Teamwork
By Nan Smith <hachiban@earthlink.net>
Rated: G
Submitted: September 28, 2002

Disclaimer: The familiar characters and settings in this story 
are not mine. They are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros., 
December 3rd Productions and whoever else can legally claim 
them. The story is originally based on the Lois and Clark 
episode "Witness" and any recognizable parts (of Witness or any 
other episodes of the series) are credited to the writers of 
the show. Any new characters, scenes and the story itself are 
mine.

This is the sequel to "Four Days to Nightfall" and begins two 
days after "Charlie" deflected Nightfall, thereby saving the 
Earth from destruction. There is no Superman, yet, and Clark 
Kent has just been hired at the Daily Planet...

And now: Teamwork By Nan Smith

"Clark Kent, this is Lois Lane," Jimmy said. "She's..."

"I had the privilege of meeting Ms. Lane some time ago," Clark 
Kent said. "How are you, Lois?"

"Fine, thank you, Clark." Lois said, politely. "How are things 
in Smallville, these days?"

"Much better than a few days ago," Clark said. His eyes were 
twinkling. "My parents said to say hello to you for them."

"That was nice of them," Lois said. "So, you're joining the 
Planet, huh?"

Clark nodded. "I'd been planning to try for a job in Metropolis 
for some time," he said. "The Nightfall thing made me decide to 
speed up my plans a bit. Jennifer has been ready to take over 
as editor of the paper for quite a while, really, so I turned 
it over to her a week early and here I am."

Jimmy grinned. "I guess something like that makes a lot of 
people think," he said. "I finally decided to re-enroll in the 
night classes at Metro City College and finish getting that AA 
degree in computers. It will take a couple of years, going to 
school part time, but it should mean a real improvement for my 
career."

"It certainly will," Clark said. "I'm told you're pretty good 
with them, already."

Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, but it was mostly self-taught. Those 
letters after my name will make a big difference."

"Sad but true," Lois said. "Maybe it'll translate into a bigger 
salary."

"I wouldn't mind," Jimmy said. "Come on, CK, I better show you 
the rest of the layout. Over here, we have the sports section. 
The Sports Editor is Pete..."

Lois watched them go, or more accurately, she watched Charlie -
- or Clark -- walking away. The man certainly made that suit 
look good.

A low wolf whistle made her turn her head. Cat Grant, clad in 
something that was at least theoretically a dress, was also 
watching him with an expression that reminded Lois of a tiger 
contemplating its prey.

"Who's the new tight end?" she inquired.

Lois shrugged, suppressing a twinge of annoyance. Charlie had 
made it pretty clear a few days ago that Cat really wasn't his 
type. Besides, she was darned if she'd let Cat know that 
anything the woman did bothered her. "Why don't you throw your 
usual forward pass and find out?"

Cat smiled her usual irritating smile and whipped out her 
compact to check her heavy lip makeup. Lois deliberately looked 
the other way but couldn't help listening as the gossip 
columnist parked herself directly in his path.

"Excuse me..."

Lois glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Cat was 
blocking his way, blatantly displaying her not-inconsiderable 
assets. She extended her hand. "Cat Grant. Cat's Corner?" she 
added, smiling brilliantly.

Charlie -- Clark, Lois reminded herself -- smiled back, a 
little hesitantly. "Oh, yes. I've read your column, Ms. Grant."

"Cat," she corrected.

"Cat," Clark agreed. "I'm Clark Kent."

"So, Clark," Cat said, trailing a finger up his arm, "are you 
new to Metropolis? I know how lonely it can be, those first 
days in a new place. Maybe we could have dinner someplace 
tonight and I could show you around..."

Lois gritted her teeth. If Charlie was foolish enough to accept 
that invitation, she knew what Cat would be showing him! Trust 
the woman to move in on an attractive male -- or *any* male -- 
like a steamroller!

"Why, thank you, Ms. Grant." Clark adjusted his glasses. "I 
appreciate the offer, but I'm pretty busy, right now. Maybe 
after I get settled..."

Cat's smile widened and she patted his arm. "It's a date." She 
turned and walked away, hips swaying.

Clark turned his head and looked at Lois, his expression almost 
comically dismayed. The expression was so eloquent, Lois's 
irritation vanished as quickly as it had arisen and she had to 
master a sudden urge to laugh.

Jimmy wasn't paying attention to the byplay, however. He was 
watching Cat walk away. Lois got to her feet and crossed the 
office to where the men were standing. "Wipe the drool off your 
chin, Junior."

"Huh?" Jimmy's gaze snapped to her.

"Have you finished the tour?" she inquired.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

"Good, because it's past my lunchtime. Clark, if you've 
finished your paperwork for the moment, I'm going to get lunch. 
Want to come along?"

"Sure...if Mr. White doesn't want me to do anything else."

"Even new employees get time off for lunch. You can tell me 
what you've been doing since I saw you last."

**********

It was already past noon. As they stepped outside the Daily 
Planet, Lois turned to Charlie -- Clark, she reminded herself 
again, but it was hard to think of her companion during the 
Nightfall crisis as anyone but Charlie. He was Charlie to her 
and probably always would be. "Where would you like to eat? 
There are a lot more places open, this time around."

He chuckled. "That's a nice change. I don't know. The burger 
place we went to would be fine."

"Okay." They started up the block toward the hamburger stand. 
Lois glanced sideways at him, wondering how to start the 
conversation. This wasn't the Charlie she had known, the man 
without a memory. This Charlie was Clark Kent of Smallville, 
the editor of the town's little paper and in full possession of 
his memories.

"I guess those were your glasses that I found in the crater, 
after all," she said.

He nodded. "Probably. Normally, I wear my glasses all the time, 
even when I'm flying. It's a habit."

"Don't they blow off?" she asked, curiously. "I mean, you must 
be able to fly pretty fast, if you reached the asteroid swarm 
in under five minutes."

"Yeah, I do. I don't know-they seem to stick where they are 
without any trouble."

"Oh." She digested that. "Why glasses, though? You don't really 
need them, do you?"

"No, not to see," he admitted. "Mom came up with the idea to 
remind me not to use my special vision without thinking about 
it. The lenses are made of lead crystal."

"Why lead?"

"That was one of the things we didn't figure out," he said. 
"I'll explain later when we aren't in public, but basically, I 
can't use my x-ray vision very well while I'm wearing them."

"*X-ray* -- " She cut the sentence off. "I can see you've got a 
lot to tell me," she continued after a minute. At his nod, she 
said, "Well, you can do that this evening. We'll get some take 
out and go to my apartment-unless you have one of your own by 
now."

"Not yet. I'm staying at the Apollo Hotel until I find the 
right place. I wouldn't invite my worst enemy over there."

"That bad, huh?"

"Worse," he said. "Your place is much nicer. Was the food I 
left you still warm enough when you got home?"

She nodded. "It was fine. You probably only missed me by a few 
minutes."

"I'd have stayed, but I had a lot of things to do. Mt. Pinatubo 
was erupting and there was a village right in the path of the 
lava -- "

"Yeah, I know. I figured that was probably you," Lois said. 
"I've been following the news pretty closely the last couple of 
days, trying to figure out what was coincidence and what was 
your work. How do you manage without people seeing you?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes I don't. I can move pretty fast, but 
sometimes I can't avoid being seen. Dad keeps telling me that 
sooner or later somebody's going to catch me with a video 
camera and the jig will be up."

"Hmm." Lois mulled that over. "Maybe you should wear a mask or 
something. As fast as you can move, you could put one on in no 
time."

He didn't answer for a moment, and when he did, he sounded 
slightly surprised. "You know, I never even thought of that."

"Well," she said, "we're going to have to work on some way for 
you to keep from being recognized, if you're going to keep 
helping people. You don't want to have to explain yourself and 
I don't want you to have to, either."

"Dad always said that if anyone ever found out about me, the 
government would put me in a lab and dissect me like a frog," 
he said. "Mom and Dad were pretty worried when they first found 
out that you knew. I told them they didn't have to worry."

"Good," Lois said, "because they don't. Besides, how could 
anybody dissect you? If ramming Nightfall didn't kill you, I 
doubt anything the government could come up with would be able 
to. Still, I'd rather people didn't know. We'd never have a 
moment's peace."

He didn't answer at once. Finally, he said, " You still feel 
the same way, then?"

"Of course I do," she said. "Why shouldn't I? Unless you've 
changed *your* mind."

He was shaking his head. "Not a chance."

"Well, as long as we have that straight." The hamburger stand 
was doing a brisk business. They joined the line, waiting for 
their turn. "What do you want for lunch?"

He grinned. "You bought last time. This time it's my treat."

"Actually, Perry bought the burgers from this place," Lois 
pointed out.

He waved that away. "Only a technicality. I'm buying. What 
would you like?"

"I think I'll get the chicken sandwich," Lois said. "The days 
of unbridled eating are over."

"I don't think you ate much at the time, actually. Did you ever 
get the chance to go shopping?"

"Yeah, the next morning I stocked up on frozen dinners. They're 
fast and I'm not much of a cook."

"Well, I am," Clark said. "Wait until I get my own place. I'll 
invite you over for an apartment-warming dinner."

"That Chinese food you brought was great," Lois said. "Was it 
really from -- you know?"

"Yeah, I found the place about three years ago, while I was 
traveling," he said. "I've gone back there ever since, every 
time I want good Chinese take-out. It's only a few minutes away 
for me and the food is worth it. Besides, I figured it couldn't 
be worse than that petrified stuff you threw in the garbage the 
other night. They closed down Feng's Chinese Garden two months 
ago -- and it wasn't that great when it was open."

"You've been there?"

"Sure. I like discovering good places to eat. That wasn't one 
of my better choices, though."

The teenager ahead of them paid the cashier, collected his 
burger and fries and departed. The woman at the counter turned 
to Lois. "What'll it be?"

Lois gave her order and then listened in a state of slight 
bemusement as Charlie -- Clark, she reminded herself again -- 
ordered enough food to feed a small army. While they waited, 
Lois looked out at the now-bustling city, reflecting how 
different it had been the last time she and Charlie had stood 
here.

He leaned against the counter, looking relaxed and comfortable, 
smiling at her and she thought again, as she had been doing 
since she had met him, that it was a shame that they hadn't met 
years ago. Charlie -- or Clark -- was so completely unlike 
Claude, it was like night and day. Maybe being from a small 
town had something to do with it, she thought. She'd always 
thought of people from small town America as naive and 
unsophisticated, but looking at Charlie -- Clark Kent -- she 
was beginning to wonder if that was such a bad thing -- or if 
it was even true.

Several other people had come and gone before the large bag 
containing their lunches was deposited on the counter and Clark 
(was she ever going to get used to calling him that?) paid the 
cashier.

"Do you want to eat at one of the tables?" he asked.

"Sure." She took a spot near the sidewalk, comfortably 
positioned with the sun to her back and he presented her with 
the chicken sandwich and the diet soda. When he unwrapped his 
own meal, however, she eyed his choices with a certain amount 
of envy. "Don't you ever have to worry about fat or 
cholesterol?"

"I doubt it," he said, keeping his voice low. "I've never found 
anything that can hurt me, since I was about twelve."

She was removing the wrapper from her sandwich but at that, she 
looked up. "So, there was a time when you weren't...um..."

"Injury proof? Well, I fell out of a tree when I was six and 
broke my leg. I think that was the worst thing that ever 
happened to me, though. It healed up in about two weeks, but 
nobody knew that except my Mom and Dad."

"Oh." She took a bite of the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. 
"So, I take it that the Mr. and Mrs. Kent we talked to are your 
parents?"

"My adoptive parents," he said. "I've never known who my real 
parents were. I was kind of left on their doorstep -- so to 
speak. Actually, they found me in a field."

She stared at him, slightly shocked. "You were abandoned?"

"Um -- not exactly. At least, I don't think so. I'll tell you 
more about it this evening."

That was probably a good idea, she decided. With the sounds of 
the passing traffic and the general noise of Metropolis, it 
wasn't likely that his low voice would be heard but she wasn't 
anxious to take the risk. She concentrated on eating her 
chicken sandwich and watched with some amazement as an amazing 
amount of food disappeared from in front of Charlie in record 
time. Well, for a man who was as fast and strong as he was and 
who could fly besides, it probably wasn't all that big a meal, 
she reasoned. He must burn up energy like crazy. No wonder he 
looked as if he worked out constantly. She knew what Cat saw in 
him, all right -- outside of the simple fact that he was young 
and male. Cat had to be closing in on forty, but she had never, 
in the time Lois had known her, ever let that stop her in the 
pursuit of an attractive guy-and most of the men seemed to find 
Cat to their taste. She hoped that Charlie wouldn't fall under 
her spell, though. To his credit, he hadn't seemed particularly 
interested.

"Is something wrong?" Charlie's voice broke through her 
abstraction.

"Huh? Oh -- no, not really. I was just thinking about Cat 
trying to move in on you a while ago."

"Oh, that." Charlie rolled his eyes. "I was going to ask for 
your advice about that. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but 
I really don't want to have dinner with her."

Lois simply looked at him. Were there really men like this or 
was it because Charlie was an alien? In spite of the way she'd 
seen him react to Cat twice now, she still had difficulty 
comprehending his behavior. Every man at the office, with the 
possible exception of Perry, would probably jump at the 
opportunity Cat had dangled in front of him, and he was trying 
to figure out a way to avoid it? True, he definitely wasn't 
your ordinary, average guy, but something about Cat brought out 
every insecurity Lois had ever had about her own appeal to the 
male of the species. Charlie had to at least suspect what was 
being offered and apparently really didn't want any kind of 
fling with her. After a few seconds, she regained her composure 
and cleared her throat. "Um -- let me give it some thought," 
she said. "I'll figure something out."

"Thanks. Cat just isn't my type."

"Oh?" Lois said, unable to resist the temptation. "Just what 
*is* your type, then?"

"I didn't have a 'type' until I met you -- or at least, I 
didn't know what it was," he said, with a small grin. "I guess 
I'm just very selective, because I've never met any woman like 
you before. Does that sound silly?"

"I think," Lois said, "that I'm taking back everything I ever 
thought about small town guys. It might be silly, but I like 
it."

"Good." He looked down at the table and then back at her face. 
"I don't want to rush you -- I mean, you've only known me for a 
few days -- but I was wondering if you'd like to go out to 
dinner, after I get a little more settled. There's this little 
café that I know in Paris -- "

"Paris? Could you do that? I mean -- "

"Well, sure, it's not dangerous. I've taken my mom and dad 
places that way and I've never dropped them, yet."

"Oh, no I didn't mean that," Lois said, quickly. "I just hadn't 
realized you could -- I mean, you could take me flying with 
you?" The idea was dazzling.

"Sure. How about this evening?"

Suddenly, evening couldn't come fast enough. "Wow! I mean, 
sure!"

**********

"Have you ever been to the Brazilian rainforest?" Lois asked, 
as they headed back toward the Planet a short time later.

"Sure. Why?"

"Well -- " Lois glanced upward at the cloudy sky. A light 
dusting of snow had begun to fall. "I wondered. It seemed 
likely that you had, considering what we found out about you 
that day the power went out. They're picking the new head of 
the Rainforest Consortium, you know. It was all over the papers 
before Nightfall kind of crowded it off the front page. The 
results are going to be announced Tuesday."

"Yeah. Rumor says the front runner is Barbara Trevino. If it's 
true, she'd be the first woman to ever hold the post. Quite an 
honor, really."

"Exactly. It's big news. Anyhow, I'm supposed to try to get an 
interview from her for the Planet. I was wondering if you could 
give me a little general information about things -- you know -
- what the rainforest is like, the situation with the timber 
companies and the clear cutting operations -- what it looks 
like to a visitor and so forth. If you don't mind."

"Sure," Charlie said. "Any time you like."

"Well, how about this evening, then -- before you tell me about 
yourself?"

He shrugged. "No problem."

As they entered the Planet's lobby, Lois glanced at the 
newspaper and magazine stand. Barbara Trevino's face smiled 
from the front page of two different magazines and the same 
shot, much smaller, graced the front page of the current copy 
of The Daily Planet.

"The papers are sure playing it big," Charlie said.

"Yeah," Lois said. "Won't everybody be embarrassed if they pick 
somebody else, after all this?"

"Why do you say that?" he asked, sounding mildly curious.

"No reason. It's just that I'm a firm believer in Murphy's 
Law."

"I see what you mean," he agreed. "Well, let's hope it doesn't 
happen."

Lois glanced at her watch. "Oh, great, look at the time. I need 
to change clothes. I have an interview in about an hour."

"Big story?" Charlie asked.

"Maybe," Lois said. "I got a call from Vincent Winninger this 
morning. You know who he is, don't you?"

He nodded. "Sure. He has quite a reputation -- not all of it in 
the scientific community."

Lois couldn't restrain a grin. "True. But he wanted to talk to 
me, and far be it from me to toss aside a chance like that. Go 
on up to the newsroom. I'll see you in a minute."

It was rather more than a minute before Lois arrived in the 
newsroom and hurried over to her desk to retrieve her recorder. 
Glancing up, she saw Charlie's appreciative gaze riveted on her 
with quite a different expression on his face than the one with 
which he had regarded Cat.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Very...nice," he said.

Lois glanced down at the short, red dress that showed a good 
deal more leg than most of her office wardrobe. "Thank you."

Jimmy stopped in mid step and nearly fell over his feet. "Whoa! 
Where are you going?"

"To interview Vincent Winninger," Lois said, trying not to 
sound smug.

"You're kidding!" Jimmy looked suitably impressed. "The Mad 
Scientist?"

"He's not mad," Lois said. "He's eccentric."

"*You're* going to interview Vincent Winninger?" Cat's voice 
said, behind her. Lois turned. The gossip columnist was 
removing a leopard-spotted coat to reveal a dress that 
uncovered different patches of skin than the creation she had 
worn this morning.

"Yes," she said, trying not to bristle.

Cat snorted. "That explains the vain attempt to look sexy."

"You better be careful," Jimmy said. "Vincent Winninger is a 
notorious -- "

"Wolf," Cat said. "Womanizer." She didn't sound as if the 
thought bothered her. "Maybe I should go with you."

"Maybe you shouldn't," Lois said, without hesitation. She found 
the recorder in the second drawer she opened and thrust it into 
her bag. "I'll see you all later."

Cat cast a final glance at the red outfit and sashayed away 
toward her desk. Charlie -- Clark, she reminded herself again. 
She really had to start calling him Clark even to herself, or 
she was going to slip at the wrong time -- *Clark* had a faint 
grin on his face. "Don't tell me," he said. "Are you planning 
to exploit your femininity to -- "

"To get the story of one of the strangest and most reclusive 
scientists of our time?" Lois completed the sentence. She 
grinned. "You bet."

Clark chuckled. "I was right," he said. "Any editor would kill 
to have you on his team."

"That's for sure," Jimmy said. He resumed his interrupted 
progress toward the storeroom. Lois waited until he was out of 
earshot before answering.

"Thanks, Clark."

"You're welcome, but I was only telling the truth," he replied. 
"You shouldn't let Cat get to you like that. It's just envy, 
you know."

"Maybe," she said, glancing at her watch. "I have to leave or 
I'm going to be late. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

It wasn't until she had stepped into the elevator and the doors 
had closed that it occurred to her to wonder how he had known. 
It seemed that Charlie was a lot more observant than she had 
realized.

**********

"Scientists, philosophers, historians, hippies -- hah!" Vincent 
Winninger broke off with a snort of laughter. "Elimont Center, 
the intellectual commune: named after -- " Again he paused and 
said on a musing note, "I don't remember who he named it after. 
Do you?"

Lois turned from her examination of the wall full of 
photographs to look at him, uncertain whether the scientist 
actually expected an answer. He was a tall, athletic man with 
an engaging manner that Lois found quite charming, even if a 
good proportion of his remarks left her slightly confused. 
Winninger gave her a half smile. "Whoever he was, you can bet 
he was obscure."

He must be joking, Lois decided. She turned back to the photos.

There were a lot of them, photos showing Vincent Winninger with 
politicians, astronauts, actors -- famous personages from all 
walks of life. She leaned closer, taking in the famous faces. 
"And these theatrical photos?"

"The commune had a theater group," Winninger said.

An extremely famous face caught her eye. "Isn't that...?"

"Frank Sinatra?" Winninger filled in the blank. " Uh, no. 
That's Sebastian Finn. Mr. Make-up, we called him. He could 
make himself look like anyone. His Bette Davis was ... 
remarkable."

Fascinated, Lois examined the image of the imposter closely. If 
there was a difference, she couldn't see it in the photograph. 
"What happened to him?"

Winninger shrugged. "I don't know. He sort of disappeared. His 
make-up was better than his acting."

The photo of Winninger and a past president caught her 
attention. "Isn't this...."

He nodded, looking unexpectedly serious. "Barbara Trevino," he 
said, indicating the woman standing in the background. "She's 
come a long way. From radical hippie to..."

"To chairperson of the Rainforest Consortium," Lois said. 
Belatedly, she snapped on her recorder. "Do you mind if I 
record this?"

He shook his head. "Be my guest."

"Thanks. You were talking about Barbara Trevino, the new 
Chairperson of the Rainforest Consortium -- "

To her surprise, Winninger unexpectedly shook his head. "Well, 
not until Tuesday. But we're going to change all that."

Lois shot him a startled glance. "We?"

"Yes, you and me. That's why you're here." The scientist took a 
seat on the sofa and reached to extract a small book from a box 
sitting on the coffee table. "Did you know that I spent several 
years living with an Amazonian tribe?"

There must be some point here, she thought, even if she wasn't 
seeing it. The scientist waved her to a seat beside him and 
held out the book. "The Life and Times of Vincent Winninger. In 
this play, Barbara Trevino has a leading role. She's the femme 
fatale."

Not rambling after all? Lois leaned forward to take the book, 
avoiding the tray holding a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses 
that sat on the table, and her skirt inched upward, baring a 
stretch of shapely thigh. Winninger's eyes flicked toward it.

"You know," he said, resting a hand casually on her knee, 
"you're a very good-looking woman, Ms. Lane."

"Thank you." She firmly removed his hand.

He gave the faintest of smiles, acknowledging the action. "How 
do you feel about increased male potency?"

"What?" She quickly pulled her skirt into place. "Look, Dr. 
Winninger, I know your reputation with women is only exceeded 
by your scientific one, but I think it's best if we keep this 
meeting professional."

"Precisely."

Feeling as if she were grasping at mist that melted as she 
touched it, Lois stared at him. "What am I missing here?"

Winninger's smile had vanished. "Barbara Trevino is going to 
sell all of us and the ozone layer straight down the river," he 
said, "and destroy our chances for increased male potency."

Lois stared at him in shock. The man was clearly rambling. "I 
guess the sixties were pretty good to you," she said, finally.

Winninger didn't seem to be offended. "Hear me out. It will all 
become clear." He picked up the pitcher of tea. "Would you like 
some iced tea?"

He began to pour a glass for her, but the liquid splashed 
slightly, spattering her blouse. Winninger set the pitcher down 
quickly and snatched up a napkin, attempting to blot away the 
tea. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"That's okay," Lois said, hastily. "I'll get it." She rose 
quickly to her feet and hurried toward the bathroom, still 
clutching the notebook. Behind her, she heard a knock on the 
door.

Later, she would marvel at the workings of chance and at the 
fact that the minor accident had probably saved her life. 
Dabbing at the small spot of tea on her clothing, she heard 
Winninger's voice, speaking to someone out of her range of 
vision.

"You're back early."

There was no answer from the newcomer, but the next word 
brought her around in alarm.

"No!" The scientist's voice was filled with sheer terror. "No!"

The second word cut off in the middle and Lois almost ducked at 
the sound of a shot fired from a silenced pistol.

Why the sound it made was called silenced she wasn't quite 
sure, for the shot was anything but silent to her startled 
ears, but she supposed that it wasn't as loud as an unsilenced 
one. Marginally, anyhow. Someone outside probably wouldn't know 
what had made it. Quickly, she peeked through the crack in the 
door, trying to see what was happening.

Winnenger collapsed suddenly into her range of vision and she 
almost jumped. There was something about the way he lay there 
like an empty sack that left no doubt in her mind that he was 
dead, and her heart began to thump painfully in her chest as it 
occurred to her for the first time that she was in real danger. 
She had nearly witnessed a murder; she had certainly heard it, 
and the killer was standing right there in the other room, less 
than fifteen feet from her. Biting her lower lip to keep from 
making any inadvertent sound, she sneaked one eye past the edge 
of the door again, trying to see.

Motion. She could see a leather shoe and then a pantleg. A man 
knelt beside Winninger and felt for the pulse in his neck. For 
a numb second, during which her brain didn't seem to be 
functioning, she didn't absorb the scene before her, then 
reality seemed to rush back. She was seeing the murderer 
checking the efficacy of his work.

She almost gasped but managed to stifle it and consciously 
tried to breathe quietly. She needed to remember what she saw, 
she told herself, but it was hard to concentrate. Then the 
breath caught in her throat as the killer got to his feet and 
turned toward the bathroom.

As silently as possible, she eased back against the wall and 
pressed herself as flat against it as she could manage.

The book. Too late, she saw the notebook she had been holding, 
lying on the lid of the commode.

The door was pushed back suddenly and she barely stifled a 
squeak of alarm. The man entered the room and walked directly 
to the sink, ignoring the book that lay openly on the lid. 
Methodically, he removed his shirt, then unwrapped a bar of 
soap, tossing the wrapper into the trash.

Lois couldn't be certain what he was doing because she didn't 
dare move. Flattened behind the door, if she did anything to 
draw his attention he would be bound to see her. The self-
defense moves she had learned wouldn't be very useful against a 
gun, and in any case, the bathroom was too small for much 
maneuvering. Trying to breathe silently, she remained 
motionless.

The sound of running water reached her ears and she dared to 
lean forward just slightly. The killer was washing his face. 
Now was her chance, probably the only one she would have. 
Feeling the perspiration break out on her forehead, Lois 
reached out and seized the book, retreating once more behind 
the door. If she could have, she would have left the bathroom 
and fled, but the space between the killer and the door was too 
narrow. She would have brushed against him and given herself 
away. As it was, her heart was pounding so hard in her chest, 
she was surprised he couldn't hear it.

How long was the guy going to scrub himself, she wondered. She 
felt suffocated from trying to breathe lightly and silently. At 
last, he turned from the sink, his eyes closed tightly, and 
reached for the bath towel hanging neatly from its rack. His 
hand missed the towel rack and he leaned forward, feeling for 
the towel. In a moment, he was bound to open his eyes to find 
the thing he sought and the jig would be up. Moving quickly and 
quietly, Lois seized the item, almost thrust it into his 
seeking hands and flattened herself against the wall once more.

Every second seemed like a small lifetime as the murderer 
carefully dried his face and hands. At last, he turned and left 
the little bathroom, taking the towel with him. Lois let out 
her breath.

The fact that she had so far escaped detection must have given 
her a small jolt of courage. She was still scared; she admitted 
it freely, but her brain and sense of observation were 
beginning to recover.

He had taken the shirt as well, she saw. This guy, whoever he 
was, wasn't any amateur.

Lois could hear the man's retreating footsteps and breathed a 
sigh of relief.

Too soon. The footsteps were returning. She held her breath, 
not daring to move. The footsteps entered the bathroom, and she 
saw a hand reach down into the trashcan to remove the soap 
wrapper.

More movement. This time the footsteps retreated purposefully 
and quickly, and she heard the door open and then close.

Lois released her breath explosively and then, feeling slightly 
dizzy, sucked in a lungful of air. He was gone.

Slowly, she emerged from behind the door. Vincent Winninger was 
sprawled face down on the rug of his study, and a wide patch of 
red soaking the carpet next to him had formed itself most 
appropriately into a lopsided question mark.

Giving the scientist's body a wide berth, Lois made her way to 
the phone. With shaking hands, she dialed zero and waited what 
seemed like an hour for the operator to answer.

"Operator," a woman's nasal voice said in her ear. "What 
number, please?"

"This is Lois Lane," she said, amazed at the steadiness of her 
voice. Her insides felt like jelly. "I want to report a 
murder."

**********

"Lois, are you okay? What happened?"

Charlie ... no, she firmly reminded herself; Clark. Clark 
jumped to his feet as she emerged from Detective Horner's 
office.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Half an hour or so. I got here right after you phoned Mr. 
White to tell him where you were," he explained. "I overheard 
the call -- I wanted to be sure -- well, that you were all 
right. Are you?"

"More or less. At least, the guy didn't see me. I need to get 
back to the Planet, though. I have a story to write."

Charlie lowered his glasses and glanced past her. Lois looked 
over her shoulder but saw nothing except a closed door. "What?"

"Tell you later. Where's your car?"

"Parked over on the cross street." Lois started toward the 
glass doors. "Come on. I'll fill you in."

Clark held the door for her and followed her out. "What 
happened? I heard you tell Mr. White that Vincent Winninger had 
been murdered."

"How did you ... oh, yes. Your hearing. Yeah." Lois started 
down the steps to the sidewalk. "Winninger was murdered. I was 
there when it happened."

"*What*? I thought you'd found him dead. You were there?"

"I'd gone into the powder room to get a spot of iced tea off my 
blouse. I heard someone knock on his door and ..." Lois 
succinctly told him the story while they made their way to the 
Jeep. Charlie -- Clark, she reminded herself, sharply -- 
listened in complete silence until she finished.

" -- And then I called the police." She glanced up at his face, 
surprised to see that he had lost color. "I'm fine, Char -- 
Clark. Really."

"I know. It's just -- you could have been killed."

"But I wasn't," she reminded him. "He never knew I was there, 
and I got a good look at him when he came into the bathroom to 
wash."

"That makes you a witness," Clark said. "You can identify him."

"I know," she said. "But he doesn't know it. I'm going to find 
out why Winninger was killed and who the guy was that killed 
him. My bet is, it's because of what he was going to tell me 
about Barbara Trevino."

She unlocked the passenger door and then went around to the 
driver's side. When she slid into the seat, Charlie was 
frowning over his shoulder, glasses sitting on his nose, but as 
she slammed her door, he pushed them back into place and turned 
to look at her. "Why do you think that?" he asked. "You could 
be right, but are you guessing or do you have another reason?"

"It's more than a guess," Lois said. "While I was waiting for 
the police, I noticed something. The box of journals that was 
sitting on the coffee table while Winninger and I were talking 
had disappeared. Winninger gave me one from that pile -- I 
think it might have been what the killer was looking for. 
Here." She extracted the little book from her bag and handed it 
to him. "I can't read it -- it's written in some other 
language. But if I can get it translated ..."

He opened it and frowned at the handwriting. "It's in 
Portuguese."

"You can read it?" Lois asked.

"Yeah. I lived in Rio de Janiero for a few months a couple of 
years ago," he said, absently, flipping through the pages. 
"It's a diary, all right. I don't see anything in here worthy 
of murder ... it looks like Winninger's record of three years 
spent in Brazil, living with an Amazonian tribe ... but there's 
some kind of chemical formula on the last page. That might be 
what you're looking for. We're going to need a chemist to 
figure it out, though."

Lois found herself gaping at him. "How fast do you read?"

"Pretty fast." He lowered his glasses and looked back in the 
direction of the police station again. "I thought so."

"What?"

"Detective Horner is headed back to Winninger's house with 
Inspector Henderson. Winninger had a roommate -- a Dr. Hubert. 
He's flying back into Metropolis in about an hour. They've 
already made an appointment to talk to him when he gets there."

"How do you know that?"

"I heard him talking to Inspector Henderson when we were 
leaving and I've been watching them to see what they were going 
to do."

"That's what you were looking at?"

"Yeah." Clark nodded. "I thought maybe you'd want to know what 
was going on after you left --and they're on their way out 
right now. "

"You bet I want to know!" She started to insert the key into 
the ignition but paused as a new idea struck her. If Charlie 
would work with her on this, she might have to share the 
byline, but think what an advantage they would have! Not just 
on this investigation, but on any future ones. True, she had 
never worked with a partner, but they seemed to get along so 
well -- and anyway, if they were going to embark on any kind of 
a relationship, this might be the very test to see if they were 
as compatible as they initially seemed to be. Besides that, 
with these abilities, Charlie was bound to be one heck of a 
reporter. If anyone was going to have that kind of leg up on 
the competition, it was going to be her!

"Charlie -- " she began.

He gave a little smile. "Clark."

"Right; Clark. Sorry, I still think of you as Charlie. Look, 
would you mind working with me on this case? I realize you're 
probably used to doing things on your own, especially with 
these incredible abilities, but -- "

He grinned. "I was wondering how to suggest it. Not that I want 
to barge in on your story, but if we work together we might be 
able to find out some things the police miss."

She discovered that she was blushing. "Charlie -- Clark, I know 
an investigation brings out all my predatory instincts, but I'd 
love to work with you ... if we can figure out how to present 
it to Perry. I don't want him to recognize you as Charlie."

He nodded. "Neither do I. As far as I'm concerned, Charlie can 
just sink back into obscurity. There were too many weird things 
about the guy. I don't want him connected with me."

"Me, either. But to me, I think you'll always be Charlie -- at 
least a little." She leaned forward again to start the engine. 
"I'll think of something. Let's get back to the office. I want 
to go back to Winninger's in time to see the roommate, and 
maybe Jimmy can find someone to figure out that chemical 
formula ... " She broke off. "What?"

Clark was looking at her with a small grin still on his face. 
"You," he said. "Why didn't I meet you before? You're 
incredible!"

"Well, I could say the same thing about you." She thrust out a 
hand. "Partners?"

He took it. "Partners."

**********

"'Only minutes before his death, Dr. Winninger produced diaries 
which he claimed contained evidence that would abort the 
impending introduction of Barbara Trevino into the Rain Forest 
Consortium.'" Perry White leaned over Lois's shoulder to read 
the short article about the murder of Vincent Winninger. "You 
don't want to write this."

"And why not?" Lois demanded.

"Why shouldn't she, Chief?" Jimmy chimed in.

"Because I can't print it."

"Why not?"

"Because she doesn't have the diaries."

"I may not have the diaries, but I have the recording," Lois 
said. "The police made a copy of it and gave me back the 
original. I'll play it for you if you like. And I did have the 
one diary I gave to Jimmy."

Jimmy nodded. "I can't read it, though. It looks a little like 
Spanish, but I don't think it is."

"It's Portuguese," Lois said. "Clark lived in Brazil for a 
while and he says so. We're only interested in the chemical 
formula in the back, though. Find someone who can read it, 
okay?"

"I'll do my best," Jimmy assured her.

Perry shook his head. "Lois, if I print that part without some 
corroborating evidence, the paper could be open to a lawsuit."

"Can't we go with a disclaimer?" Lois protested. "We're only 
quoting Winninger, and I have him on tape."

"We could, but without the diaries there's nothing to back it 
up -- just the word of a dead man against Barbara Trevino. And 
saying that there were diaries and that the killer took them is 
gonna tell him you were there."

"I *was* there!"

"Yeah, but he won't know that unless you tell him. If he 
figures that out, he could come after you."

"Perry, I just spent five hours with the police and they didn't 
say anything about me being in danger."

"Did they know about the missing diaries?"

"Well ... I mentioned that they were gone."

"Yeah, and they're probably ashes by now. But I'll bet anything 
that you didn't tell them about the one you had."

"They've probably got tons of forensic evidence. They didn't 
need this, too. Besides, we don't know for sure that it's 
really evidence."

"Uh huh." Perry White glanced at Clark, who was keeping his 
face carefully expressionless as he read the article. "The 
killer might not know about that one, but if he knows Winninger 
well enough to kill him, then he may. And if he realizes it's 
missing, he'll start trying to figure out where it went. And 
that will lead right to you."

Lois sighed and made several changes. "There, does that make 
you happy?"

"I called Barbara Trevino's spokesperson," Clark interrupted, 
diplomatically. "She's en route to Metropolis now. She has a 
meeting at the Trade Center tomorrow. He wouldn't tell me where 
she was staying, though."

Perry refused to be diverted. He indicated one of the original 
passages. "Change this from 'minutes before' to 'earlier in the 
day' -- just to be on the safe side."

Rebelliously, Lois obeyed, revising for the second time. "How 
about the part that says the man is dead? Can I keep that?"

Perry again glanced at Clark, who maintained his blank 
expression. Lois jabbed the key to transmit her story to the 
printer and pushed herself to her feet. "I'm going back to 
Winninger's house. His roommate ought to be there pretty soon. 
If I stay here much longer, I won't have a story." Hastily, she 
cleaned the fingerprints off her monitor screen and hurried 
toward the elevator. Clark glanced quickly at his boss for 
permission and followed.

She was standing at the curb, waiting for the light to change, 
when he caught up with her. It was well past sunset and the 
street lamps were on. The strings of Christmas lights that 
looped from building to building, coiled around the lampposts 
and wound through the glittering silver arches of tinsel 
proclaiming the holiday season, lit up the night in a myriad of 
rainbow colors. The activity on the streets hadn't decreased at 
all with the coming of evening.

"Lois, are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Perry's right. I'm going to need a 
lot more facts before this is a real story. Anyway, I think 
we've given Dr. Hubert time to get here. I want to talk to him. 
Maybe he'll have some ideas about why Winninger was killed."

"Maybe. I did some checking on Dr. Hubert while you were 
writing," Clark said. "It turns out he's been in Washington DC 
since last night, apparently attending a meeting of the 
National Science Council. He was scheduled to give some kind of 
presentation this afternoon. I thought it might be a good idea 
to be sure he had an alibi, just in case."

"Any idea whether he actually made the presentation?" Lois 
asked.

Clark shrugged. "Can't say. I guess we can ask."

He glanced sideways at the sound of skate wheels on the 
sidewalk in time to see a long-haired skateboarder come 
careening toward them, somehow managing to miss the other 
occupants of the sidewalk. Until, that is, one of the wheels of 
his skateboard hit a hole in the walkway where a chunk of 
concrete had broken away. The wheel jammed and the board 
tipped, sending the man lurching forward, desperately trying to 
regain his balance. He slammed into Lois, and the two of them 
tumbled into the street, directly into the path of an oncoming 
truck.

Clark didn't even think. One instant, Lois was on her hands and 
knees in the street and the next he had seized her and shoved 
her back onto the sidewalk. Almost absently, he grabbed the 
skateboarder by one arm and threw him, somewhat less gently, to 
safety. Avoiding a physical collision with the truck (one that 
would certainly have caused far more damage to the vehicle than 
to him) took more than normal speed, but in the confusion, he 
doubted anyone would notice. The skateboarder was staggering to 
his feet. Clark glared at him for an instant and turned quickly 
to help Lois, wasting no more time on the cause of the almost 
fatal accident. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, looking a little stunned as he set her upright once 
more and he could hear her pulse racing in the aftermath of the 
near-disaster. The light changed to green at that moment and 
the "Walk" sign flashed on. The crowd that had been waiting to 
cross surged past them, paying no attention to the incident 
other than an incurious glance or two in their direction. The 
skateboarder retrieved his battered board and departed, dodging 
pedestrians in his progress down the walkway. He didn't even 
look back.

"Lois, are you sure you're all right?" Clark asked again.

Lois took a deep breath. "Yeah." She made a visible effort to 
regain her composure. "Come on, we're going to miss the light."

They crossed the street and made their way to the Jeep. Lois 
hadn't said a word since assuring him she wasn't hurt, but once 
inside, she put a hand on his arm. "Thanks, Charlie. You saved 
my life. I guess that's two I owe you."

He shook his head. "You don't owe me anything, Lois."

She gave an unsteady little laugh. "Yes I do. Every human on 
Earth owes you something. You saved us all from Nightfall and 
no one knows it but me -- and I guess your mother and father. 
This is just one more thing to add to the tally."

"I'm not counting," he said. "Besides, if it wasn't for you, I 
couldn't have done what I did and you know it. If anything, the 
world owes you, not me."

Lois stared at him for a long moment and finally shook her 
head. "You're incredible, did you know that? Anyway, I hope 
nobody else back there noticed how fast you moved, just now."

"I doubt it. Everything was pretty confused."

"And it's not that bright out there," she agreed. "Still, I see 
why you're afraid of being seen. We're going to have to try to 
think of some way to protect you. I don't want anyone else to 
realize what you can do."

"When we get a few minutes of our own," Clark agreed, relieved 
that she seemed to be recovering quickly. Still, he was 
worried. Sure, this time it had only been an accident, but what 
about next time? Once her story came out in the paper, he had 
no faith at all in the hope that the killer of Dr. Winninger 
would fail to put two and two together and conclude that Lois 
had seen him commit murder. Once he realized that, Clark was 
quite sure he would try to eliminate the witness to his crime.

There was no point in drawing that to Lois's attention, though. 
She had to realize the danger, even if she wouldn't admit it 
aloud. Clark remained silent as she started the Jeep and pulled 
out into the moderately heavy evening traffic. Losing her for 
any reason wasn't something he was prepared to do. He was just 
going to have to be on his toes.

**********

The police guard let them past when they arrived at Winninger's 
house, directed them to Inspector Henderson and warned them 
sternly against touching anything at the crime scene. Lois 
agreed impatiently, and she and Clark made their way to the 
study.

Henderson was standing in the hall with Detective Horner, 
speaking to a man whose back was toward the two reporters. Lois 
took one look at him and felt the hair on the back of her neck 
try to stand up. She hurried toward them, Clark on her heels, 
and moved around to a spot from which she could get a good view 
of the stranger's face.

"Henderson!" she said. "This is the man who killed Dr. 
Winninger!"

Inspector Henderson shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Lois."

"But I saw-"

"I know. That's what I thought, too." Henderson gave a half-
smile. "This is Dr. Hubert, Dr. Winninger's associate."

"But-"

"Dr. Hubert has been in Washington DC since last night," 
Henderson explained, not very patiently. "He was there today at 
two o'clock when Winninger was murdered."

Lois fixed Hubert with a stare. "Did anybody see you?"

Hubert didn't hesitate. "The thirty or forty men and women who 
attended the National Science Council meeting ... and heard my 
presentation. Including the Vice President of the United 
States."

Henderson raised an eyebrow and smiled, sourly. "I'd call that 
an alibi, wouldn't you, Lois?"

Lois stared at Dr. Hubert, totally confused. She had seen this 
man in Vincent Winninger's bathroom. She had got a close-up 
view when she handed him the towel to dry his face. She 
couldn't be mistaken. But, evidently she was.

A memory tugged at the back of her mind. Winninger had said 
something while they had been talking, but whatever it was 
slipped away as she reached for it. She glanced at Clark, 
standing silently beside her, his glasses perched on the end of 
his nose, and then back at Henderson.

"Something is really weird here," she said, flatly. "If it 
wasn't Dr. Hubert, then it was his twin brother. I *saw* him, 
Bill."

Henderson sighed. "I don't know who you saw, Lois, but it 
wasn't Dr. Hubert. We've already checked out his alibi, very 
thoroughly. He was exactly where he said he was at the time of 
the murder." He looked at her with a faint hint of sympathy. 
"Look, you've had a rough day. I already promised you that we'd 
keep you informed if we find anything you can print. Why don't 
you go home and get some rest?"

**********

"Well, Henderson obviously thinks I've lost my mind," Lois 
said. "I suppose you do, too?"

Clark shook his head. "No. I think there must be another 
explanation, even if I don't have a clue what it might be." He 
glanced at his watch. "It's nearly eight o'clock. Why don't we 
quit for now and get something to eat? I believe you had a few 
things to ask me."

"Good idea. I've had enough of butting my head against a stone 
wall for one day." Lois kicked an innocuous twig out of her 
way. They were heading back toward the Jeep after leaving 
Winninger's house. The air was crisp and cold, and Lois could 
see frost already starting to form on the dried grass of 
people's lawns.

"Looks like it's going to be cold tonight," Clark said.

Lois nodded, still fuming, but already her curiosity and 
investigative instincts had superseded the annoyance of being 
wrong about Dr. Hubert. "Did you say something about Chinese 
takeout from Shanghai?"

Clark grinned. "You bet. Let's go back to your place and I'll 
make a quick trip for food. Then, we can talk and eat and you 
can ask me all the questions you want."

**********

"I don't think it was necessary for you to escort me into my 
apartment," Lois was saying as she closed the door behind them. 
"I doubt if there's any danger -- at least yet. My article 
won't even appear until tomorrow morning, so how could the 
murderer have any idea I saw him?"

"I know," Clark said. "Let's say I'm just being careful. 
Besides, I'm going to leave from your window to avoid being 
seen." He lowered his glasses and turned his head slowly back 
and forth. Knowing what she did about him, she guessed that he 
was scanning her apartment for intruders. "Nobody here. Is your 
door locked?"

Lois turned and began to fasten the array of locks. "It is, 
now."

"Good. In that case, I'll go get the food." He strode to the 
window and unfastened the catch. Lois held her breath as she 
saw him casually defy gravity for the second time since she had 
known him. He floated upward from the floor and drifted out the 
open window. Standing on nothing, he turned and smiled. "Back 
in a few," he said and shot skyward.

Lois took a deep breath. "Wow," she murmured.

"Wow" really didn't describe it, she amended, looking after 
him. Slowly, she removed her coat and went to her coat closet 
to hang it up, hardly aware of what she was doing. Charlie -- 
no, Clark, she reminded herself for the hundredth time -- was 
even more amazing than she had realized, until he had pulled 
her out of the path of that truck this evening. Half of the 
shock she had been coping with had been simply seeing him move 
so fast that for an instant he had been literally a blur to her 
eyes. Knowing in theory that he was capable of some really 
incredible feats somehow didn't measure up to actually seeing 
him in action. And seeing him matter-of-factly floating in the 
air, as if it were an everyday thing ... well, that nearly left 
her breathless. The thought of actually flying with him as he 
had suggested this afternoon, had her feeling like a little kid 
whose parents had promised her a trip to Disneyland.

The cold breeze from the window finally snapped her out of her 
abstraction and she moved forward to close it. A whoosh of air 
made her pause, and then Clark was floating back in the window 
as gently as he had left. This time, however, he held a large 
bag, which was producing delectable aromas that made her mouth 
start to water.

"That was fast," she said, after a startled instant.

"I flew straight," he explained. "I'd have been faster, but I 
didn't want to risk the food."

Almost absently, she closed the window. "Well, shall we eat?"

"Suits me," he said. "Is your kitchen table okay?"

"Sure. I'll get some plates."

"Do you want tea with this?" he asked. "I can make it pretty 
fast."

"Sure." When he said fast, he undoubtedly meant *fast* she 
thought. "What's a Chinese dinner without tea?"

"My thoughts exactly. Where do you keep your teapot?"

True to her expectations, he set the teapot on the table only 
about three seconds later. "It'll take a few minutes to steep," 
he said, taking a seat across from her. "So, did you want to 
ask me some questions?" He waggled his eyebrows comically at 
her.


Lois found herself giggling at his antics. "Sure. Let's eat, 
though. This smells too good to wait any longer."

They began to spoon the food onto their plates. Lois looked 
expectantly at him. "Now, why don't you tell me your life's 
story? Let's start with: where do you come from?"

"That's a good question, but I'll tell you what I know." Clark 
picked up a pork roll and bit into it. "I have no idea where 
I'm originally from."

"None?" she asked, startled.

"Nope." He popped the remainder of the roll into his mouth, 
chewed and swallowed. "None at all. Mom and Dad think I might 
be a Russian experiment, but nobody knows for sure. On May 17, 
1966, just after sunset, Mom and Dad were driving past Simpson 
Quarry, west of the Elbow River near Smallville, when they saw 
a fireball in the sky -- kind of like you did." He gave a one-
sided smile. "They thought it was a meteor. It came shooting 
overhead and crashed among the trees in Shuster's Field." He 
lowered his glasses and looked at the teapot. "I think the 
tea's ready."

Lois reached for the teapot. "Go on," she commanded, 
fascinated.

He grinned. "Okay. Well, my mom, being who she is, had to check 
it out. They went to where they thought it had come down and, 
of course, they didn't find a meteor. They didn't even find a 
crater. What they found was a trough in the dirt where it had 
come in, and at the end of the trough, a tiny rocket or 
spaceship, with one occupant: a baby about three months old. Of 
course, I was the baby."

"And there was no clue to where you came from?"

He shook his head. "None. There were some kind of symbols or 
hieroglyphs on the ship itself, Mom told me, but she doesn't 
know what they could have been. Anyhow, Mom and Dad didn't have 
any kids; they couldn't, for some reason, and they hadn't been 
able to adopt, either. Since it didn't seem likely that anybody 
was going to claim me, they took me home. With the help of the 
town doctor -- who was Dad's cousin -- they got a birth 
certificate for me, and I became Clark Kent."

"So you grew up in small town America," Lois said.

"Yeah. No one ever came looking for me. Mom and Dad worried 
about it for a long time, though. Considering how they found 
me, and the fact that it was in the middle of the Cold War, 
they thought maybe the whole thing might be some kind of 
Russian experiment or something. Mom told me later that she 
decided that same night that she wasn't going to give me back 
to anybody who would experiment on a baby. Still .... " He 
paused, staring at his plate. "Still, you wonder, you know?"

"Well, sure," Lois said. "Even ordinary kids wonder why their 
parents gave them up. You'd have more reason than most."

He nodded. "Not that Mom and Dad weren't everything I could 
have wanted as parents," he added, hastily. "To them, I was a 
miracle. Still, I sometimes wonder what the real explanation 
was."

"Well, if it was some kind of government experiment, your real 
parents might not have had a choice," Lois pointed out.

"I've thought of that." He agreed. "If it happened that way, it 
would have been pretty bad for them. I guess it really doesn't 
matter now, but I'd like to know."

Lois took a sip of tea. "I guess I understand that," she 
agreed, soberly. She reached out to take his hand. "Still, the 
chances are, we'll never know. Whatever the explanation was, 
I'm glad you're here, now."

He squeezed her fingers gently and smiled. "So am I." He seemed 
to shake himself. "Anyway, I grew up on our farm -- just 
another kid in a rural community."

She released his hand. "No one ever noticed anything different 
about you?"

"No. At least, not at first. I was pretty much the same as 
every other kid -- except that I didn't seem to get sick. I 
grew up like any farm kid -- doing chores, helping Mom and Dad, 
going to school -- until I was somewhere around ten or eleven, 
when I started to develop my powers. That was when we realized 
I wasn't just any kid, and Mom and Dad had to tell me how they 
really found me. I didn't get them all at once, either." He 
smiled. "Flying was the most fun, but I didn't do that until I 
was eighteen. After I graduated from high school, I went to 
MidWest U and got my degree in journalism, then I traveled 
around the world for a few years before I came back and joined 
the town newspaper for a while. Then the editor was killed in 
an accident, so I took over temporarily. I'd been planning on 
coming to Metropolis to try for a job on one of the papers 
here, when Nightfall kind of accelerated my plans." He reached 
out to pick up the teapot and pour himself a cup of tea. 
"That's my whole life story in a nutshell, up until I met you."

"Not quite," Lois said. "When did you start using your powers 
to help people?"

"Oh, that." He shrugged. "After my powers started to come in 
and I found out I was faster and stronger than other people, 
and that nothing could hurt me, sometimes I was able to help in 
an emergency without other people finding out. I always had to 
be really careful, though. I wanted to help whenever I could, 
but Dad reminded me all the time that if the government found 
out about me, they'd put me in a laboratory and dissect me like 
a frog. He was scared that the authorities would take me away 
from him and Mom if anyone ever found out what I could do."

"He might have been right," Lois said, thoughtfully. "Remember 
what happened to the Dionne quintuplets. Their government 
decided the parents couldn't take care of the girls adequately 
and took them away. I can just see some agency in Washington 
trying something like that on you and your parents. You're a 
lot more unique than a set of quintuplets and, even if they 
can't dissect you, I don't have much faith in a bunch of power-
hungry, government types."

"Neither do I," he admitted. "I understand why Dad worried so 
much. Still, I'd like to find a way to use what I've been given 
to help people openly -- without having to worry about someone 
finding out it's me. I've been thinking about it for a while, 
now. I'm still not sure how I want to handle it, but the mask 
is probably a good idea in the meantime. At least then, nobody 
would see my face."

"I suppose it will do for a stop-gap measure," Lois said, "but 
we need a permanent solution. If you wear a mask, people will 
realize that you have something to hide and really start 
looking around, trying to figure out who you are and where you 
come from. We've got to think of something better."

Charlie looked confidently at her. "I knew I was right about 
you," he said. "We'll work something out."

"You've got an awful lot of faith in me," she said.

"I have reason to," he pointed out. "Nobody else could have 
figured out what you did about me. Even I didn't." He poured 
himself a second cup of tea. "So, if you can help me work out 
something that would fool even you, I don't think I have to 
worry about much."

"Well, let me give it some thought," Lois said.

They finished dinner in companionable silence, Lois mulling 
over what Charlie had told her. Somehow, the thought of him 
being an experiment, from Russia or any other country, didn't 
really sound right. If it were possible to produce a super 
being like Charlie, why wouldn't the makers have made more? The 
Soviets had never been particularly concerned about the welfare 
of individual humans and there were plenty of other countries 
with the same attitude. If they had lost their prototype, 
wouldn't they simply have created another? In her experience, 
destroying a scientific discovery didn't prevent its 
development, in the long run. Once the genie was out of the 
bottle, it stayed out. Something once invented would be 
invented again within a short span of time because the level of 
scientific knowledge made it possible and human beings were 
infinitely clever and curious, sometimes to the dismay of the 
rest of the world.

So, it followed that the technology to create a super man like 
Charlie didn't exist. If it had, whichever country had it would 
have used it to make more like him and -- since Charlie was 
probably in his mid to late twenties -- the world would have 
known it long before now. So, where had he really come from?

"Charlie, what happened to the ship your parents found you in?" 
she asked, suddenly. "They didn't leave it for anybody to find, 
did they?"

"I never asked," he said, "but they didn't leave it around. Dad 
always just said he hid it. Why?"

Lois stood up and began to gather the plates and silverware 
from the table. "I'm not sure, really -- but I don't buy the 
idea that you're a Russian experiment. I'd like to see it, 
someday. Call it my natural curiosity as a reporter."

"I'll ask the next time I talk to them," he said. He closed the 
containers of food. "What do you want to do with this?"

"Put it in the refrigerator," Lois directed. "You can bet it 
won't sit there like the stuff from Feng's did. It's too good. 
Unless," she added, "you'd like to take some of it home, 
yourself."

He shook his head. "If I want more, I'll fly over to Shanghai 
and pick some up. And speaking of which," he added, "I think I 
promised to take you flying tonight."

"Yes, you did," she said, trying to sound casual and calm about 
it.

He wasn't fooled. He grinned. "Why don't you get your coat?" he 
suggested. "It might get a little cold out there."

Lois swallowed nervously. It wasn't that she didn't trust 
Charlie. It was simply that the whole idea was so incredible 
that she couldn't help but be a little nervous. Still, if he 
said it was safe, she believed him. She hurried into her 
bedroom, found a heavy sweatshirt to pull on and rejoined him 
in the living room less than a minute later.

Charlie had opened the window and was looking out. He glanced 
around when she re-emerged into the room and smiled. "Ready?"

Silently, she nodded. His smile widened slightly. "Don't be 
nervous. It's completely safe -- I promise."

"I know." She stepped up beside him and looked out. The sky was 
clear and cold. The haze of city light blotted out the stars, 
but the full moon shone down brightly, clearly visible even in 
the city.

Charlie stooped and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. That 
would be reasonable, a detached part of her mind pointed out. 
To a man who could push aside an asteroid the size of 
Nightfall, the weight of a mere woman would be negligible. 
"Ready?"

She nodded, feeling her heart starting to beat faster -- not 
with fear but with excitement. Suddenly it seemed as if she 
weighed nothing at all. The pull of gravity had disappeared. 
Looking down, she saw that Charlie's feet were no longer on the 
ground. He was rising from the floor, taking her with him. They 
floated out the window so smoothly that she almost wasn't aware 
of movement, and he turned to let her slide it closed behind 
them. Looking down, she could see that there was nothing 
between them and the ground, five stories below, except very 
thin air, but Charlie was standing on empty space as easily as 
if his feet rested on solid ground. He was regarding her 
seriously when she looked up. "Are you all right?"

"This is incredible!"

It was the right answer. His smile returned and suddenly the 
apartment house was dropping away beneath them. Lois looked 
down once, watching the city dwindle into a mass of lights, and 
then up, again. The sky was growing darker as they ascended, 
and the stars began to appear, at first only the brighter ones, 
and then more and more, like uncounted diamonds scattered 
across black velvet. There were more stars than she remembered, 
but then, she'd been in the country at night only infrequently, 
and usually on business that didn't involve stargazing.

Looking around, she could see the lights of the harbor and the 
luminescence of the bay. The dark, irregular patch that must be 
Suicide Slum stood out by its lack of lighting. Uptown, she 
could see the brightly-lighted business district and for a 
moment, the glittering, fifty-foot letters that flashed across 
the top story of the Lexor Hotel were on a level with them, 
then they were falling behind as Charlie continued to gain 
altitude.

"Like it?" he asked.

She could only nod. The lights were sliding to their rear as 
they began to move forward, at first slowly and then with 
increasing speed. They were headed south, Lois saw, and within 
a very few minutes they had left the city of Metropolis behind. 
It was strange, too, she thought. They had to be moving pretty 
fast, but the wind wasn't bothering her, nor was she 
uncomfortable. Somehow, being held closely in Charlie's arms 
appeared to protect her from the discomfort that she should 
have felt while flying at this speed. "Where are we going?" she 
asked, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the wind.

"Your choice," he replied. "You don't need to shout, though. I 
can hear you all right."

Naturally, she thought. That incredible hearing of his. "How 
far can we go?" As she asked the question, it dawned on her how 
silly it was. A short time ago, this man had casually flown to 
Shanghai and back in the space of about fifteen minutes just to 
pick up dinner. An idea occurred to her and she hesitated, her 
instinctive desire to avoid personal, potentially emotional 
interactions warring with her curiosity. Curiosity won. "I'd 
like to see your home town."

"Really?" He sounded both surprised and pleased. "Okay."

He made a long, swooping turn. They flew over a mass of lights 
that must be another, smaller city and headed west.

**********

As they drew away from the cities and flew over the Appalachian 
mountain range, Lois looked at Charlie ... no, at Clark Kent. 
"Why did they name you Clark?" she asked, suddenly.

"Huh?" He seemed surprised at the non sequitur. "Oh. Clark is 
Mom's maiden name. Jerome was my paternal grandfather's name."

"Clark Jerome, huh?" She sighed. "I guess I'd better get used 
to calling you Clark, even though you're Charlie to me."

He chuckled. "I don't mind as long as you don't call me Charlie 
in public."

"Yeah, but if I don't get used to calling you Clark, sooner or 
later I'm going to make a mistake. Your name doesn't matter, 
anyway. You're still the guy I ... well, that I wish I'd met a 
long time ago."

His arms tightened around her for a second. "I wish you had, 
too. I'd started to think that I wasn't made to fall ... to 
feel like this about a woman. Like whatever makes me different 
had made me different that way, too."

Lois rested her free hand lightly on his upper arm. "Believe 
me, you're not that different."

He glanced at the hand and swallowed. "I can tell ... now, 
anyway."

She didn't smile. "I'm glad. I hope you think that way after 
you've known me longer."

He cocked his head sideways. "Why do you think I might not?"

Lois shrugged uncomfortably. "Most men feel threatened by a 
successful woman in a man's job."

His eyebrows flew up. "I thought we'd already established that 
I'm not 'most men'."

"I think that's pretty obvious," Lois said. "But you know what 
I mean."

"Yeah, I do. But Lois, my odd abilities have nothing to do with 
whether or not I'm a good journalist. I can find things out, 
but writing about them effectively is something completely 
different. I'd get nowhere if I couldn't write. That kind of 
thing has nothing to do with gender -- or super-human powers or 
anything else. It takes ability. Talent. Why should I feel 
threatened because a smart, aggressive woman can do the job as 
well as I can? It's up to me to prove that I can compete."

That was true. He might make a good private detective, but to 
be a journalist required the ability to write. She patted his 
arm. "I understand, I think. Even with your super powers, we're 
on a level playing field in our profession."

He was watching her closely. "It's not just that, though -- is 
it?"

She looked down, unwilling to meet his eyes. "No."

"You don't think you're likeable, do you? Why?"

The gentleness in his voice caught her by surprise. She looked 
up to see his worried expression and felt her barriers start to 
crumble. What was it about this guy, she wondered, that he 
seemed to be able to walk through all her carefully constructed 
defenses as if they didn't exist?

"I'm not," she said. "I don't have friends. Not many, anyhow."

"You have me," he said, gently. "And, unless I'm very much 
mistaken, you have Perry."

She gave a short laugh. "I guess so. I'm Perry's protegee."

"You said something back in Willow Rock -- about how maybe this 
time it wouldn't have turned into a disaster," he said. "Has 
it, before?"

She'd hoped he hadn't noticed what she had said in the heat of 
the moment, but obviously Charlie had a very good memory, now 
that it was working right, she thought wryly. She looked down 
at the dark land passing underneath them. "Yeah. Every time."

"Lois, look at me," he said, softly.

Reluctantly, she obeyed. He was smiling at her. "Just because 
other guys haven't got the sense to see what an incredible 
person you are, doesn't mean I'm stupid, too," he said. "I've 
never met anyone like you in my life. You're a complicated 
person." He grinned suddenly. "You're domineering, 
uncompromising, pigheaded and cynical. You're also loyal, 
tenacious, and determined to do the right thing. You're a 
brilliant, investigative journalist who cares about people -- 
and under all the prickles and armor is somebody who is very 
lovable. I know. What I don't know is why the other guys 
couldn't see it, too, but I'm glad they didn't."

In spite of herself, she could feel her eyes beginning to fill 
with tears. What was happening to her? Lois Lane *never* cried 
but she had started to cry twice in Charlie's presence. Maybe 
it was because he had described her so accurately. He *knew* 
what she was and it didn't seem to bother him at all. 
Determinedly, she blinked the moisture away.

He was still smiling at her. "I don't know how to say it, 
really," he said. "It's just that together -- we seem to work. 
I stopped Nightfall, but without you, I wouldn't have 
remembered in time. It was you who figured out the important 
stuff. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"That together we're stronger than we are separately?"

His smile widened. "Together. That's the concept I was thinking 
of. Does it make sense?"

She gulped. Was he saying what she thought he was? "I think 
so."

"Good." He rested his cheek lightly on the top of her head. "I 
don't want to rush things," he added. "We need to get to know 
each other better ... but I'm already sure. It's up to you to 
set the pace. Is that all right with you?"

She nodded, unable to speak. Charlie was saying that no matter 
what she thought of herself, he wanted her, that he valued her 
-- and that she could make the rules. When had any of her other 
previous relationships begun that way?

She found that the stars were blurring for a second time and 
quickly blinked away the moisture. She mustn't jump to 
conclusions just yet, she told herself. But it was a promising 
start.

To the north of them, a patch of lights was growing. Another 
city, she thought. Charlie -- Clark -- avoided it, keeping to 
the darker skies. They flew along in silence for a while. Lois 
glanced up at the stars, almost dazzlingly clear in the pitch 
black sky. She'd had no idea how bright they could be away from 
city lights.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Charlie said.

She nodded, pointing northwest. "That one's really bright."

He glanced up. "That's Vega. One of the brightest stars in the 
sky."

"I guess you'd know, wouldn't you," she said.

"Some," he agreed. "When I'm over the ocean, I use them for 
navigation."

She hadn't thought of that. "Sort of like the old sailors, I 
guess."

"Exactly," he said. "We're in the Midwest now, coming up on 
Kansas. We'll be over Smallville in five minutes. My parents 
want to meet you, to thank you for what you did. Do you want to 
see the house where I grew up or do you want to put it off 
until later?"

How did he know what was in her mind without her saying a word, 
she wondered. "Do you read minds?"

He gave a soft laugh. "I don't think so."

She swallowed and gathered her nerve. "Well -- if you don't 
think it's too late at night."

"You forget -- It's earlier here than it was in Metropolis," he 
pointed out. "Mom and Dad won't mind a bit."

Lois hesitated. "Well ... okay."

The lights of a small town were approaching as they spoke. 
Unlike other towns, Clark didn't try to avoid it but flew 
directly over the buildings, too high to be seen by the people 
still frequenting the streets and sidewalks.

Christmas music floated in the air, and she could see that the 
little town was decorated in red and green and silver. The 
holiday was only three weeks away and the whole setting of the 
town was right out of a picture of middle America, something 
she had always avoided as unbearably bucolic and corny. Now, 
however, looking at it from above, the picture was unexpectedly 
attractive. She had grown up in Metropolis and was used to 
Christmas in the city. To her, Christmas was an ordeal to be 
gotten through, a time when her father disappeared early in the 
day, her mother got drunk on eggnog, and she and her sister hid 
in their room to avoid the unpleasantness that inevitably arose 
before the sun went down. Somehow, she was sure that that 
wasn't the kind of Christmas that Charlie -- Clark -- was used 
to and she was suddenly slightly envious.

The town fell behind and in the dark countryside below, she 
could see solitary lights here and there, marking single 
houses. The snowy fields reflected the light from the almost 
full moon that hung like a lantern to the south. They were 
approaching a farmhouse now, and her private pilot was losing 
altitude. They came down lightly in a snowy yard and he set her 
gently on a path that led to an old fashioned porch.

"Here we are," Charlie said. "They heard us land."

As he spoke, the porch light came on and a second later, the 
door was flung open. A small woman stood in the lighted 
doorway. "Clark?"

"Hi, Mom." Clark strode up the walk, pulling Lois along by the 
hand. "We decided to drop by for a visit. This is Lois."

Clark's mother was already looking at her and Lois fought the 
urge to hide behind her companion. "Hello, Mrs. Kent."

Clark's mother smiled widely. "Oh, honey, call me Martha. 
Clark, bring her in here right now before she freezes!"

Clark obeyed at once and a moment later, Lois found herself in 
a small, living room. A fire burned vigorously in the room's 
brick fireplace and a grey-haired man of about sixty was 
sitting in an easy chair in front of the television set, a cup 
of something in his hand. He set the cup on a coaster and rose 
to his feet when he saw Lois.

"Lois, this is my dad, Jonathan Kent," Clark said. "Dad, this 
is Lois Lane. She's the one who found me when I crashed in 
Centennial Park."

"I guessed that, son," Jonathan Kent said. "You don't normally 
come flying in with a passenger."

He smiled at Lois. "I was hoping we'd get the chance to thank 
you, Lois. Clark says it was you who saved all of us. Thanks 
for taking an interest in our boy."

"He told us how you shoved him off the three story building," 
Martha Kent said. She sounded amused. "That was a smart move."

Lois turned to look at him. "He told you about that? Char-- 
Clark!"

His mother laughed. "He was bragging about you, Lois. To tell 
you the truth, if I'd been there, I'd probably have done the 
same." She waved to the sofa. "Have a seat. I'll make some more 
hot chocolate."

"I'll help you, Mom," Clark said. He followed his mother, and 
Lois sank slowly onto the old fashioned sofa.

Jonathan Kent settled back into his easy chair and pushed his 
glasses into place. "You've certainly made quite an impression 
on my boy," he said. "He couldn't stop talking about you after 
he came home."

"Really?" Lois asked.

The farmer nodded. "We were a little worried at first," he 
continued. "If anyone ever found out what Clark can do -- "

"And I'm a reporter," Lois added. "His secret is safe with me, 
Mr. Kent. Even if I wanted to tell anyone, who would believe 
me?"

"With all the crazies running around nowadays, you never know," 
he answered. "Anyway, now that I've met you, I won't worry 
anymore. And, my name is Jonathan."

Clark re-entered the room at that instant, a tray of steaming 
mugs in his hands. Martha followed with a dish of cookies. 
"It's always so convenient when Clark is around," she said, 
setting the cookies on the coffee table. "He can heat up the 
chocolate in seconds without scorching it."

Lois accepted one of the mugs and raised it experimentally to 
her lips. Clark sat down next to her on the sofa with his own 
cup. Martha took the rocking chair and reached out for a 
cookie. "So, what brings you back so soon?" she asked. "Did 
everything go all right today?"

"Oh, yes," Clark said. "Mr. White hired me to cover the city 
beat and I'm kind of back to guarding Lois." He took a sip of 
chocolate, his eyes dancing at Lois over the rim of the cup. 
She smiled back at him.

"Oh?" Martha said. "Why? Or shouldn't I ask?"

"I witnessed a murder today," Lois said. "I got a good look at 
the murderer, but there's kind of a mystery about it. He looked 
just like the victim's roommate, but the roommate has a perfect 
alibi -- so it had to be somebody else."

"My, you seem to have an exciting life," Martha said. "First 
Clark and Nightfall and now a murder. Who was the murder 
victim?"

"A scientist named Vincent Winninger," Lois said. "He was going 
to tell me why Barbara Trevino shouldn't be inducted as head of 
the Rainforest Consortium, but he was killed before he could 
explain."

"Vincent Winninger?" Martha said. "Good heavens!"

"You've heard of him?" Clark asked.

"Oh yes," Martha said. "Years ago, I knew him when I lived at 
the Elimont Center. They called it the Intellectual Commune-
named for somebody called Morris Elimont."

"Who was he?" Clark asked.

Martha shrugged. "I have no idea. It was certainly different, 
though. There were all kinds of people, all dedicated to the 
ideals of the sixties. I was very idealistic at that point in 
my life, too, and one summer a friend suggested I visit. He 
said it was an intellectually stimulating environment. I don't 
know about that, but it was inexpensive, and I was trying to 
save up money for my next semester at college. Anyway, that was 
where I met Vincent Winninger and Barbara Trevino. They were an 
acknowledged couple, of course. He was handsome and very 
charming -- quite a ladies' man, even then, although I 
understand his reputation grew a lot more in later years. She 
was one of the most beautiful women there, and I always said 
she was a bad influence on him. If he was trying to keep her 
out of the Rainforest Consortium, I can't say I'm surprised."

"You knew both of them?" Lois asked, her reporter's instinct 
instantly aroused. "Can you tell me anything else about them?"

Martha took a sip of chocolate. "Not much, I'm afraid. Vincent 
was younger than I was by about five years. He was very 
intelligent and charismatic. I only stayed at the commune for 
about two months, but it was like watching a real life soap 
opera."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've probably heard about the 'free love' of the 
sixties," Martha said. "Vincent and Barbara could have been 
poster children for the era. They couldn't keep their hands off 
of each other, but the last week or so that I was there, he 
dumped her just like that. Something about having discovered 
that she wasn't living up to the ideals of the group, I think. 
Anyway, he started showing symptoms of interest in me, and I 
didn't want to make a fuss about it, so I just left to avoid 
trouble. That was right before I met your father," she added, 
with a glance at Clark. "Barbara had already taken up with one 
of the members of the theater group. I don't remember who it 
was. I never trusted her, though. There was something about her 
that struck me as phony."

"Hmm," Lois said. "That's interesting. Did you know a Dr. 
Hubert?"

Martha frowned. "No, I don't think so. I probably wouldn't 
have, though. There were a lot of people at Elimont and I 
didn't stay there long."

"Well, there was some reason Winninger was killed, and the 
connection seems to be Barbara Trevino and the Rainforest 
Consortium," Clark said. "I wonder if checking into the names 
of some of the other residents of the commune might tell us 
anything. Barbara Trevino didn't kill him, but-"

"But she could have been behind it," Lois agreed. "Jimmy is 
supposed to be researching her background, so we should have 
that sometime tomorrow. What really confuses me is the person I 
saw. He looked just like Hubert, but Hubert was giving a 
presentation in Washington DC at the time, in front of a crowd 
of people. Henderson probably thinks I was seeing things."

"Henderson?" Jonathan Kent asked.

"Inspector William Henderson, Homicide Division," Lois said. 
"He was there when I accused Dr. Hubert of being the killer."

"Oh," Jonathan said. He swallowed the last of the contents of 
his mug. "You say you got a clear look at this guy? How did you 
do that without him seeing you?"

"I was in the bathroom," Lois said. "He didn't know I was there 
and I stayed behind the door when he came in to wash, but he 
was standing within a couple of feet of me. I got a close look 
at him."

"Could he have been wearing a mask or makeup?" Martha wondered. 
"He came in to commit a murder, after all -- wouldn't he try to 
make sure no one would be able to identify him later, in case a 
snoopy neighbor saw him or something? I know it seems like some 
kind of Hollywood trick, but some of those makeup artists can 
do some amazing things."

Lois stared at her, shocked. The thing that Vincent Winninger 
had told her, that she had been trying to remember ever since 
she had misidentified Dr. Hubert as the murderer, clicked 
suddenly into place. "That's it!"

"What is?" Clark asked, obviously puzzled.

"Mr. Makeup!"

"Who?" Clark asked.

"Winninger told me about him! There was this guy in the theater 
group at the commune who could make himself look like anyone. 
What was his name..." She frowned, trying to remember. "Sam, or 
Sean or -- something that started with an S. I can't remember."

"I remember him," Martha said, unexpectedly. "I never knew his 
real name, but I saw him at one of the plays that summer. He 
played the part of Lady Macbeth. You're right, Lois; his makeup 
skills were incredible, but he couldn't act very well. I 
remember that, too."

"Lady Macbeth?" Clark said, sounding slightly incredulous.

"Yes," Lois said, impatiently. "I need to get hold of the names 
of the commune's theater group. I'll recognize the name if I 
see it."

"We can probably get it tomorrow morning," Clark said. He set 
down his empty mug. "We'd better be getting back. It's late in 
Metropolis and we have a busy day tomorrow."

Lois glanced at her watch, which read 11:45. "You're right," 
she said, a little reluctantly. To her surprise, she had 
enjoyed the brief visit with Clark's parents. She turned to 
Jonathan and Martha. "It was nice meeting you both."

"Likewise," Jonathan said. "Come back when you have the chance 
-- when you're not saving the world." She could see the smile 
lurking in his eyes and couldn't help smiling in return.

"I'd like that," she said. It was nice to be able to utter the 
commonplace pleasantry and actually mean it. This evening had 
turned out differently than she had expected, but in all, it 
had been enjoyable. And now she wouldn't dread meeting her new 
boyfriend's parents -- not that she had ever met the parents of 
any of her other potential boyfriends. Maybe that should say 
something about the type of relationship she and Charlie 
already had. It was definitely something to think about.

**********

The flight back to Metropolis was accomplished more quickly 
than the outward-bound one had taken. Clark held her while she 
slid open the window, floated inside and set her gently on the 
rug. The warm air of her apartment still smelled of the 
delicious dinner they had eaten earlier, and Lois sniffed 
appreciatively. "I'm going to have to take advantage of your 
special talents more often, after this."

He grinned. "I hope you will." His expression sobered quickly. 
"Lois, be extra careful tonight, will you? If anyone knocks, 
think twice before you open the door. If the killer really is 
this 'Mr. Makeup,' he could look like anyone, even Perry or 
Jimmy. If I were in his place, I'd be trying to find out what 
the police know about the situation, and if he figures out that 
you were there, he may try to eliminate you just to be on the 
safe side."

"Char -- Clark, I've been taking care of myself for a long 
time," she said. "I know enough to look out for myself."

"I know -- and I know you can handle yourself in a fight better 
than a lot of men -- but be careful anyway, okay? Karate is no 
match for a gun."

She smiled at him. "I will. I promise."

"And if you feel the least bit scared, yell your head off. I'll 
hear you and be here in seconds. Okay?"

"I promise!" She couldn't decide whether to be irritated or 
flattered by his concern. "I'll be fine!"

He had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry, Lois. I know 
you're used to taking care of yourself. It's just that, well, I 
worry, you know? You're important to me. I don't want anything 
to happen to you."

Irritation vanished. "I understand." She laid a palm against 
his cheek, feeling the faint rasp of bristles. "I guarantee you 
that if I'm the least bit worried, I'll scream loud enough to 
wake up the whole apartment house."

"Good," he said. "I'll take that as a promise. And I'll be here 
first thing in the morning. It won't hurt if this guy tries 
something while I'm with you."

"I hope he does," Lois said, privately thinking that Mr. Makeup 
would be in for the biggest surprise of his life if he tried to 
face down Charlie. "I'll see you in the morning, then."

"Okay." He hesitated for an instant and then leaned forward. 
Lois had debated what she should do if he tried to kiss her, 
but when the moment arrived, she didn't hesitate. She had 
kissed him the first time; now it was his turn. His lips 
brushed hers, lightly. She leaned into the kiss, and his arms 
slipped around her. It was different than before but no less 
intense. Lois was aware of the blood pounding in her ears and 
the feeling that she never wanted him to stop. When he finally 
drew back, she saw that his cheeks seemed to be a little 
flushed, but she said nothing, sure that hers were equally 
pink.

He gave a shaky smile. "Good night, Lois."

"Good night," she replied, and watched as he turned and floated 
lightly out the window, again. An instant later, he was gone.

**********

Clark Kent walked slowly into his two-room "suite" at the 
Apollo Hotel. It had been an eventful day, that was certain. He 
wondered briefly if every day in Metropolis was going to be 
like this. Except for the fact that Lois was involved and that 
her life was probably in danger, the excitement wasn't a bad 
thing. There was something about the city, he reflected, 
changing out of his clothing. The pace within its borders was 
something quite unlike Smallville, a fact that he had noted in 
every great city he had visited during his travels. Now that 
Metropolis was going to be his home, at least in the 
foreseeable future, he found that he was looking forward to it 
with wary anticipation. Life wasn't going to be peaceful, but 
it was going to be enjoyable, as long as he could keep Lois 
safe.

She was a large and critical part of his future, he knew. For 
years, he had believed that his differences were so profound 
that the ability to fall in love was beyond him. He'd had 
female friends, certainly. He'd dated and engaged in most of 
the social life of his male friends. He hadn't wanted to stand 
out and had made an effort to blend in, in every way possible. 
Still, although he enjoyed the company of women, whatever it 
was that bound a man and a woman together had somehow escaped 
him--at least to the point that he might ever have been tempted 
to make such an arrangement permanent, and that had held him 
back from anything that might push him into a commitment. It 
wasn't that he was immune to the temptations presented by the 
opposite sex; far from it. But he had never--until now, anyway-
-found a woman he had been willing to commit to for life.

Lois Lane had changed all that. Brother, how she had changed 
it! Their actual meeting was a bit fuzzy in his memory: he had 
probably still been somewhat stunned from his crash-landing in 
Centennial Park, but it hadn't been long before he'd become 
aware that this was no ordinary woman. Lois Lane was everything 
he had ever imagined in his wildest dreams. She was 
intelligent, headstrong, opinionated, independent--stubborn as 
a mule, sometimes, he reflected with a wry smile--and the fact 
that she was beautiful didn't detract from her appeal, although 
he suspected that he would have thought of her as beautiful in 
any circumstances. The trick was going to be to convince her 
that she was someone worthy of being loved. That she doubted it 
was something that he found extraordinary and yet it was 
obvious that she did. How any human male could meet her and not 
be instantly infatuated was something he couldn't quite grasp. 
Still, it was apparent that she hadn't had much luck with men. 
Maybe, an irrational part of his mind considered, maybe she was 
like him in some way--simply waiting for the right man to come 
along. Well, it was up to him to convince her that he was the 
right man.

In the meantime ... He changed into a pair of black jeans and a 
long-sleeved, dark blue flannel shirt and shrugged his 
shoulders into a leather jacket he'd bought two years ago in 
Argentina. In the meantime, he had every intention of staking 
out her apartment tonight. She wouldn't appreciate him hovering 
over her, so he simply wouldn't tell her. Lois was highly 
independent; that was obvious to him and he thought he 
understood why. She'd depended on her father and her father had 
let her down. He'd not only tried to force her into the mold he 
wanted, he'd let her feel that he found her a disappointment 
and left her to manage on her own when she chose to go against 
his choice of a career for her. She'd found out the hard way 
that the only person she could depend on was herself. He hoped 
that he could show her that now she could depend on him as well 
and that he would never intentionally disappoint her.

He opened the door to his room and stepped out into the dingy 
hallway. No one was visible as he strolled toward the window at 
the end of the hall, opened it carefully, stepped through the 
aperture and closed it quietly behind him. A split instant 
later, he was zipping silently through the icy, winter air of 
Metropolis in the direction of Lois Lane's apartment. Even the 
short time he had been away from her had left him nervous about 
her safety. If this Mr. Makeup was as good at impersonations as 
Clark had been led to believe, there was nothing to prevent the 
man from simply walking into the local police station and 
finding out everything there was to find out about what the 
authorities knew concerning the murder of Vincent Winninger. 
And, if that was so, it meant Lois was almost certainly in 
danger. He had every intention of thwarting any attempt on her 
life. Lois might not know it, but she had acquired an around-
the-clock bodyguard until the killer was in custody.

Avoiding the streetlights, he landed in the alley next to her 
apartment building and strolled casually out onto the sidewalk. 
A quick glance with his x-ray vision assured him that Lois was 
undisturbed, moving about her apartment, preparing for bed. 
Satisfied on that point, he glanced around, looking for the 
best position from which to mount his surveillance. A wooden 
bench at the bus stop, diagonally across the street, presented 
an excellent position for him to observe the building, as well 
as Lois's apartment window on the fifth floor. Without fuss, he 
purchased a copy of the Daily Planet from a vending machine on 
the corner and made his way to the bench. A transient shuffled 
by, pushing a battered shopping cart before him. The man eyed 
him for a moment and then resumed his progress down the 
sidewalk. Clark took a seat on the bench, opened the newspaper 
to the Sports section and settled in to wait. It was just after 
midnight.

**********

Clark didn't look up as the police cruiser, that covered this 
section of town, went by for the third time, but his attention 
was tuned to the men inside the vehicle.

"Isn't that the same guy that was there last time?" That was 
the short, fat cop, riding shotgun.

There was a pause while the driver glanced briefly at Clark. 
"Maybe. What's he doin'?"

"Same as before. Reading the newspaper."

"Forget him. He's not breakin' any laws."

The car continued on down the street. Clark casually turned the 
page. His watch informed him that it was now three-thirty in 
the morning. The number of persons moving about the area had 
diminished a good deal, but there were still people around. The 
transient he had noticed, hours ago, was huddled tightly in his 
ragged coat in the alley, sleeping on a grate where the heat 
from below rose to keep him warm. So far, nothing seemed 
unusual, but he didn't relax his vigilance.

A van was coming along the street, and as he watched, it pulled 
up in front of the newspaper vending machine. Clark could see 
the words "Daily Planet" on the side of the vehicle and 
realized that this must be the delivery of the paper's morning 
edition. A man, thoroughly wrapped up for the frigid weather, 
hopped out, the back of the van opened and a second man handed 
a thick stack of bundled newspapers to him. As Clark watched, 
they removed the two remaining issues of last night's edition 
and replaced it with the new ones. Then both men jumped back 
into the van, and it trundled away toward its next destination.

It had all been done in less than a minute. Clark folded his 
copy of the paper up and stuffed it into a wire trash basket 
then strolled back to the vending machine again to obtain a new 
paper. A selection of other newspapers was available for 
purchase besides the Daily Planet and after suitable 
consideration, in addition to the Planet, he selected the 
National Whisper. A little fiction might be entertaining for a 
change. He resumed his seat on the bench and opened the 
Whisper.

The article about the aliens from Uranus that had diverted the 
Nightfall Asteroid and then given the reporter, Leo Nunk, the 
exclusive, looked interesting, to say the least. And then, 
there was the one below it about the vinegar and pomegranate 
diet that cured psoriasis. That one he simply had to read. 
These guys should try their hand at a book, he thought. They 
had the imaginations for it.

He had finished the entire paper and was opening the Daily 
Planet when motion at the corner of his eye caught his 
attention and he looked up. A man was approaching along the 
sidewalk, carrying a large bag labeled "King's Hardware," and 
he recognized the manager of Lois's apartment house. Mr. 
Tracewski mounted the stairs of the building with a brisk step 
and entered. Over the tops of his glasses, Clark watched his 
progress until he was certain the man wasn't headed in the 
direction of Lois's apartment and then returned to his reading. 
Still, he wasn't able to completely relax. Something wasn't 
right about the situation. He glanced at his watch. What would 
Mr. Tracewski be doing wandering around outside the place that 
he managed at four in the morning? He supposed that it was 
possible some sort of emergency might have dragged him out of 
his bed in the middle of the night, but unless it was something 
fairly serious, wouldn't the man have just waited until 
daylight? Well, it couldn't hurt to check. Clark laid his paper 
down and started across the street. Halfway there his enhanced 
sense of smell picked up a distinctive scent, and he broke into 
a run. He went up the steps in a blur and through the doors, 
leaving them wide open behind him.

Inside, the smell was much stronger, at least to his senses. 
Clark was forced to slow down momentarily as he tracked the 
source of the odor. It was coming from above, he realized, and 
raced up the stairs, following the growing smell of gas.

It was strongest on the fourth floor. He burst from the 
stairwell, less than five seconds after entering the building. 
The smell was coming from a door labeled "Keep Out." The door 
appeared to be locked, but he unhesitatingly broke the lock and 
yanked it open. The space beyond was a large closet. Inside, 
various pipes ran up the rear wall, and in one corner stood an 
industrial size water heater. Clark x-rayed the device. The 
valve controlling the gas had been turned up full, and the 
pilot light was out. The room was full of gas, much stronger 
than in the hall outside. And sitting innocently on a shelf was 
a small device with an attached clock, counting down.

He x-rayed the package. The thing, as he expected, was a small, 
explosive device. By itself, it wouldn't cause significant 
damage. Surrounded by a closet full of gas, the explosion would 
be devastating.

Well, first things first. He strode forward and shut off the 
gas. Then, he exhaled completely and inhaled, sucking in the 
deadly fumes. Holding his breath, he picked up the device, 
careful not to smudge the fingerprints he could see on the 
casing. Something like ten minutes remained on the timer, but 
it was an elementary device. In the last few years, he had had 
occasion to observe the work of explosive experts and had 
disarmed a couple of similar devices on his own. The first one 
had exploded due to inexpert handling on his part. He had 
smothered the explosion, but it had taught him how to avoid 
such mistakes in subsequent attempts. He studied the thing with 
his x-ray vision and saw at once how to disarm it. Quickly and 
precisely, he pulled the critical wire free.

The man he had seen enter the apartment house some fifteen 
minutes earlier was almost certainly the one who had set this 
up, he thought. The scheme had been a good one, simple and 
direct. Give the gas time to build up in the closet and then 
detonate it with a small explosive. It would have taken out 
everyone in the building with no way for anyone to prove that 
it had been anything but accidental, and no way for anyone to 
be sure who the target was, in the unlikely event that the 
authorities suspected foul play. Clark crushed down the fury 
that was growing in him at the callousness of the man who had 
murdered Vincent Winninger and who was now stalking Lois, and 
forced himself to think calmly.

Lowering his glasses, he looked around. Mr. Tracewski--the real 
Mr. Tracewski, he realized--was sleeping soundly in his bed, in 
the manager's apartment on the first floor. There was no sign 
of the would-be killer. Carefully, he set down the device and 
made a super speed exit to the top of the apartment house, 
where he exhaled the lungful of gas. It was time to wake Lois 
and call the cops.

**********

Lois Lane awoke to the sound of someone knocking on her door 
and after a moment, managed to sit up and stagger into the 
living room, wrapping her bathrobe around her as she did so.

By the time she reached the door, she had recollected Charlie's 
warning and took the time to check through the peephole to see 
who was knocking. Charlie--no, Clark Kent--was there, and he 
was frowning. Lois started to undo her locks and paused, 
recalling the warning. Was that really Clark or a cleverly 
disguised assassin?

"Yes?" she called.

"Lois, it's Clark. I just disarmed a bomb in the water-heater 
closet on the next floor down. You need to call the cops. I'll 
stand right out here until they get here."

"A--a *what*?" she stammered.

"Somebody just tried to kill you -- and everybody else in this 
apartment house. Call the police." His voice was calm, but she 
could hear the anger underlying it. "Hurry."

Lois made her way to the phone, her mind whirling. Charlie had 
disarmed a *bomb*? What had he been doing here, anyway?

The answer to that was obvious, she realized as she dialed the 
operator. Charlie had been watching the building, guarding her. 
She should be angry, she thought, but how could you be angry 
with a man who had just saved your life and the lives of 
everyone else in the building?

A short time later, she was standing beside Charlie, along with 
a very indignant Mr. Tracewski, watching two officers from the 
bomb squad carefully removing the small explosive device from 
the shelf next to the water heater. Their boss stood next to 
Lois, watching the whole operation critically. "I see what you 
mean, Kent," he said. "I can still smell the gas a little. How 
did you figure out it was here?"

Lois said nothing, figuring she'd get the real story later. 
Clark, not Charlie, she reminded herself, firmly, was frowning. 
He hadn't stopped frowning since she'd seen him through the 
door. "I smelled it," he said. "I'd been hanging around by the 
front door because I was worried about Ms. Lane, and I thought 
I smelled gas. I went in and followed my nose. That was all 
there was to it. I shut off the gas and pulled the wire on that 
thing free. Fortunately, I learned something about explosive 
devices while I was in Colombia, working as a free lance 
journalist. Then I opened the windows at each end of the hall 
to clear out the gas, just in case."

The man nodded. "Normally, I'd probably lecture you about 
leaving this to the professionals," he remarked, "but I won't, 
this time. You probably saved the lives of everyone in the 
building. But don't get cocky."

Clark didn't answer. The man moved forward to examine the small 
device and then turned to the manager. "I suggest you lock your 
doors until whoever did this is in custody," he said. "You were 
just lucky that Kent has a sharp nose." He added to Clark, 
"You'll need to come down to the station to make a report...."

Lois sighed. "I'll go with you, Clark," she said. "I'm not 
going to get any more sleep, anyway."

**********

"So let me get this straight." Detective Thomas fixed Clark 
with a hawklike gaze. "You smelled the gas from out in front of 
the apartment house and decided to investigate?"

"Well..." Clark sighed. "I had another reason to check, 
Detective. I didn't want to go into it at the apartment because 
it's pretty complicated. Lois, to explain this, I think we 
should tell him about Mr. Makeup."

"Who?"

"Mr. Makeup," Lois said. "Vincent Winninger told me about him 
during my interview. We've talked to someone since who knew 
about him, too." She proceeded to explain to Thomas what the 
murdered man had said. "I think that might be why I thought the 
murderer was Dr. Hubert. He looked just like him, but Hubert 
had a perfect alibi."

The detective raised an eyebrow. "Interesting theory. You say 
this had something to do with why you checked, Kent?"

"Yeah." Lois thought the look Clark gave her was slightly 
apprehensive. "I -- well, I knew you didn't want me to hang 
around guarding you, Lois, but I was worried about you after 
what happened. I kind of staked out your apartment house from 
the bus stop across the street. At about four o'clock, I saw 
your apartment manager, Mr. Tracewski, come walking along with 
a bag of stuff from a hardware store."

"At four in the morning?" Lois asked, incredulous.

"Yeah. I didn't think that was quite right. I kind of stewed 
about it for maybe ten or fifteen minutes and then decided I'd 
better go check, so I went inside and--"

"And that's when you smelled the gas?" Thomas asked.

"That's about it. And later, when the police showed up, they 
had to wake up the manager. He'd been sound asleep in his bed. 
He said he'd been there since eleven last night. If he'd rigged 
that thing up, he wouldn't have been anywhere around or it 
would have killed him along with everybody else."

The detective gave him an exasperated glare. "And you didn't 
see fit to tell the officer on the scene about it?"

Clark shrugged. "Like I said, it was pretty complicated -- and 
I was about as sure as I can be that the man I saw wasn't 
Tracewski. The real killer was long gone, so I figured I'd tell 
somebody when I came over here and could explain."

Thomas grunted. "Well, there's no proof the guy you saw had 
anything to do with it," he conceded. "We'll have to interview 
Tracewski to pin down the facts, but next time, Kent, why don't 
you let us decide whether it's important?"

Clark hitched his shoulders uncomfortably. "It was important. I 
just didn't want to add to the confusion when there wasn't 
anything that could be done, anyway."

The man grunted again. "Reporters! Is there anything else that 
you've conveniently neglected to tell me?"

"No." Clark met his eyes. "I think you should take this attempt 
on Ms. Lane seriously, Detective. I don't think it's a 
coincidence that she witnessed a murder yesterday afternoon and 
this morning someone tried to blow up her apartment house."

"You seem to be doing a pretty good job of guarding her, Kent." 
Thomas leaned back in his chair and stretched the kinks out of 
his arms. "Unfortunately, we don't have the manpower to put a 
guard on every witness to a crime in Metropolis, so unless Ms. 
Lane doesn't object to being held as a material witness and put 
under armed guard--"

"No way!" Lois said, emphatically. That was the last thing she 
needed!

"I thought not. You can both go as soon as you sign your 
statements. And I'll relay this 'Mr. Makeup' stuff to 
Henderson. He's handling the Winninger case, so he can decide 
if it's worth investigating."

**********

Lois glanced at her watch as they left Detective Thomas's 
office and headed down the hallway toward the main doors. It 
was a few minutes before six, almost time for the shift change, 
and so she wasn't surprised to see William Henderson standing 
in front of the coffeepot behind the Chief's station, pouring 
himself a cup of the murky-looking brew.

The officer seemed to sense her gaze and turned. He sighed. 
"Now what?"

"Oh, nothing," Lois said, airily. "Winninger's killer probably 
tried to blow up my apartment house, that's all. Thomas will 
tell you all about it."

She was sure she heard him mutter "I'll bet," under his breath 
as she and Clark left the police station. Clark had a small 
grin on his lips and she found herself starting to giggle at 
the memory of Henderson's sour expression. The giggle died, 
however, when she saw Clark lower his glasses slightly and look 
quickly around.

"Do you see anybody?" she asked.

"That's the problem," he said, quietly. "There are a lot of 
people around. Even if the murderer is one of them, I wouldn't 
know it. He could look like anybody." He gave her an apologetic 
look. "Would you mind sort of walking a little behind me--just 
in case? If somebody takes a shot at you, I want the bullet to 
hit me, not you."

Lois complied at once, a little surprised at herself. His 
argument made sense, though. He couldn't be hurt and she could. 
The open space around her was suddenly intimidating.

"This is very creepy," she said, almost to herself. "Don't you 
think this is creepy? I mean ... " She glanced nervously at a 
coffee vendor who was in the process of opening his stand. "The 
killer could be anybody. Anybody you see could be somebody 
else."

Clark glanced at her, then put an arm around her. "Come on. 
Let's get into your car. You're less exposed that way."

She nodded. "Good idea."

The SUV was parked just around the corner, and they hurried to 
it, but as she took out her keys to unlock the driver's door, 
he caught her hand. "Just a minute. Let me check before you 
touch anything."

She was about to ask what he intended to check for when she saw 
him lower his glasses and turn his head, sweeping the Cherokee 
from front to rear. "Just being sure there aren't any surprises 
waiting for us."

For some reason, she hadn't thought of that. He hadn't removed 
his arm from around her shoulders, she noticed. It was 
surprising, just how reassuring it was. It was amazing in a 
way, too, at the confidence that she felt about him. In another 
way, though, it wasn't. She'd already seen Charlie do the right 
thing in spite of the fact that she knew he had been afraid of 
the job. He'd gone after Nightfall a second time, unable to put 
his own safety above that of the Earth -- and of her. How many 
of the men in her life before now had been willing to put the 
welfare of others over their own? None of them, she knew. Not 
her father, not Paul, certainly not Claude. Why did she always 
pick the losers?

Well, not always. The exception to the rule was standing beside 
her with one arm holding her firmly against him, checking her 
car for explosives.

"It's clean," he said. "Go ahead and get in." He released her 
and stood behind her, blocking anyone from getting a clear view 
of her. Quickly, she unlocked the door and clambered in.

"It's too bad you don't have bulletproof glass," he said, 
shutting the door behind her. An instant later, he was getting 
into the passenger seat. "Let's not hang around here too long. 
I don't want you to be a stationary target."

Lois started the engine, released the brake and looked back 
over her shoulder, checking for traffic. As she did so, she 
felt herself shoved down hard across the seat. All at once, 
Clark's big body was pressing her painfully onto the emergency 
brake, and she heard the sudden, almost musical splintering of 
glass, not once but twice and then a third time. She didn't 
hear the shots, but a second later, she heard a sharp report 
echoing in her ears, and a scream of unmistakable pain. More 
reports and again, glass splintered.

"Stay here. Stay down." Abruptly, his weight was gone.

Uncharacteristically, she followed his orders, her paralyzed 
brain still trying to process the unbelievable events.

Someone had shot at them, she thought belatedly, almost 
dreamily. Charlie had somehow realized what was happening and 
protected her again. Turning her head, she saw that her 
windshield was a mass of cracks. Four holes marred the glass as 
well. Irrelevantly, it flashed through her mind that if she got 
her hands on the shooter, she was going to wring his neck. He'd 
damaged her beloved car and that was unforgivable. Then the 
realization swept over her that those shots had been meant for 
her and she felt a surge of sheer, primitive fear.

Keeping her head down, she slid to the floor under the steering 
wheel. Her knee came down painfully on something that felt like 
a rounded piece of gravel and, feeling around for the small, 
offending stone, her hand encountered a smooth, hard object 
that felt horribly familiar to her fingers.

It was a bullet. She stared at the irrefutable evidence in her 
hand and felt herself begin to shake. Somewhere in the 
background, she heard the wail of sirens.

Someone was pounding on her door. She peered up to see William 
Henderson, his face uncharacteristically pale, looking through 
the window. "Lois! Are you all right?"

Behind him, Clark appeared and she heard a key turn in the 
lock. She hadn't even noticed that the engine was off and that 
her car keys weren't in the ignition. Henderson wrenched the 
door open. "Lois, are you hurt?"

Numbly, she shook her head. The cop seemed to relax. He glanced 
at Clark. "Don't let her get out. He's probably gone, but I'm 
not ready to count on it." He turned quickly away from the 
door, and Lois could hear him shouting something unintelligible 
at someone out of her range of vision.

Clark got into the passenger seat. "He's gone, I think, but 
you'd better stay down for a few more minutes. Are you okay?"

The feeling of shocked numbness was beginning to lift and the 
shaking was getting worse. Clark put his hand on top of hers 
and with the other, he lifted his glasses, peering up through 
the cracked windshield. Abruptly, he seemed to relax. "He's 
gone. You can get up."

Her body didn't want to move. Slowly, she slid back onto the 
seat. Surprisingly, her brain was beginning to function 
coherently again, but the shaking wasn't going away. "He tried 
to kill me," she whispered. She could hear the trembling in her 
voice. Clark looked at her narrowly and all at once, pulled her 
into his arms, holding her close.

"It's all right," he murmured in her ear. "You're safe. I won't 
let him hurt you, Lois, I promise. You're safe."

The approaching sirens cut off abruptly. Lois burrowed against 
his chest and closed her eyes, trying to block out the 
confusion. With his arms around her, she had this incredible 
feeling of security. Somehow, she knew that Charlie would 
protect her no matter what, even from a faceless killer who 
came and went in plain view and was never seen.

**********

Lois stood on the sidewalk next to the Jeep, Charlie's arm 
closely around her, watching the confusion and trying to shake 
off the lingering numbness of shock.

A couple of the bullets fired from above had struck innocent 
persons. That was what had prevented Charlie from capturing the 
shooter, she knew. He had paused to stop a young man from 
bleeding to death. Lois had heard the paramedics talking about 
how the bullet had amazingly cauterized the severed artery and 
kept the victim alive until help arrived. It just underlined to 
her what she had already known but had somehow not 
internalized, before. This wasn't a game; it was deadly 
serious.

Police had spread out, looking for the shooter, but she was 
already sure they would find nothing. A high powered rifle, 
complete with a telescopic sight, had turned up on the roof of 
the building across the street from the spot where she and 
Charlie had left the Jeep. The killer must have been lying in 
wait for her to return. It was only because of Charlie that she 
was still alive.

"I'd like a hair off that rabbit's foot that you carry," 
William Henderson's dry voice said, behind her. "From the looks 
of your Jeep, you should be dead." The inspector moved into her 
range of vision. "Are you sure you're not hurt, Lois? He put 
four bullets through your windshield."

"I'm all right," she said again. "Thanks to ... " She had to 
forcibly rearrange her thoughts to keep from making an error. 
In the stress of the moment, she had been thinking of her 
companion as Charlie, again. "Thanks to Clark."

Henderson shifted his attention to Clark Kent. "You're Kent, 
aren't you? I think I saw you at Winninger's last night."

"Yes, sir." Clark nodded.

"Bill Henderson, Homicide," he introduced himself. "Do you mind 
telling me what happened?"

"Sure." Clark hesitated. "Could we get Lois inside, somewhere? 
I don't like having her out in the open like this, right now."

"Let's go to my office," Henderson said. He beckoned to them 
and started back toward the police station at a fast pace. "I 
doubt there's any danger at the moment. We have the area 
blanketed and whoever did this is probably making tracks away 
from here as fast as he can move."

"Maybe," Clark said. "Did Detective Thomas have the chance to 
tell you about Mr. Makeup?"

"Who?" Henderson shook his head. "He'd just handed me the 
report about last night's attempt on Lois when we heard the 
shots." He had moved unobtrusively to walk on the side nearest 
the street as he spoke, placing his body between her and the 
possible places where a shooter could hide. "I'm sorry, Lois. I 
didn't think you'd be in any danger. Obviously, I was wrong." 
He glanced at Clark. "You were saying?"

"After last night, I was afraid of something like this," Clark 
explained. "I was watching for anything that might be a threat. 
We'd just gotten into the Jeep when I saw the guy with a rifle 
on top of the building across the street." He tapped his 
glasses. "I have a pretty strong prescription. Anyway, I 
grabbed Lois and shoved her down on the seat, just before the 
first shot."

"You probably saved her life," Henderson said. He glanced at 
the back of Clark's jacket. "Are you all right, Kent? It looks 
like he hit your jacket."

"Yeah," Clark said, after a startled moment. "I was lying on 
top of Lois. I guess he must have just missed me."

Henderson raised an eyebrow. "Forget the hair off that rabbit's 
foot," he said after a short silence. "I just want to touch it. 
That should give me all the luck I'll need for the next ten 
years." He seemed to shake himself. ''Now, what's this about 
'Mr. Makeup'?"

**********

It was nearly eight o'clock by the time Lois and Clark stepped 
off the elevator into the Daily Planet newsroom. The 
decorations draped around the room seemed frivolous and 
irrelevant, compared to what had happened this morning, Lois 
thought as she and Clark passed the glittering office Christmas 
tree, gleaming under its load of ornaments and tinsel.

"Lois are you okay?" Perry fell into step beside them.

"I'm fine," she said, briefly. The question had been asked so 
many times since the events at the police station that the 
answer had become automatic.

"Well, what're you doin' here?"

"I work here," Lois said. "I have a job to do."

"Well, your job ain't goin' to be worth the sweat flyin' off an 
Elvis imitator if you end up dead." Perry looked back at Clark 
who was walking behind them. "Kent, you saved her bacon. Can't 
you talk some sense into her?"

Lois cut in. "Look Chief, apparently the killer can find me 
anywhere and can look like anyone, so I'm probably safer around 
a lot of people I know." She turned her head, looking for 
Jimmy. "Jimmy, did you find that stuff I asked for?"

The young computer expert waved a paper. "Got the list right 
here, Lois."

"Good, let me have it." Lois dropped into her desk chair. "I 
want to see if I recognize the name of this guy."

Jimmy laid the list on her desk and Clark leaned over the back 
of her chair to read.

"Great shades of Memphis, Kent," Perry said. "What happened to 
your jacket?"

"Huh?" Clark straightened up and removed the item. "Oh. I was 
going to go back to my place and change, but Lois was in a 
hurry to get to the office."

Lois had seen the damage to the jacket, earlier. "That happened 
when the guy was shooting at us, Perry. He just got the jacket, 
though. You should bring a change of clothes to work, Clark. 
That's what mostly everybody else does."

Perry shook his head. "It looks like I nearly lost two 
reporters this morning, not one. You two be more careful from 
now on. Got it?"

"Got it, sir," Clark said.

Lois had been scanning the list. "There are some famous names 
here. Let's see ...." She scowled at the paper. Then she saw 
it, and the sense of recognition was like a slap in the face. 
"That was it. I knew I'd recognize it if I saw it. Jimmy, find 
me everything you can, especially the whereabouts of Sebastian 
Finn, AKA Mr. Makeup."

**********

Clark put down the phone. Normally, Lois would have excoriated 
any colleague who presumed to sit on the corner of her desk or 
use her phone without permission, but this time the impulse 
hadn't even occurred to her. "Henderson says he just finished 
listening to his copy of your interview," he said. "He said it 
was too bad you didn't start the recording until after the 
conversation about Finn, but he agrees that there might be a 
motive there. He also said to remind you to watch your step."

"Yeah, yeah." Lois shrugged off the reminder. "So I was a 
little shaken up before. Getting shot at will do that to you."

"No kidding," Clark said. "I was, actually. Anyway, we know 
Finn knew both Winninger and Trevino--"

"They were all in the same photo," Lois said. "I'd say there's 
no doubt of it. But what's the tie-in between Barbara Trevino, 
the ozone layer, increased male potency and the Rainforest 
Consortium? Winninger mentioned all of them just before he was 
murdered, and I refuse to believe there was no connection. You 
don't deliberately go out of your way to murder somebody like 
Vincent Winninger without a good reason."

"You're not getting any argument from me," Clark said. "Maybe 
when Jimmy gets that formula analyzed it will tell us 
something. Winninger must have thought something in the book 
was important. I tried to call Dr. Hubert to ask him about it, 
by the way, but he's disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Yeah. Not even the police can find him."

"He's probably afraid of Finn, too, after what happened to 
Winninger," Lois said. "Hubert's probably the only person left 
who might know anything about what Winninger was going to tell 
me. We'll just have to keep looking for him." She glanced at 
the clock. "Let's go get some lunch. We have to be at Trevino's 
press conference in about an hour."

"I'll go get it for you," Clark offered. "We can eat in the 
conference room."

"Clark, you don't have to coddle me."

"I'm not," he said, and she saw the worry in his eyes. "It's 
not that I want to tell you what to do, Lois. I just don't 
think it's a good idea for you to make yourself a target when 
this guy is so determined to eliminate you as a witness. I'm 
not infallible, and if something happened to you, I don't know 
if I could live with myself. I--" He broke off, swallowing, 
clearly wanting to say more but thinking better of it.

"Clark, I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself."

He said nothing and Lois could feel the charged silence between 
them stretching thin. The memory of the glass of her windshield 
splintering and the feel of the bullet under her knee flashed 
through her mind. If Clark hadn't been there, she wouldn't be 
sitting here now, arguing about her ability to take care of 
herself, she knew. She'd be in the hospital ... or the morgue. 
But it was hard to say it aloud.

She had never, since her childhood, been willing to take the 
risk of depending on somebody else. Hard experience told her 
that they always let you down when you needed them the most. 
And when you started depending on them, there were always 
strings attached. But that had been before Charlie. Three times 
now -- no, four, if you counted Nightfall -- he had come 
through for her and demanded nothing in return. Was it possible 
that she had finally found the one person whom she could truly 
count on?

All right, so no one could take care of herself all the time, 
she admitted, grudgingly. It was no shame to sometimes need the 
help of someone else, especially if that someone else was 
Charlie. Heads of state, actors, famous people of all kinds, 
had bodyguards to do for them what they couldn't always do for 
themselves. She wasn't particularly famous, but she *had* 
witnessed a crime, or close enough. The killer couldn't know 
for sure that she was no danger to him -- at least, in her 
ability to identify him by sight -- and had apparently decided 
to remove her as a threat. Was it cowardly to simply show a 
little care for her own safety? Mad Dog Lane didn't have to 
prove the truth of the sobriquet by stupidly putting herself in 
danger to no purpose, did she? How important was it that she 
display her independence by going out in the open simply to get 
her lunch?

She realized suddenly that the she was staring at Clark, who 
was studying his own knuckles as if he had never seen them 
before. She might not like to admit it, but he was right. There 
was no point in making an unnecessary target of herself for 
something like this.

Besides, her car was currently in the hands of Henderson's men. 
That seemed to settle it. She really didn't want to walk.

"You're right," she said, so abruptly that she saw him jump 
slightly. "Why don't you go get me something to eat?"

Clark really had to work on hiding his emotions more 
effectively, she thought. The expression of relief on his face 
was unmistakable. She smothered a grin. "Don't let this go to 
your head, Kent," she said. "I don't think I've admitted I 
might be wrong more than twice in my life. Pick me up a Chinese 
chicken salad and a diet soda, would you?"

He nodded. "Any particular place?"

"The deli over on Maple is where I usually--"

"Say no more. I know where it is." Clark stood up.

"Wait a second. I'll get my purse."

"That's okay. You can pay me when I get back." He gave her a 
brilliant smile and headed for the exit.

Lois shook her head, smiling after him, then turned back to the 
preliminary information Jimmy had turned up on Sebastian Finn. 
The man had briefly done work in Hollywood as an extra and then 
gone to work as a double for famous personages. After that he'd 
sort of disappeared. Hopefully, with a little more time, Jimmy 
would be able to find out what he'd been doing since.

"Where did Kent go?" Perry's voice asked from behind her.

Lois jumped and spun her chair around. "Don't sneak up on me 
like that, Perry! I've had enough shocks today! He went to get 
me lunch."

Perry raised an eyebrow. Lois quickly explained, "He didn't 
think I should go out unnecessarily, right now."

"He's right," Perry said. "You two seem to have become friends 
pretty fast."

Lois shook her head, recalling what Clark had told Jimmy 
yesterday afternoon. "I've known Clark for some time. We met at 
a journalists' conference a while back."

"Oh, I see. Old acquaintance, huh?"

"That's right. We had some mutual interests. Clark's an unusual 
person. He's done a lot of traveling, for one thing -- he's not 
your ordinary country boy at all."

"I got that impression when Jimmy said he'd disarmed that bomb 
at your apartment house," Perry said. "Maybe it would be a good 
idea for you to hang around with him until they catch this guy 
that's gunnin' for you."

Lois looked down at her keyboard. "That was pretty much what