ear and recomposed herself. Settle down, Lane. It's just Smallville.
"Whatcha got for me, M?" she asked, hoping her Bond reference would be enough to throw him off her emotional trail, if he had even noticed it.
"Another movie reference?" he asked, confusion evident in his voice. If she hadn't been used to his constant inability to understand her references, both common and obscure, she would have thrown her phone. Instead, all she could do was smile.
"Not 007, too! As soon as we beam these aliens back to the mothership, you and I are having a serious movie marathon, mister," she said. The thought of curling up beside him as they sat through a litany of all of her favorite classics seemed like a dream at this point, but she was determined to make it a reality soon.
"Deal. But before we do that, we have another problem. Apparently, some sort of cyborg caused quite a scene at the hospital. He tossed Emil like a ragdoll and put one of his orderlies in a coma," he explained. She frowned at the new revelation. That certainly hadn't been in her future fortune cookie, but that didn't mean she couldn't handle it. So it seemed they were on the hunt for a half-man, half-robot. Just another day in Metropolis, right?
"Emil? He's your on-call, off-the-record doctor, right?" she asked. She remembered something about his name and who he was, but she couldn't remember if she had learned about him in the future or present. The two realities were starting to blur together lately and she thanked her lucky stars that she'd had the common sense to write everything down before she forgot what happened when.
"That's him. He said some injured man came in who had been crudely operated on and had his heart replaced with a Kryptonite power source. Apparently, he got hit by a truck and when he woke up, he was half-cyborg. Emil says it's increased his strength and his adrenaline levels," he explained. Well, that didn't sound good. She knew from past experiences that people and Kryptonite never mixed well, especially when Clark was involved. Add in the fact that he was super powerful and hormonal, and there was a recipe for disaster.
"So he's not only super strong, but super emotional? Great," she deadpanned and she heard Clark's sigh over the speaker.
"He thinks that the longer the Kryptonite is inside his body, the worse he's going to get. We have to stop him before he hurts someone else," he said. The thought of Clark going up against someone that had a heart literally made to kill him made her stomach turn. If she could figure out a way to stop this guy while Clark focused on finding Zod, maybe they could kill two birds with one stone.
"Do we know his name?" she asked.
"No, but he did leave something behind at the hospital… a Daily Planet key."
Perfect. That was just what she needed. With her job secured again and a clue that pointed directly to said workplace, he had no choice but to let her investigate.
"Say no more, Smallville. I'm on it," she said. All she had to do was figure out who was missing their set of keys. Hell, maybe even John could help her out without knowing it. But that was only if he pulled his head out of the hero hating hole for five minutes.
"Lois, I don't want you getting yourself hurt," he said. Again, her instincts told her to snap at him and chastise him for trying to tell her what to do, but the other little voice in her head reminded her that he was only saying it because he was worried about her, not because he didn't believe in her.
"Hey, I already helped take down Zod in one timeline, so what's one little machine man?" she said. She could practically see his face: distressed, but resigned to the fact that she was going to do whatever she felt was necessary because at the end of the day, she was who she was and no one could change that. Not even the Blur.
"Okay, just be careful, will you?" he pleaded. The small flip that her stomach did when she heard the concern in his voice inadvertently caused her to smile and she was thankful, yet again, that they weren't having this conversation face to face.
"I will."
When she got to the bullpen, she immediately started on her quest to find the missing keys. The co-workers that had their set open and in view were pointless to question, but there were many more than she'd hoped for that she had to talk to. She came up with excuse after excuse as she asked to borrow or look at people's keys. She even resorted to asking someone to look at his keychains for a survey and found herself face-to-face with a dead rabbit foot. Disgusted and disappointed with her luck, she finally made it to her desk, only to find a familiar little blonde hovering over the desktop. Though she couldn't see exactly what she was doing, she saw a lot of screens and a lot of script that told her it was something high-tech and certainly above her pay grade.
"Chloe?" she asked as she approached. Her cousin practically jumped in place, exiting out of every window before Lois could peer over her shoulder. Whipping around, she pasted a phony smile on her face, but her eyes told a different story.
"Lo! I was just checking my email," she explained. Lois simply raised an eyebrow at her.
"On a computer I just got access to a few hours ago?" she asked. When her cousin couldn't come up with a reply, she asked her another question she knew she probably wouldn't have an answer to. "How'd you know I got my job back?"
"Clark told me," she said easily. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her. She was lying through her teeth and they both knew it. The odds that Clark had told her about getting her job back so soon weren't impossible, but they were definitely slim considering they didn't seem to exactly be on speaking terms at the moment. Plus, he was preoccupied at the hospital.
"Right. And you needed my computer because the supersized one down the street isn't working?" she asked, watching intently as her cousin's eye shifted around the room, looking anywhere but at her. "What's going on, Chlo?"
For a moment, she didn't answer and Lois felt something in her chest break. She knew that losing Jimmy had been devastating and that Clark disappearing must have been hard, but what had happened to her baby cousin to turn her so sketchy and secretive? What had been so bad that turned her into a spy against her own cousin? Finally, Chloe looked at her and took a breath.
"Tess didn't rehire you because you're a good reporter. You know that, right?" she said. Lois bristled slightly at the comment, not expecting that slight barb that she had carelessly thrown at her career, but she shook it off and focused on the information at hand.
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but yeah, I'm well aware she didn't let me come back just because the paper needed a sales boost. She wants to know where I disappeared to," she explained. She wasn't stupid. She knew Tess would be watching her every move, so while she made sure not to reveal anything important, she could keep an eye on her boss, too. It was a win-win.
"And that doesn't bother you?" she asked, her voice rising slightly as Lois's unperturbed response.
"It's inevitable. I'd rather leave her just enough bread crumbs to keep her chasing me and be able to keep an eye on her, than have her looking in places where she shouldn't be," she explained. Chloe seemed to accept that explanation and nodded, a cool mask slipping over her face.
"Well, your hard drive is chock full of NSA-grade spyware. Just thought you'd want to know," she said casually as she grabbed her purse off the desk and made a move to walk away. But Lois wasn't done with her yet. Grabbing her shoulder, she spun her cousin around and looked her dead in the eyes.
"Which is why you told me you were checking your email, right?" she asked, watching as Chloe's eyes shifted away from her again. "Look, I don't want to go all Hanns Scharff on you, so I'm gonna need a little honesty here."
Chloe was holding something back from her and she'd be damned if she didn't make her fess up to what it was. Looking around the room, presumably for listening ears and prying eyes, her cousin finally sighed and looked her in the eye.
"I was installing a backdoor, okay? But only so I could keep an eye on what Tess is up to."
She didn't want to believe it, but there it was in black and white: her cousin was spying on her. She could dress it up however she wanted, but she knew that the girl she had grown up with was gone, or at least buried somewhere deep within her, because she didn't recognize the woman standing in front of her anymore.
"So you wanted to spy on Tess spying on me?" she asked, trying to keep the anger and hurt out of her voice. The last thing she needed was Chloe accusing her of being emotional, so she did everything possible to keep her voice steady.
"It was for your safety. And Clark's," she said, not even bothering to deny it. Lois just shook her head. It was all she could do.
"I love you, Chloe, so I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here, but why didn't you just ask me? Why did you try to do it behind my back?" she asked. There had to be an explanation behind her deceit. Even if she had changed into someone she wasn't sure she knew anymore, there still had to be a reason that she was doing what she was doing, because when it came down to it, she was still her family.
"Look, Lois, I just don't think you know what you've gotten yourself into with being a part of this world. It changes everything. It makes every day more dangerous. I was just trying to protect you," she said, but the words just didn't ring true to her. Maybe it was something about her tone or the way she still refused to make eye contact with her or the feeling in the pit of her stomach that screamed that she was lying, but whatever it was, it stopped her from believing her cousin had pure intentions. The dig at her involvement in Clark's world also didn't help matters.
"While I appreciate you looking out for me, I don't need anyone playing Big Brother. Especially my own family. And as for not knowing what I'm dealing with, trust me, I crossed that particular bridge when I found myself face-to-face with the intergalactic scum of the universe," she said, hearing her anger begin to show in her voice. She wasn't about to get into a screaming match with her cousin in the middle of the bullpen, but she wasn't exactly going to go down without a fight either.
"I know you've been through a lot, but knowing what you know… it changes things," she said. That darkness that she had being seeing recently showed its colors briefly, but then it was gone. It didn't matter though. With one sentence, everything started to fall into place. This wasn't about protecting her from Tess or even protecting her from the supernatural world. It was about keeping her in her place. Chloe had always been Clark's right hand man and whatever happened in those three weeks between them had changed that. Now that Lois knew about him, she was afraid she was going to be replaced.
As much as she felt for her cousin, she didn't have time to placate her hurt feelings. Not until Zod and the others had been stopped. Aside from that, there was a cyborg laced with Kryptonite out on the run that took precedence over the drama brewing between them. Taking a deep breath, Lois grabbed her hands and looked her straight in the eyes.
"I have no problem rolling with the punches of what's to come. The question is: do you?"
Chloe frowned at her, obviously taken aback by her response. She probably expected her to question what she meant or even argue, which would have been on brand for a typical Lois Lane response, but right now, it wasn't important.
"What do you mean?" she asked, but all she could do was shrug, hoping she'd eventually understand what she meant.
"Look, I don't have time to stand here and play twenty-one questions. Just think about it, okay? And let me know if you—either of you—find out anything else," she said. Giving her hands a squeeze, she dropped them and plopped down in her chair before logging into her double-bugged computer. She could feel her cousin's eyes burning a hole in the back of her head, but she wasn't ready for another round of question.
"Bye, Chlo," she said. It may have been rude, but she needed her to go and do what needed to be done. They could talk about their feelings later, but this couldn't wait. Still, she couldn't squash the guilt that grew in her stomach as she watched her cousin leave out of the corner of her eye. Things had definitely changed and she wasn't sure if their relationship would ever be the same.