MASQUES
By Doc. Klein's LabRat <labrat@blueyonder.co.uk>
Rated: PG13
Submitted: January 2003


Before we start, gentle reader, you should be aware that it was not 
my intent when writing this one to provide an 'instant fix' for the 
Wedding Arc. So Clark will not fly to the rescue once he discovers 
he's married to a clone, retrieve Lois from the clutches of Lex, 
smoochies, violins, fade out - you get the picture. At least...not right 
away. ;) 

There *will* be a happy ending, but first our heroes have a long road 
of emotional trauma to hoe. This is pretty much an Angst/WHAM 
Fest - don't say you weren't warned. I also happen to think that it 
explores the resilience of Lois and Clark's love for each other and how,
no matter how seemingly insurmountable the difficulties or 
whosoever might try to prevent them, they will always find their way 
back to each other. 

Thanks go to the regulars of the fanfic list, message boards and my good 
buddies in the #loisclark channel for answering technical questions as 
and when required...too many to mention. Your help was much appreciated. 
Also to the Tuesday Night Spoilers Gang on irc for all of your support 
and encouragement. And to my wonderful betas - Kaethel, who worked on 
the first half until RL forced her to bow out and whose brainstorming, 
ideas and comments brought so much to the story (not to mention saving 
my hide on more than one occasion). To Wendy, who took over to beta 
the second half and who gave me valuable insights and a fresh eye on 
how it was going when I became bogged down in mid-story blues and 
who unfailingly got each segment back to me in record time, despite 
some very intense RL pressures and a heavy workload at her 'real' 
job. And, finally, to Tracey, who weeded out any UKisms, among many 
other helpful comments. 

And lastly to the stalwart readers of the message boards, 
for their encouraging comments, speculations and 
suggestions which were always a delight to read and which 
often shaped the story here and there as I progressed with 
ideas I may never have considered including without them. 
Thank you all! 

It should be noted that scene two of this story incorporates an 
earlier vignette of mine entitled Wedding Jitters. I had intended it 
to be nothing more than that but Wendy insisted I had to tell what 
happened next and so...here we are. 

I was unable to track down original publication dates for two books 
used herein, so I decided just to employ poetic license and assume 
that they were around at the appropriate time. If they weren't in 
this universe, they were in Metropolis. <g>

Quoted lines are used from two poets: Thom Gunn and Minna Antrim. 
And I've used some dialogue from the show throughout. The Myotron 
Checkmate 25 is real and I pretty much used the information on its 
specifications wholesale from the website advertising it.



~~~ MASQUES ~~~


When he was six years, two months, and nine days old, Clark Kent had 
an epiphany.

As epiphanies go it wasn't especially earth-shattering or even 
particularly stunning. It was small. It was quiet. It was 
inconsequential to anyone but Clark alone. But to him, at that 
particular moment in his life, it was everything.

It had made what had begun as an ugly day suddenly good. And 
everything that had been wrong in his small corner of the world all at 
once right again.

As he'd stood alone at the side of the road that afternoon, where 
the bright yellow school bus had disgorged him before chugging along 
on its way, autumn had been in the air. Sunlight shafted through the 
cottonwoods that straggled either side of the long, dirt track leading 
to the farm; piles of crisp dried leaves in vibrant gold and yellow, red 
and amber, provoked ammunition for his wounded pride and suffering 
six-year-old soul. He kicked at the heavy drifts as he walked, head 
down, face careworn in a scowl that might have belonged more readily 
to a man three times his years.

A man with the weight of the world on his back. 

And the chip of injustice on his shoulder.

His bookbag bumped and scuffed its way behind him forlornly as he 
dragged it listlessly in his wake. 

Up in the trees a jaybird sang briefly and then fell silent. Clark 
paused, his melancholy mood distracted with the quicksilver switch of 
direction that was only really the gift of the young. He watched the 
bird lift abruptly from the leafless branches and soar into the air and 
felt his youthful heart rise with it. Up into the blue, backed by 
cloud...he wondered what it would be like to hover there, surveying 
the world as you spread yourself on the wind. 

He had flown once. His Momma had been visiting his Aunt Ellie over in 
Missouri and had taken him with her. It hadn't been the same, 
though, he suspected. 

In truth, he would concede years later when remembering that flight, 
he had been disappointed by the sterile separation that the plane's 
metal skin produced between him and the sky. There had been no wind 
in his hair, no currents of air to bolster him...it had been like watching 
the world behind glass, cocooned and protected from the 
experience...cut off and denied the exhilaration of being at one with 
and a part of the sky. And even then, when he had had no idea that 
one day he would be able to experience that melding of air and sky 
and soul, he had been heartstruck with a longing for it that had 
burned in him like a small but bright flame.

Here and now however, he just knew that he hadn't been excited as 
much by the experience as he'd expected to be.

The bird became a speck and his mood darkened again as he forgot 
about it and continued up the lane.

He reached the MacIntyre farm. Reflexively, he switched from one 
side of the track to the other, keeping to the grass verge furthest 
away from the wooden entrance gate; an automatic reaction, born 
from repetition...like wearing a habitual track in a carpet through 
pacing the same line. 

True as clockwork, right on cue, Argo - the MacIntyre's large and 
scruffy half-breed of a guard dog - bounced exuberantly into view 
and hurled himself ferociously at the gate. Clark darted a single, 
unimpressed look at the beast as it snarled and scrabbled and barked 
up a storm and then looked away. Argo, enraged by this indifference 
to his performance, notched up the barking an octave or two.

"Ah...knock it off!" Clark muttered, shouldering his bookbag grumpily.

Argo sat back on his haunches, panting, and tilted his head to one 
side. He whined in puzzlement. This was not part of the game.

Clark stopped and glanced back, his expression touched a little with 
guilt now. He sighed and retraced his steps. "Sorry," he said, reaching 
out between the bars of the gate and rubbing at the hound's floppy, 
overgrown ears. Argo, in an ecstasy of delight, whimpered in pleasure 
and began a low rumbling of approval from deep down in his chest. 
Clark grinned.

"You old faker..." he accused, in much the same tone that he'd heard 
his father use the previous day to old Betsy, the most recalcitrant 
cow of the small number which resided in their barn. His father had 
casually sidestepped Betsy's fifth attempt to grind a foot beneath a 
hoof, reaching up to scratch a particular spot behind the bovine 
miscreant's ear with the words, and his expression had hovered 
between the amusement of participating in an old battle and 
affection for the protagonist. Clark, as he rubbed at Argo's ears, 
looked and sounded uncannily like a miniature version of his father 
right at that particular moment. A fact he was blissfully unaware of 
as he continued his ministrations.

Argo didn't deny the charge as he wriggled and thumped his furry tail 
on the concrete, his eyes narrowing in rapture. 

Clark sighed again and his grin faded. "Sorry...gotta go."

Argo laid back his ears and then flattened his belly to the concrete 
as Clark patted him again and stepped back. He barked, without the 
previous heat, a preemptory 'come back, my ears still itch' sort of 
bark this time, but Clark walked on around the corner and was gone an 
instant later. And once again, a small ritual in the daily lives of both 
boy and dog came to an end.

Clark wished Paul Innes was like Argo. All fire and bluster, but just 
sappy as taffy underneath. He had tried to make friends with Paul, 
despite the newcomer's rejection, just like he'd won over Argo, slow 
and steady, but somehow it hadn't turned out so successfully. Clark 
couldn't quite understand that one. What was the difference 
between making friends with Argo and making friends with Paul? It 
had been easy with the dog. Argo had come around just lickity-split. 
Why were people harder? He kicked at a loose stone on the road. He 
had the suspicion that with Paul Innes the barking and growling were 
all that there was. He was beginning to understand that there were 
mean dogs and dogs who played mean when they weren't and 
sometimes it was hard working out which was which.

And sometimes you got bit trying to figure it out. Unbidden, his hand 
crept up momentarily to the side of his face, seeking out the faintly 
tender patch on his cheekbone, and the eyes above his fingers 
darkened momentarily.

Paul Innes was one of the mean ones.

Paul Innes had pretended to be his friend.

That had been the worst of it. 

Clark's eyes grew hot and dry and the road in front of him blurred as 
he struggled with the concept of betrayal - so foreign to him until 
that moment - for the first time. He blinked until his vision cleared, 
but his heart remained weighted down with the misery of the lesson.

He had been teased a lot that year. The era of free love and easy 
social tolerance had largely passed Smallville and its environs by and 
the speculation about Martha Kent and her foundling child, with its 
faint and irresistible whiff of scandal, had been fire for gossip like 
flame to a dry tinder stack. 

Long since consigned to small town lore, the origins of his birth had 
largely been mislaid and he had no problems with acceptance among 
his classmates or anyone else. No one had been mean to him, no one 
deliberately cruel, his childhood had been sunny and secure, the 
adults and children alike who peopled his small world had treated him 
with respect and warmth, just like everyone else. Just one more kid. 
Usually. Till now. Swept aside it may have been, but memories were 
long in small towns and tongues could be sharp as acid still, even six 
years on, when the occasion arose. 

The Innes family had moved into the village just around the turn of 
that year. And it hadn't taken long for the gossips - well, Marcie 
Evens, who had fulfilled that small town role for nigh on forty years 
and showed no signs of stopping soon - to fill them in on every little 
snippet they thought might be relevant to know. And adults, keen to 
pass along a rich hoard of tattle-tales to a new addition to the town, 
often failed to notice young ears pricked and keen to eavesdrop. Ears 
which had companion tongues that spewed venom more deadly than 
any cobra and twisted casual disapproval and idle curiosity into 
something mean and ugly. 

Mostly, Clark had ignored the taunts from his new classmate. The 
basic fact that he was not Martha and Jonathan Kent's natural child 
was not news to him. He had known that, it seemed, from his earliest 
memory and no one had ever hidden it from him. He was, 
nevertheless, secure in the knowledge that he was loved by his 
adoptive parents just as much, if not more, than any of his friends 
and contemporaries were by theirs. Schoolyard taunts that tried to 
tell him otherwise found no target in him, no barb to hook at his 
heart. 

Not like the others. It was the others that hurt. He had never been 
made aware before that being a foundling, adopted, meant being 
something less than the other children around him. Something 
tainted. Something bad. No one had ever told him that before. It was 
a new concept, a puzzling one, and painful. More painful than he could 
have imagined.

Of course, his Momma had always told him that he was special. Clark 
believed this. His Momma always told the truth. But he now also knew 
that special meant he was different. That there was something about 
him that was apart from his classmates...

<*My* Dad says you're a freak bast - ! >

He shook clear the hateful words with an abrupt, bullish shake of his 
head as he headed through the farm gate. But renewed tears of 
humiliation and shame stung at his eyes as he trudged across the 
farmyard. He blinked, but his vision still blurred.

His Mom appeared in the doorway ahead of him, drying her hands with 
a towel, her presence evidence enough that his approach had been 
taken note of; the small frown between her eyes proof that his 
demeanor was unusual enough to have attracted attention.

"Clark?"

He ignored the concern in her voice, the pull of comfort and solace he 
could so easily give in to, and pushed past her, angry with her for 
being the cause of his trouble.  It was all *her* fault! Why couldn't 
she be his proper Mom? Why couldn't she just...? Why couldn't she?

He thudded heavily up the stairs to his room and slammed the door 
behind him.

Ten minutes later, belligerence had given way to an uncertain anxiety 
as his mother failed to come after him to find out what was wrong. 
Denied his chance to vent his anger at her in accusation, Clark chewed 
thoughtfully at his lower lip and sat thinking deeply on the edge of his 
bed until the shadows lengthened, unnoticed, creeping across the 
weathered boards of the floor.

Finally, the misery of the day giving way to a small spark of 
indignation at this uncalled for abandonment and lack of concern for 
his trauma, Clark pushed himself to his feet and went carefully 
downstairs.

His parents were talking quietly in the homely kitchen. He had 
unusually sharp hearing for a kid his age, so he heard them long 
before he reached the room. He paused halfway down the staircase.

"...a long time, Martha. I hate hearing them talk that way about you. I 
hate it."

"Oh, Jonathan...he's still young and he wouldn't understand...wasn't it 
you said leave that old dog sleeping where it lay?"

"Yes, but...they're wrong, they're so wrong, and it's not fair that you 
should - "

"Jonathan, listen to me. All that ever mattered to me was that child; 
soon as I held him in my arms I knew he was mine. If that means 
listening to Marcie Evens tattling on about our business...well, that's 
just the way it's going to have to be. It bothers me no mind. Our boy 
is what's important."

Clark heard his father sigh heavily.

"Well, Martha, I just don't think - "

"Hush now..."

There was a small moment of silence. Clark frowned, suspecting that 
his mother and father were up to mooshy stuff again. He pulled his 
sleeve across his face, wiping the tracks of old tears and trudged 
reluctantly to the open kitchen door.

Yup. Mooshy stuff. His parents were standing in front of the wide 
window, his father rocking his mother against his chest. Her cheek 
rested on his shoulder and her eyes were shadowed by the growing 
gloom outside. Clark shuffled nervously in the doorway as he watched.

"Momma?" His voice trembled suddenly on the word, all of the day's 
weight suddenly landing on his shoulders and threatening to 
overwhelm him.

She turned and he looked at her anxiously. "I'm sorry, Momma."

With a soft cry she disengaged herself from her husband's cradling 
embrace and was across the room to sweep him into a reassuring hug 
in another instant. Relieved, Clark wound his chubby arms around her 
neck, drawing in the warm, familiar scent of her with a quiet sigh. 

"So..." his father said from behind them after a moment. "You want to 
talk about what happened in school today?"

Clark peeked a glance around his mother's shoulder at his father's 
inquiring face and hesitated, belatedly and painfully aware that the 
words thrown at him in the schoolyard had been directed more at his 
mother than him. His glance at her gave him away.

Martha smiled at Jonathan and got to her feet. "I have to go take 
those curtain swatches to Caroline. I'll be gone about an hour...or so." 
She gave her son a small, encouraging look before she left the 
kitchen.

Jonathan nodded automatic assent, his gaze focused on his 
recalcitrant son as the boy eyed him warily, and they listened 
together in awkward silence to the sounds of Martha putting on her 
coat and leaving. When the soft roar of the truck had puttered into 
the distance, Jonathan moved to the range. 

"Come have something to eat."

Clark, suddenly aware of how the scents of his mother's cooking had 
been tantalizing his taste buds ever since he'd entered the room, 
didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled hastily into a chair and 
attacked with single-minded devotion the plate his father put in front 
of him. Shifting his bulk gratefully to the seat opposite, Jonathan 
watched him steadily as he demolished the meal and said nothing until 
Clark had finally sated his appetite.

In short order, Jonathan was able to pick up the empty plate and put 
it in the sink of hot, soapy water with its companions. He washed up 
with the steady efficiency he brought to all the tasks in his life. With 
the last plate set to dripping in the drainer, he wiped at his hands 
with the cloth and turned around to view his son consideringly. Clark's 
back presented a rigid view, stiff with anxiety as he huddled in his 
seat, obviously waiting for the axe to fall at any moment. 

Jonathan held in a sigh and put down the cloth. "I did some more work 
on The Project today," he said. "Want to go see?"

Clark jerked around to look at him in surprise, but his nod of assent 
was quick to arrive.

"Okay, put on your coat mind, it'll be cold out in the barn."

Clark scrambled readily to comply. Together, father and son walked 
the short distance from house to barn in amiable silence. Usually, 
Jonathan would reach out and enclose his son's small hand in his own 
larger, warm one whenever they went anywhere outside and Clark 
welcomed that reassuring connection. But for some reason he never 
did when they walked the short distance between house and barn to 
work on The Project. Something unconscious in both of them seemed 
then to accept that they were on the same level at these times - not 
father and son but partners in hard work and achievement. Clark 
always felt a small spark of pride - unformed in his conscious mind but 
nonetheless strong - that his father treated him like an equal during 
these moments of shared endeavor and challenge. And for his part, 
Jonathan seemed to sense that his son felt grown up enough at these 
times to forego the usual comforts of childhood. 

So they walked side by side - two men with a mission, each content 
within the silence of their shared companionship - until they reached 
the barn. Clark ducked into the musty interior as his father pulled 
back the door.

The barn held a warmth that smelled distinctly bovine, rich and 
comforting, but there was still a definite tang of chill to the air. 
Clark wished that he'd put on gloves too as he stuck his hands in his 
pockets and watched his father cross to a tarpaulin-covered lump of 
indeterminate mass and shape on the barn's other side.

Jonathan flipped back the tarp and Clark came closer to examine the 
roughly put together box formed out of scrap wood and bits, his face 
eager. As the tarp was pulled back further eagerness became round-
eyed wonder. What the box had sprouted since he'd last seen it were 
two sets of small, iron-bound wheels, front and back. 

"Wow! Dad!" This last a breath of delighted approval as he raised 
shining eyes to his grinning father.

"Noticed them on an old trailer out on the Betts farm," he confided, 
hunkering down beside the box and putting a hand to the nearest 
wheel. Clark hunkered down with him and repeated the gesture with 
solemn intensity. "Thought they looked just the ticket. Old Curtis, he 
was just dumping the trailer anyway, so he gave me them for 
practically nothing."

"Just the ticket," Clark repeated under his breath, running his finger 
reverently along the wheel's rim.

Jonathan cleared his throat. "Course, these fingers of mine are too 
big to get into the bolts right. Want to give me a hand getting them 
tight?"

Clark's beaming face and the speed with which he took the spanner 
offered gave Jonathan his reply.

Man and boy worked steadily on the homemade cart for a time, 
laboring in the contented silence with no need for small talk generally 
favored by men with a mission to accomplish that involved tinkering 
with machinery.

"No, there," Jonathan directed his son's labors with a finger and 
then watched as Clark took his advice. The boy's dark gaze was intent 
on his task, the tip of his tongue jutting from between his teeth as 
he concentrated. 

"Did you hit him back?" Jonathan said quietly.

Clark frowned as he clumsily worked over the last, stubborn bolt. 
"Who?"

"The Innes boy. When he hit you...did you hit him back?"

Clark stopped digging at the bolt.

Jonathan lifted a brow as the child said nothing.

Clark glanced up warily at his father and then returned his frown to 
the cart. This was a tricky one. Grownups could be funny about this 
kind of thing. And Clark, who had never got into a fight before, 
therefore had no way of telling which side of the fence his father 
would come down on. On the one hand, only last week Tad Johnson had 
come to school whining about his dad whaling the hide off'n him for 
not sticking up for himself and running off when some bullies from a 
nearby school had waylaid him. Called him a sissy-baby, so Tad said. 
There had been tears standing in the corners of Tad's eyes when he 
had and Clark had understood with the solemn, instinctive 
understanding of six-year-old male hubris that the insult had cut 
much deeper a wound in young Tad's soul than the whipping ever 
could. 

So not hitting back could be bad. Not that Clark feared a whaling...his 
father had never so much as lifted a hand to him in all his young years 
and the concept was as foreign to him as betrayal had been. But 
disapproval...his father's disapproval was a punishment that stung his 
heart more than any beating ever could and he was loath to tempt it. 

Hitting back though...that seemed as much of a minefield as the 
opposite action. Paul had already been the subject of punishment at 
school for hitting younger kids, even before he'd got to ragging on 
Clark.

He flinched a little as his father's large hand came down easily on his 
shoulder. But he didn't look up from his careful contemplation of the 
cart.

"It's okay, son." Jonathan patted him lightly and then with a soft 
grunt of effort levered himself to his feet and found himself a seat 
on a nearby crate. "Truth's the thing. Whatever you did, we can work 
it out. Lying now..."

"I didn't do nothing," Clark protested, stung. 

"Ah." Jonathan nodded. "Okay, so what did happen? Mrs Markham 
didn't go into much detail. Just said you and the Innes boy had had 
trouble." He eyed his son with a small grunt. "Couldn't have hit you 
hard. You haven't a sign of it on you."

Clark frowned. It had seemed plenty hard to him. But, yeah, he 
guessed Dad was right. It hadn't hardly stung at all after. And even 
the slight tenderness of earlier had faded now to the point where he 
could hardly have pointed out the site of Paul's punch if asked.  He 
shrugged, all of the anger of the afternoon surging up in him again 
with the call to remember. He didn't want to think about it. It was 
stupid. Paul Innes was stupid. And just because he said....

"He said something mean." Clark hesitated, darting another glance at 
his father, struck with the need to deny, to protect, anger at the 
insult to his mother, the desperation to refuse to believe the hateful 
words...and yet....

And yet.

He too could sense the difference in him. Even if he was unable to 
give it name or form. How could he expect others to miss it? Maybe 
Paul Innes was right. About him. Maybe he was.

"He said something mean 'bout Momma," he muttered finally.

"Oh," Jonathan said simply. He had no need to ask of course. Rumor 
reached adult ears as easily as a child's. And this was old news. Six 
years too old. He buried a small spark of anger, knowing he could 
never explain it to Clark, who would only misconstrue it as being 
directed at him.  He hesitated, floundering a little...Martha was much 
better at this kind of thing than he was...

"Dad? What *is* a...fallen woman anyhow?" Clark said before he could 
form any answers, his tone puzzled, and then, answering himself in a 
distracted mumble before his father quite got past the startlement 
of being asked, "Don't see it's got to do with Momma, anyway, 'cos I 
never seen her fall over nothing. Cept..." he paused, then continued 
tentatively, thinking it through, "...that time on the stoop last 
summer. But that doesn't really count, I guess, because you caught 
her then an' she didn't fall or nothing. But you *did* kiss her 
better...even though she wasn't hurt none that I could see an' - "

"Uh, I don't think that's important, Clark," his father said hastily. He 
hadn't known that Clark had been anywhere around that day. 
Reviewing the memory the child had brought up, he cleared his throat 
suddenly and, realizing that Clark was watching him now, eyes 
blatantly curious and still awaiting an answer to his question, changed 
direction firmly, "Your mother, Clark, is a very fine woman. A brave 
woman."

"Brave?" Clark ventured dubiously. While well aware that his Momma 
was the single most important person on the planet, just a shade 
ahead of his father, Clark had nevertheless never thought to view her 
as brave. Brave was...falling out of the old cottonwood in the yard and 
breaking your arm and refusing to let Doc. Taylor see you cry when he 
set the bone even though it hurt *real* bad. At least Doc had been 
impressed at the time. Brave was...stepping up and telling Jake 
Caldwell to cut it out when he pulled Lana's hair in class and made her 
cry. At least...he hadn't felt brave on that one, but Lana had told him 
he was, so he guessed she must be right. Lana generally was. She told 
him that too. Quite a lot.

But Momma had never done *anything* like that.

"Sure," his father leaned back against the rough-hewn beam at his 
back, making the crate creak quietly as he shifted. He smiled. "Come 
here."

With a quick grin, Clark scrambled to his feet and into his father's 
generous lap, snuggling close as he felt sturdy arms encapsulate him in 
a familiar, warm and soothing embrace. He sighed quietly as he 
nuzzled up against the rough serge of his father's workshirt.

"Your Momma's done more brave things than...Underdog," Jonathan 
asserted with a chuckle as he held his son against his broad chest. 
"She's much braver than me. Remember last spring, when she faced 
up to that old Ironba....uh, Diablo?" he amended hastily, referring to 
the huge and belligerent stock bull that had been brought up from a 
neighboring farm to service some of the cows. "When he got through 
the fence and into the yard? Remember that?"

Clark sure did. The furious bull hadn't been a match for his equally 
enraged Mom the moment she'd looked out of the kitchen window and 
seen him trampling all over her garden. Diablo had had something of a 
startled look to him as he'd been firmly herded back into the field at 
the end of a broom.

"That was brave?" he asked, wriggling around on his father's broad 
lap to look up interestedly into his face. He'd never thought of it that 
way before. Somehow it had just been...Mom. Diablo, all snort and fire 
just a moment before, so that the hands in the yard had been 
scrambling to find a safe place out of his reach, had taken one, wary 
look at his Mom and then obeyed her just as meek as a kitten. That 
seemed perfectly reasonable to Clark. Most people and animals 
behaved just the same when his Mom got *that* way with 'em. If 
they had brain sense like they was born with, as his father often said.

Jonathan hesitated. "Sure, it was. A very brave thing," he added, well 
aware that he hadn't thought it was anything more than pure plum-
dyed foolishness at the time. He and Martha had argued over that 
one later, his heart still pounding at the scare she'd given him as he'd 
seen her dash out of the house waving that broom around and cursing 
that ton of muscle and horn driven by sheer cussed meanness as it 
turned to face her with a snort and a sweep of its head. She hadn't 
agreed of course, and then she'd smiled at him in that way she had 
and kissed him and...well....he harrumphed lightly, Clark didn't need to 
know about all of that. "Real brave," he reiterated firmly. 

"Mrs Innes is *scared* of cows," Clark said, seemingly incongruously 
and with a great deal of contempt in his voice, so that Jonathan hid a 
smile. 

"Mrs Innes is," he paused, letting his annoyance with the gossip bleed 
out of his tone before continuing, more evenly, "Mrs Innes doesn't 
know your Mom like we do, that's all."

"Bet she wouldn't have gotten Diablo back into the field. Bet she 
would've run all the way up the lane, just like Betsy did that time the 
wasp wanted her ice-cream, all hollering an' blubbing an' - "

"Clark," his father rumbled disapproval. Much as he might agree, 
disrespecting the adults he knew wasn't anything he wanted his son 
to adopt.

Clark looked up at him guiltily and then added, defiantly loyal, "Mom's 
prettier than Mrs Innes too," before he settled back against his 
father's chest with an air of having been vindicated.

"Well, won't disagree with you on that one," his father relented 
enough to agree. "Anyway, point is, your Mom is brave *and* pretty. 
And a good person. And that's what you need to remember when 
someone who doesn't know her says different. Your Mom comes from 
pioneer stock. And she takes after her folks good."

"What's a pie and ear stock?" Clark queried. He knew what pies were 
of course, his Mom made the best apple 'n' pear pies in the whole 
wide State. And he knew she used stock when she made rabbit stew 
because it was a ritual between them that he often pulled up one of 
the chairs, settled his elbows on the kitchen table, and watched her 
as she cooked. They often talked over the day then. But he couldn't 
quite see how they went together with ears. What kind of ears? He 
knew Mr. Caplan, the butcher, sold pig's ears but....

Jonathan smiled as he put a hand to his son's head and stroked at his 
hair, stilling the chaotic, eclectic jumble of childish thoughts with the 
familiar, soothing action. "Well, now let's see..."

Clark snuggled closer as he listened. After a time he closed his eyes. 
Behind the lids, in the warm darkness, his mind was filled with 
covered wagons and Indian attacks, wild, dangerous places and 
exciting times...

Jonathan glanced down at his son eventually, noting the relaxed 
position he'd adopted. One small hand clutched still at his shirt, 
chubby fingers curled loosely around one of its buttons. He smiled. 
"Time for bed, I think..." he said.

"Nuhnu..." an automatic protest came drowsily from his son. "Tell me 
more stories, Daddy. Just one," he added, seeming to sense his 
father's mouth opening on a demurral. 

Jonathan grinned and then tried to inject some firmness into his tone 
as he said, "If your Mom comes back and finds us still out here and 
you not in bed - "

"She might think you two boys had been wasting time with your 
gossiping again," a mock severe voice told him from the barn door. "I 
swear, if you both aren't worse than Missie Palmer down at the store, 
way you sit here jawing nights." 

"Mom!" 

The small form of her son launched himself abruptly from his 
father's lap, eyes shining as he engulfed her in a wild hug that 
staggered her before she found balance. "Dad says you got to be the 
- "

The grinning excitement in his face died instantly and he threw a 
quick, almost guilty glance across his shoulder. Martha crouched 
quickly to hold him loosely around the waist, pulling his attention back 
to her. She looked soberly into his worried eyes.

"Your father," she said solemnly, "exaggerates."

Clark tilted his head to study her thoughtfully, brow furrowing. "Does 
that mean he tells good stories?" he asked finally.

Martha laughed, ruffling his hair as she stood. "Yes. He tells good 
stories. But," she added sternly, "that doesn't mean you get to hear 
another now. Bed, young man. You have school in the morning," she 
added as he opened his mouth in an automatic protest.

Clark sighed. "Awwwww, Mom!" he gave the age old ritual response and 
then, looking up on her earnestly as he wrapped his arms around her 
middle and adding a reiteration of his earlier plea, "Just 
one...puhlease?"

Martha wavered and then relented, "Okay, just one. But if you don't 
scoot in real quick and get bathed right after I'm gonna come out 
looking to find out why, you hear?"

Clark grinned and then brightened even more as he scurried back to 
his father's lap before she could change her mind. "Paul Innes is 
gonna be real sorry for what he said," he declared, putting together 
everything his father had said in the past few hours and forming 
them into a conclusive decision.

Martha looked at the determined tilt to that jaw, so familiar a 
gesture, one she'd been dealing with for all of her married life, and 
then raised her head to hook an eyebrow at her husband. Jonathan 
shrugged helplessly. She dropped her gaze to her son. "Now, Clark, I 
don't want you getting into any fighting at school. You understand 
me?"

Clark's lips tightened, his face taking on a mulish slant. "I'm not 
gonna fight anyone. But it ain't right. Daddy says, son of a pie 'n' ear 
needs to do what's right, stand up for himself, and it just ain't right 
letting Paul Innes say what he's been saying." He looked up at her, his 
guilty embarrassment over what had been said and who it had been 
directed at, warring with determination on his face. Determination 
won. "Is it?"

She paused. "Well...no..."

He nodded, vindicated. "Okay then."

Martha sighed, defeated. "We'll talk about it later," she said and 
then left them to it, shaking her head as she exited the barn.

And as he had lain there, on the broad, comfortable lap of his father, 
the dark, earthy smells coming from the warm touch of old flannel 
against his cheek and the familiar gentle voice lulling him into a doze, 
Clark had known that no matter where he had come from, no matter 
what Paul Innes or Marcie Evens or anyone said, this was where he 
belonged. 

Here on the Kent farm.

Smallville.

Kansas. 

Kansas, was where he belonged.

He was, of course, completely wrong.

~@*****@~


A long-ago poet, whom Clark had once read, wrote that each man 
carries two cities with him through his life. The city of his birth and 
the city which holds his heart.

For Clark, twenty some years later, what held his heart was 
Metropolis.

Or...a certain woman who lived there.

Clark smiled with the thought as he rolled over onto his side in the 
bed and reached for the bottle of champagne cooling in its bucket on 
the nightstand.

A certain woman who was, even now, yards away in his bathroom.

Who would soon be in his bed.

Who was about to share with him the most important moment of his 
life to date. 

And his life in its entirety.

He poured the chilled, sparking liquid into a fluted glass and then 
topped up the one standing beside it.

In almost thirty years, he thought as he took his first, cautious sip, 
he'd tasted champagne only three times. 

Surprising, he considered, when you added up the number of charity 
dinners, receptions, grand balls and general milling with the nobility 
events he'd attended since becoming a reporter. He'd never really 
been impressed with champagne though. He preferred a good wine, 
smooth and subtle. 

In his youth, he had regretted the inability of alcohol to cloud his 
thoughts and free his inhibitions, but that had passed - mostly as he 
had viewed his friends' post-imbibing suffering - and he had learned 
the wisdom to be grateful for it.

There were many things which had no effect on his metabolism, but 
that didn't prevent him savoring them for the pleasure they gave him.

Clark Kent had never been one to complain. He'd been content for 
most of his life - even though much of it had been frustrating and 
uncertain and sometimes painful. He had been lucky, he knew. Life 
could have been so much harder than this. He had been content as a 
child and - mostly - as a teen and he was content above all with his 
life as a man.

But he had never been so content as he was now, at this moment as he 
looked into the glass of bubbling amber liquid he held and smiled.

Lois.

He lifted the glass a little in an unconscious salute. "Lois Lane. Lois 
Lane Kent," he amended and then paused to think about that. Strange 
how odd it was, even now, to think of her that way. Lois Lane seemed 
to be more than a person, more than the woman he loved. She was an 
entity in her own right, a powerful force.... He smiled suddenly. Like 
Superman. One more thing they shared: powerful entities who had 
taken over their lives. 

"Lois Lane Kent," he tried it out again, liking the sound of it even more 
second time around. "Mrs Clark Kent..." Even better. "Lois Kent..." He 
tried out the various forms as he held the glass up to the light, 
turning it slowly this way and that in his fingers and watching the gold 
and silver sparkles bubble in its depths.

"What?"

Clark choked on the champagne as the puzzled voice drifted out of 
the bathroom at him. "Nothing!" he yelled back hastily. 

Lois Lane.

He shook his head. So what was in a name anyway?

Nothing, he knew. He smiled. She was his wife. And everything he'd 
ever wanted in the world. No matter what she called herself. And no 
matter what he called her.

"Honey..."

He grinned.

"My little tornado..."

He held the taste of them on his tongue for a moment, words of 
magic and of power, that had the ability to send him giddy more 
quickly and easily than any amount of champagne ever would.

"...my wife..."

That was the one. If he could call her nothing else than that for the 
rest of his life he'd be content.

He sighed and settled back on the pillows, taking another sip of the 
bright liquid.

"Just think." He raised his voice a little so she could hear. "This time 
tomorrow we'll be in Hawaii."

"Maybe we can just stay there," Lois answered, sounding distracted.

Clark chuckled. "You want it, you *got* it!" he declared exuberantly. 
He paused, then added expansively, "We'll eat coconuts every day. 
I'll just go up and grab some whenever we need more."

"Sounds great."

Clark nodded and took another sip from his glass. He paused to give it 
another appreciative look, savoring the taste on his tongue, before he 
cast a speculative look towards the bathroom.

She'd been in there an awful long time.

"Lois?" he ventured, a trace of anxious bridegroom seeping into his 
voice now. "Is everything all right?"

Her answer sent every nerve and sinew in him suddenly perking to 
attention.

"Stand by to be stunned!"

And with a blur of motion in the shadows she was there. She stopped 
some feet shy of the bed, smiling faintly, and paused to let him fully 
appreciate all of her hard work as she posed provocatively, framed by 
the lines of pure, white light that seeped into the room from the 
bathroom behind her and surrounded her like a halo's innocence.

Stunned didn't come close.

His heart stuttered into hammering life, his breath caught fast in his 
throat, and desire was a wild thing that scrabbled at his belly and 
loins.

The white silk clung to her curves and hollows, sculpting them in 
shadows, emphasizing the fullness of her breasts and the flat plains 
of her stomach. The tantalizing curves of her hips beckoned his eyes 
and caused heat and fire to war in the depths of his belly.

He thought of her skittishness about wearing white, given what she 
at least considered a spotty sexual history. He had found no 
contradiction in it at all. Wearing white wasn't about being virginal 
and pure, he'd told her. It was about marking a change in your life, 
moving from one phase to another. And if not virginal she was pure to 
him in all her guises. Pure of heart and spirit. The rest was of no 
matter to him at all. And he found himself touched by her choice now. 
The symbolic white of giving - the giving of herself to him. This *was* 
her first time...her first time with him. His first time with her. Their 
first time *together*. And that was all that mattered.

Actually, Clark suddenly realized, his life was full of champagne 
moments. More than he'd previously imagined.

Champagne moments...

...and peppermint dreams...

He smiled as the fragment of an old childhood saying of his Mom's 
rose in his thoughts.

Yeah, Mom. Peppermint dreams too, he agreed.

All of his dreams. Everything he'd ever wished for.

Right here with him in this room. 

His wife.

A soft sigh escaped him and then he smiled. His eyes roamed the slim, 
silk-clad figure in front of him, appreciation, anticipation and hunger 
warring in that fascinated stare. Light and dark shifted on her face 
and body, making mysterious the contours of her body, adding to her 
allure. All at once he wanted nothing in the entire world more 
desperately than to know what lay beneath those shifts of shadow 
and plays of light. 

He grinned.

"Hey there," he said.


~@*****@~


She stood there a moment, before, as though drawn by a beacon, her 
eyes fixed immediately on the man lying naked in the bed, only feet 
away. 

Mesmerized all at once, like a rabbit confronted by a hunting cobra, 
she could do nothing more than stare. She had left the bathroom full 
of bravado, sure of her appeal. Lex had assured her that Clark Kent 
would not find her undesirable. But now, seeing him so close, 
so...there, without clothes even, that very desire glowing like banked 
embers in his eyes...she felt her confidence desert her. She felt very 
like a child, afraid of the unknown, even more afraid of what she 
thought she knew already of men and the world.

Both were dangerous. Both could hurt.

Playing for time, she plucked nervously at the sides of her white silk 
robe, palms smoothing the soft material over her hips. Aware 
suddenly that the movements telegraphed her apprehension, she 
stilled them, putting her hands behind her back to keep them clear of 
temptation. 

She worked up a sly, inviting smile to go with the pose. The smile she 
had practiced in front of the mirror in the lab at Doctor Mamba's 
insistence, over and over, hour upon hour, until her jawbones ached 
and finally he declared himself satisfied. 

But she made no move to join him on the bed. 

His eyes devoured her like a hungry animal's and then he smiled. 
There seemed to be nothing threatening in the smile. But she moved 
no closer just the same. She was reminded of the scary stories she'd 
read on the computer when she wasn't being observed and was 
supposed to be taking notes on the lives of the soon to be Mr. and 
Mrs Clark Kent. Stories that were hoarded like guilty secrets and 
which had both terrified her and drawn her in equal measure. Big Bad 
Wolf. For a moment, in the glow of the single lamp, she thought she 
caught the glint of fangs. 

All the better to eat you with.

Except...he didn't really look like a wolf. He looked like a man. A 
darkly handsome man. A very handsome man. Whose eyes were 
running the length of her slim figure in ways that made her feel 
nauseated and hungry and sick with excitement all at the same time. 
Only chocolate had had that effect on her until now. 

The glow of admiration igniting in the rich depths of his gaze as it 
followed the white silk and lace that sheathed and draped and clung in 
all the right places up until they reached her disconcerted eyes was 
fierce and hot enough to sear. The smile widened into a cocky grin. 

"Hey, there," he said.

His voice matched his eyes. Warm and caressing. She could almost 
feel it on her skin, like down feathers, stroking and touching... 

She felt her cheeks flush. Her body felt suddenly heavy and hot. Her 
thoughts fled to another man, dark and handsome too. But his eyes 
had never made her feel as though she was suddenly in the grip of 
fever. And his smile had never been anything but cruel.

"You know -- "

She started as the husky voice broke into her thoughts and focused 
her attention on the man - her husband, her new husband, this 
handsome man she had to please - as he put aside the glass he was 
holding and set it carefully to the cabinet beside the bed. Her eyes 
were drawn to where the bubbles popped and caught the light of the 
lamp and she lost herself in the reflected glow of the champagne, as 
though she could immerse herself in it and escape. Then she pulled 
her troubled gaze clear with an effort and let it flicker nervously to 
where he had moved to sit against the bed's edge, pulling aside the 
bedcovers and all but patting the mattress in invitation to join him. 

His legs were smoothly muscular, bare beneath the edge of the 
sheets. He was wearing plaid sleep shorts. Her eyes and mind darted 
past them, hesitant to venture there too long - dangerous territory - 
and slid up onto the compact, bronzed and well-shaped pectoral 
muscles of his chest. She didn't dare meet his eyes. But his...chest, 
his...shoulders...the tight lines of his abs and stomach...

She felt her breath shorten in her throat, like a noose tightening. 
Her heart began to stammer in her breast, its suddenly wild, rabbit 
beat painful against the walls of her chest. 

" - I have imagined this moment for *so* long..."

Emotion trembled in the words; his eyes seemed to give them an 
import she didn't understand. This moment? She swallowed fitfully 
past the blockage in her throat. She'd been given instructions on how 
to proceed to 'this moment' of course. But that didn't mean she had 
to like it any.

Outside, in the darkness, thunder rolled an ominous drumbeat across 
the sky. She was not made for thinking of omens or portents - in 
many ways she wasn't made for thinking beyond the basics at all. But 
still, she suppressed a shiver as she obeyed his silent summons, 
hearing that dull boom of sound shiver its way through her bones. 
Unable to explain the fear it generated or why it made her feel that 
disaster, like a dark and shapeless, ravenous beast, was about to 
pounce on her at any moment from out of the room's shadows.

What would he do when he had her close? Would he...would he hurt 
her? Lex had hurt her.  He had only taken her into his bed once and 
that had really been once more than she had cared for or wanted. It 
had been...uuuggghhh. She felt her lips begin to twist into a childish 
grimace of disgust and hurriedly stopped the motion in its tracks. A 
poor habit she had learned painfully to suppress if she knew what was 
good for her - along with so many others. 

She didn't know what was good for her, of course. That was mainly 
the problem.  She had simply to trust to the men who had created 
her to know what was best for her and to tell her what to do. Even if 
what she had to do was unpleasant and hurt. But it had been 
necessary Lex had explained to her as she'd sat on the bed in the 
middle of the cave, trembling with fear as she watched him disrobe. 
She couldn't go to her wedding night with Clark Kent a virgin, now 
could she? He had smirked then, as though at some joke, but she 
hadn't understood the humor and had already known better than to 
ask. 

Lex didn't like to be questioned.

She didn't understand why it was necessary, though. She had been 
eavesdropping earlier that day - one of those habits for which she 
was usually painfully reprimanded and yet couldn't seem to give up - 
and had clearly heard Doctor Mamba protest that the procedure 
would be much more easily and quickly carried out in the laboratory 
by mechanical means. She hadn't understood what that meant any 
more than she had truly understood what it would mean for Lex to 
give the task his 'personal seal of approval'. But it hadn't sounded 
like something she wanted him to do to her. 

Even Lex didn't scare her as much as the laboratory did.

Lex had been even less pleasant in the end. At an instinctive, wordless 
level, she had understood that he was indulging in the act less 
because he had to than because it suited him to dominate his 
creation. 

In some strange way - for surely her opinion of him could matter 
little? - he seemed driven by the need to exact his power over her. 
To prove himself her master. And there had been a moment, in among 
that urge to control, when she had almost felt him grow tender, when 
he had whispered her name with reverence and genuine desire. It had 
been there, at the end, and then gone so quickly though that she had 
almost believed she had imagined it.

"Lois...." he had whispered. "Lois...."

Afterwards, he had been cold and brutal. His words had been cruel. 
Strange words that she had never learned or been taught. That she 
barely remembered. So many words for one simple act.  It confused 
her. All that she knew was that the words thrown at her were savage 
and that he had not been pleased with her performance. His 
displeasure had scared her so badly that she had fled the bed, naked 
and shivering, tearing down the long and narrow maze of corridors 
until she had found a hiding place, huddling there, crying softly in the 
shadows among a clutter of equipment, until Doctor Mamba had found 
her hours later.
 
Lex had hardly spoken to her since, except for some last minute 
instructions - and some graphic previews of what the consequences 
would be if she failed him.

"Lois...?"

She broke free of the memories and lifted her head. Her new 
husband...

<Clark>

...Clark was watching her quizzically from out of those dark, 
expressive eyes. So familiar, so like those of her Creator...and yet so 
different, not the same at all. There had been a revulsion in Lex's 
eyes whenever they fell on her that had made her quiver and wish she 
was elsewhere. But in this man's eyes...there was kindness mixed in 
among the heat, an open, honest appreciation of her - and desire.

Steeling her resolve, suppressing the urge to turn and run, she walked 
towards the bed, remembering at the last moment to inject the 
smoothly rolling, slinking glide into her walk that she'd been taught 
men liked.

She sat beside him, diffident. She waited for his next move. Lex, 
though he had tried to mold her into a semblance of Lois Lane, had 
nevertheless not encouraged her to be brazen in her actions or to 
take the initiative. 

Up close he seemed...bigger than she'd thought. More muscular. Fear 
flickered in her breast again and she started as he reached out a 
hand. But the fingers that smoothed a path up her arm were gentle; 
barely a whisper skimmed across her skin. His hand laid itself against 
her throat and then slid its way across the silk of her robe, baring 
her shoulder as it went. He leaned toward her to place a quiet, 
reverential kiss against the smooth skin and she closed her eyes, a 
soft shiver rolling through her as she felt that caress linger like a 
brand of heat. 

He smelled clean and heady with a scent she didn't recognize but 
suddenly knew that she liked. A musky hint of maleness, of raw and 
primal power, that made her head swim.

He withdrew, his face only inches from hers as he smiled into her 
distant eyes. "Hello, Mrs Kent." 

She forced her lips into an answering smile.

Clark's attention shifted, taken by the ruby bow of her lips, 
glistening faintly beneath the lamp's aura. He ran the pad of a thumb 
across the lower curve, his eyes seeming fascinated by the way her 
lips parted slightly in reflex under that stimulus. He moved the 
fraction's distance needed to touch his mouth to hers, feeling her 
open more fully, grant him entry, his tongue exploring all the caverns 
and hollows within. 

She stayed passive beneath the grip of his hand pressed tight against 
the side of her neck, letting him do as he would. His brow furrowed as 
he withdrew. He ran a brief tongue across his lips, a strange 
expression overtaking his face. 

"Are you using a new brand of toothpaste?" 

Was she? Panicked synapses ran through the store of knowledge that 
had been impressed into her over the past few weeks. Cups in left 
hand cupboard, Clark likes oolong tea, toast with honey, coffee, milk 
or cream, lots of sugar and -- 

"No," she said. She added a shrug. "Just good old McLean's."

"Oh. Just..." He shook his head. "It was kind of an...uh, unusual taste." 
He cleared his throat and smiled at her, obviously dismissing 
whatever it was that had distracted him, not keen to spoil the 
moment. This special moment. But his frown returned as his hands 
caressed her arms. "You're shivering. Are you cold?"

She shook her head dumbly.

His eyes searched hers. "You're not worried about Lex escaping, are 
you? Honey," he continued before she could form an answer, "you 
know they've got roadblocks set and all those people looking for him. 
He can't hide forever. He'll be caught soon. And Superman will go 
looking for him too." A small smile quirked at his lips as he reached up 
to stroke back her hair. "But...not right now."

"Okay." 

"So, you're not worried, right?"

"No..."

He tilted his head, a small amusement coming into his eyes as the 
denial emerged with a tentative edge. "Hey, you're not *nervous*, are 
you?" he joked, and then the smile in his gaze flickered out and was 
replaced by an expression of dawning dismay. "Honey? You're not are 
you?" he said quickly. 

She paused and took a deep, steadying breath. She cast her thoughts 
out into the shadows of the room. The moment of truth. Showtime! 
For answer, she burrowed against his neck and stroked a hand 
through his hair as he reflexively wrapped his arms around her. She 
felt him hesitate, sensed his puzzlement, his uncertainty at how to 
proceed, and then his hand moved to spread itself against the back of 
her neck, drawing her closer.

"You know, we've gone through so much to get to this night," she 
heard him whisper reassurance against her ear. "But none of that 
matters. It's perfect."

She pulled back, her eyes pinning his. "Perfect," she agreed. 

He nodded and his smile on her became warm and tender, that soft 
gentleness reflected in the loam-dark depths of his eyes. "When 
we're together, it can't be anything else. Here," he added, the words 
rough with anticipation in his throat. "Lay down."

She kept her eyes on him, an anchor to hold on to, as he shifted her 
in his embrace, laying her back to the covers and settling his large, 
powerful body next to hers. His eyes were full and lambent with 
desire as his hands lifted to frame her face. He kissed her deeply 
and with a passion she'd never known before, the hard, muscular 
planes of his body settling themselves more tightly against her softer 
curves.

She was a biological misfit. A changeling formed out of protoplasm in 
a dark laboratory vat. But she had been made not only in the image of 
a woman, but as a woman. And as that woman she was no more immune 
to the touch of hot desire on her lips or in the hands that were 
suddenly roaming her body than any other. Her body was programmed 
with the same natural responses, she had the same sensitive points 
which made her gasp aloud, startled by the force of the tremor that 
surged through her when his fingers and lips grazed them. She had 
the same desires, banked down and dormant, but rapidly coursing 
upward through her and flaring into new, incandescent birth.

A low moan of pleasure escaped her as new, dangerous, and 
overwhelming sensations began to pulse deep within her. Like the 
sudden ticking into life of a timepiece long broken and unused. 

"Clark...." she whispered, tasting the name as something strange and 
unfamiliar on her lips as his mouth left hers and began to trail its way 
across her throat and shoulder and then lower still. She arched up 
into the path of his questing lips and the body pressing her into the 
soft quilt, her mind imploding into instinctive passion. She growled, 
low in her throat, and then wrapped her arms tight around his throat, 
mirroring the kisses he had just bestowed on her. This was her 
nature. To learn and imitate. To take what was given her and bounce it 
back like a distorted reflection in a cheap fairground mirror. 

Her movements matched his, following his path a split second after 
him as she learned by example. She moaned as his lips suckled 
hungrily at her shoulder and tasted the musky skin of his as their 
voices merged. Her hands slipped along his spine. 

"You smell so good," he whispered, as he burrowed close into the 
sensitive hollow of her throat and nuzzled fitfully there. She felt the 
cool drift of air on her skin, chill against the heat that was rising in 
her, as he pulled loose the ties of her nightgown and drew the 
material softly away from her. Like unwrapping a gift. 

He paused for a moment, and then he lowered his head, kissing a trail 
of tantalizing caresses down across her skin. His lips explored her 
with gentle fervor, retracing their path as his hands stroked light 
across her ribs and then shifted to pull her tight and hard against 
him with a groan of surrender.

She clutched him tighter, trying to find rhythm and pattern in the 
restless motions of his body on hers, trying to plot it and map it like a 
problem in mechanical math. After Lex had found her disappointing, 
she had been given 'instructional films' to watch and study, but none 
of what had been enacted before her on the flickering cinema screen 
seemed suddenly to have any link to what was happening to her now or 
what Clark was doing to her. Her body seemed to have an agenda all 
of its own, fighting against the practiced, pre-programmed moves 
she'd learned and going its own way on instinct alone. She gave up, let 
herself drift, limp and pliant in the embrace of her lover.

Clark continued his heated discovery of her body for a moment and 
then lifted his head to find her lips again...and was there less passion 
in his kiss than there had been a moment before? His mouth crushed 
its way against her almost desperately, as though trying to find a 
spark that was flickering listlessly into darkness, and then retreated. 
He looked down at her, his dark eyes unreadable.

"Honey, if you're too tired to...I mean it's been a long day. For both 
of us. I wouldn't mind...I mean I'd understand if you just wanted to -- 
"

She frowned. "I'm not tired."

"You're sure?" He ran his thumb across the line of her brow and then 
followed the curve of her eye down to her cheek. "You know we've got 
the rest of our lives to do this. It doesn't have to be tonight just 
because it's traditional. We've got all the time in the world..." He 
touched his lips gently to hers again and she caught that flicker in his 
eyes again, of something uncertain. 

Fear spiked through her. She wasn't doing it right. She was failing. 
She couldn't fail. Above all others, this one thing was most important 
to Lex. Distract him, he'd said. Keep him happy. These she could do in 
other ways. But this act, she had sensed, was important beyond the 
subterfuge for which she'd been created. Lex wanted it. For 
whatever reasons, he wanted it badly.

She had to make love with Clark Kent. 

If she failed...

"I want you to...make love to me, Clark." She wound her arms around 
his neck and pressed her body tight against his. His kiss came to life 
again as he groaned into the mouth that suddenly matched his ardor 
in a blaze of ignited fire.

Their bodies melded among the tangled sheets, hands and lips 
exploring all that they could find, their movements frenzied as she 
wrapped her arms around him and held him fast against her. She slid 
her hands down across a tautly sculpted back, following the points of 
his spine. Her fingers hooked beneath the edge of the plaid shorts...

...and his hand caught at hers, stopping it in its tracks.

He was still. His body trembled against hers. His breath flooded hot 
against the side of her throat, where his face was buried in her 
shoulder. She stilled too, puzzled and confused - a machine suddenly 
out of data to assimilate. Had he...was he through with her...she 
thought uncertainly and with some disappointment. But no. He hadn't 
hurt her yet.

She lay still, waiting for him to give her another clue as to how to 
proceed. 

"One question," he said softly. And then he raised his head.

And in his eyes, suddenly, there was something that caused her heart 
to leap in terror. Anger and revulsion the equal to anything she had 
ever seen in Lex.  

"Clark - ?"

She cried out as he pushed himself clear of her in a convulsive 
movement, his hands darting out to grip her arms, pinning her to the 
bed beneath them with less than gentle force. 

Her eyes widened and filled with tears. "Clark -- "

His grip tightened. He shook his head, closed his eyes tight against 
the plea, like a man fighting against a spell of compulsion. 

"Where's my wife?" he snarled as he hauled her up violently to face 
him. "Where is she?! If you've - Is she - " The words dissolved into 
something very like a growl as his hands tightened on her, his voice 
trembling with rage. "Tell me where she is, or I swear...I swear I'll 
make you wish you'd *never* been part of this."

She couldn't speak. Terror had frozen her voice tight in her throat 
and she couldn't force it free. She choked, whimpered, and he shook 
his head, frustrated. Shoving her violently back from where he'd 
hauled her close in anger, as though recognizing that he would get no 
answers from this quarter, he threw himself clear of the bed to 
stand, shaking and bleak eyed, in the center of the room. 

For a moment, it was as though she didn't exist for him and then his 
gaze, dark and storm tossed, focused on her. Like pinning a bug under 
glass. 

"You..." he spat out. She cowered back in fright at his sudden motion 
as he advanced across the room to stand over the bed. His shadow 
cast across her like a black hand, robbing her of breath. "Who *are* 
you?"


~@*****@~

She couldn't have answered him, even if she'd had what he wanted. 
Trembling, she simply stared up at him, her heartbeat loud in her 
ears, loud enough to almost drown his next words as his eyes 
narrowed.

Oh, god. Lex had warned her. Warned her what would happen if she 
failed. How could she have failed? How could she - ?

"Karen Stapleton."

The name, breathed out like a revelation, was non sequitur enough to 
temporarily overlay her terror with confusion. She shook her head 
blankly. 

"It is you, isn't it?" the tight, accusing voice raked her again. She 
didn't dare to meet his eyes; the rage in them, his fury, terrified 
her. She shook her head violently, over and over, not knowing how to 
placate him, not knowing what he wanted from her. 

"Arianna...did she arrange this? Did she - ?"

"W-who...?"

"Don't play games with me! I want to know!" 

She cringed back against the headboard as his voice rose to a yell. "I 
don't...I don't know..."

"Where's Arianna?! Where?!"

"I don't *KNOW*!"

The denial was a panicked screech as it looked as though he might 
grab her again, shake her in his frustration, and it gave him pause, 
even though his rage,  as he seemed to recognize at last that she was 
telling the truth. That she knew nothing. His expression darkened.

"Okay, so not Arianna. Who then? Who paid you to - "

He broke off sharply and she saw his head twist abruptly in the 
direction of the bathroom. He stared blankly at the wall for a 
moment and then whipped back to face her. Seeing what was suddenly 
in his face, she cowered back against the bricks instinctively. 

"You're a *clone*?!" He blinked, shock stuttering over his darkening 
expression. "Luthor..."

It was a hiss, as though the very name was loathsome in his mouth. In 
her entire short life so far she'd only heard one man voice another's 
name with that much dark hatred. 

Lex, for this man. 

Bewildered, she stared up at him and for a moment she was like to die 
from terror. Suddenly he looked so much like Lex, hulking over her in 
the shadowed room, that she was instantly transported back to 
another night, another bed, another voice raging at her, hate and 
contempt flaying her -- 

"Has Luthor got - " Clark had paled, his voice husky with fear. "Is Lois 
with *him*?"

He leapt forward, grabbing her by the arms and dragging her up to 
face him again, ignoring her shriek of panic as he shook her hard. 
"Answer me! Is she with Luthor?!"

Instead of answering, she began to beat at him with her fists, flailing 
out wildly, her hysterical blows useless against him; fighting him as 
she hadn't fought before, knowing that this time if she didn't he 
would kill her. He grunted and then shoved her back, away from him.

"Get out," he said. 

Breathing heavily, sprawled loosely across the bed, she moaned softly 
in her throat. Clark grimaced. 

"I said get out. Go on!" His voice rose sharply. "Get out!"

She flinched at that roar, sobbed out a harsh breath and scrambled 
from the bed, heedless of her dishabille as she fled. She was running 
wildly for the door, without thought, running from him, running from 
Lex, running from another painful, hurtful encounter.

Behind her, she heard a rough curse.

"Wait!"

And then he was coming after her. She whined in her terror, 
scrabbling at the handle of the door in a desperate bid to escape, 
terror clogging her breath in her throat, her sobs wild in her breast. 
When his hands landed on her, yanking her around to face him, she 
opened her mouth on a scream. His hand came down against her 
mouth, cutting it off before it was fully formed. Behind his palm her 
shrieks emerged muffled. 

"Stop that. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to - "

She tore herself free, tried to run, fell as in her panic she tripped 
over the table in the middle of the room.

He was coming for her again, bending to grab her. She scooted back, 
mewling her fear. He stopped abruptly and then he straightened.

For a moment, there was standoff. She sat there, back against the 
sofa, legs drawn tight against her chest, ready to kick out or try to 
gain her feet when he came at her again. Her heart pounded like a 
piston in her breast. Her hands clawed desperately, blindly, around 
her, seeking something, anything she might use as a weapon. He 
stared down at her, face blank, as though he wasn't seeing her at all. 
And then his eyes shifted away from her face, his own twisting in 
sudden distaste.

"I'm not going to touch you," he said.

She believed him. More for the repugnance that crossed his face 
with the words than for the promise itself. She could tell that the 
last thing he ever wanted to do again was touch her. She wasn't 
certain which scared her more. That he wouldn't...or that he would.

He swiped a hard hand through his hair and shook his head viciously.

"Get dressed," he muttered, turning sharply away from her and 
heading for the stairs.

She watched him, wide eyed, as he barreled out the front door, 
slamming it behind him.


~@*****@~


Out on the stoop, Clark barely waited for the door to bang to a close 
behind him before he rocketed upwards into the night sky. He didn't 
even stop to change into the Suit, but his speed was such that he 
rapidly became a blur of amber and black and then of red and blue as 
he tore through the blackness. By the time he jolted to a halt, high 
above the sprawling cityscape spread out beneath him, it was 
Superman who scanned the twinkling lights of the city with hard, 
unforgiving eyes.

Grief and pain wrapped him like a shroud. It was unbearable. Every 
breath hurt in his chest, every beat of his heart was like a fist 
raining brutal blows within him, tearing him apart. 

He whirled, fists clenching as though searching for an enemy to 
strike. He fled blindly, seeking an escape, driven beyond enduring, 
unheeding of where he was going or why. Damp clouds shrouded him 
and then he hung, motionless, breath convulsing in his chest. The 
glitter of stars enveloped him as he screamed his rage and loss into 
the cold, brittle void.

"Lois!!!!"

The cry was torn from him, mindless of where he was or the dangers 
inherent in the cold, vast emptiness that surrounded him. For a 
moment he felt the invisible shield that protected him from the 
airless void ripple and waver; he felt the vacuum suck at the breath in 
his throat and for one wild and despairing moment he wanted to 
surrender to that awful, inexorable pull deep in his chest. He threw 
his arms wide, arching back his head, his eyes closing. The vague 
thought that he could spread himself against the stars, like the Gods 
of old, until he simply faded and became one with the universe pulsing 
around him, filled him like a need he had never known. The weight 
against his chest tightened, the pressure crushing his throat...

...and then reason reasserted itself in among the pain.

Lois was alive. 

Somewhere, down there, she was alive. And she needed him.

It came like a physical tug against his heart, as though some level of 
awareness of her had enveloped his soul. He could feel her heart 
beating around his, feel the warmth of her skin against his palms. He 
could almost smell her perfume...

He opened his eyes with a start and then glanced around him as 
though for a moment, lost in his grief, he had forgotten where he 
was.

Lois needed him.

The thought beat at his skull, like a mantra, stopping him cold on the 
brink.

Lois needed him.

She was counting on him.

He was all she had.

He took a hard breath. And then another. 

Lois...

He dived back, seeking the lights below.

Resolve. Resolve and need could block out the fear and the rage. 
Could keep him moving, keep the grief from overwhelming him. For 
now. That was what he had to concentrate on. Finding her. Finding her 
before... He shook his head sharply, his lips unconsciously drawing 
back in a rictus snarl as he brutally shoved aside the terrible images 
flashing through his mind. Finding her.

Finding her was all that mattered.

Luthor could wait.

He could wait - justice could wait - at least till then.


~@*****@~


It took him most of the night to systematically search the sprawling 
city below him. Quartering it, marking it out block by block, building 
by building. And even then he only succeeded in dealing with a 
fraction of it.

After three or four hours, he had realized that he was losing too 
much time, that it was impossible, that he had to skew the odds 
somehow in his favor. He gave up the pattern he'd been using and 
concentrated instead on every inch of the city that was blank and 
dark to his vision. 

Luthor wasn't dumb. He was a cold, murdering, vicious sociopath. But 
he wasn't dumb. He'd hide Lois somewhere where Superman's 
augmented vision couldn't find her. And that meant somewhere lead-
shielded. 

So he'd started there. Every building that resisted his attempts to 
see into it he searched manually. The rest he ignored. There were 
more of them than might have been imagined. A lot of Hobb's Bay and 
the older areas of the city were cloaked in lead-based paint. Hour 
after hour, minute after minute, he went through all of them that he 
could.

Dawn was showing in pink and gray streamers against the sky when 
finally he settled on a ledge high above the streets. Shoulders 
slumped, he pulled his cape absently around him, his eyes dark and 
sightless as he stared out into the night. 

It was hopeless. 

What if Luthor had blindsided him? He knew about Superman's x-ray 
capabilities. Had he second-guessed him? Had he realized that 
Superman would narrow the search by concentrating on lead-shrouded 
areas first? And had he foregone that security - that obvious, too 
obvious, security - and simply not taken it? Was Lois hidden away 
somewhere else? Somewhere he could have found her if he hadn't 
been stupid enough to fall into the predictability Luthor had counted 
on? If he had searched elsewhere...if he hadn't narrowed the 
parameters, if he hadn't tried to outsmart someone who was more 
cunning and venal than he ever could be...?

If he had...

If he had thought...

If only he hadn't...

Dammit, he should have thought about it! Worked it out! Instead of 
flying off half-cocked, so sure he had Luthor outwitted.

If he had just...

Thought.

Done.

Found.

Oh, god, if he had just *found* her. How could he have failed to find 
her?

"Lois..."

Her name slipped miserably from his lips and he drew his knees up to 
his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. He sunk his chin onto his 
forearm and stared out bleakly into the lightening world. A world 
growing light for everyone but him. For him, there was only darkness. 
Sorrow and grief. Pain. Without Lois there would never be light in his 
life again.

Without her...

During all the long hours of searching, he had been sustained by the 
hopeful fantasies spawned in his head as he worked his way through 
abandoned warehouses and dusty, cobwebbed cellars. That just 
around the corner, in the next building, she would be there. 
Frightened, angry... There, in that patch of shadows. A chair. And 
Lois tied to it, her eyes widening above the gag in her mouth as he 
crashed through the locked doorway. Widening and then lighting with 
relief at the sight of him coming to her rescue. Luthor running. 
Captured. Untying her and feeling his own relief well up within him 
like a storm as he drew her into his arms and knew she was safe. Safe 
and with him. Where she belonged...

The fantasy faded yet again, as it had done repeatedly through the 
long night, turning to ashes and dust and cold, empty rooms. Leaving 
him alone in the dark.

Angrily, he shifted on his lonely watchpoint. <Enough! You'll find her,> 
he promised himself fiercely. <You have to.> 

Yes, he had to. And Lois had been in danger before, at risk 
before...they had always won through. They would now. He would now. 
He would find her and Luthor would pay for what he'd done. 

What had he done?

What was he doing right now?

The defiance of his thoughts crumbled in the wake of reality. Lois 
had never been in danger like this. This was different.

The difference was simple enough to understand of course.

In his entire life, he'd never been so afraid.

It was like an animal, living deep within his heart, sharpening its claws 
in his chest, biting and clawing and scrabbling to get free.

He had no idea *where* to look, he realized, no idea where Luthor 
would have taken his wife. They could be anywhere. They might even 
have left the city by now, he thought sickly, thinking of all the hours 
he had stayed unaware of the switch. So many hours Luthor would 
have used to his advantage. 

Dear God, where was Lois? And what was Luthor doing to her?

He couldn't say what it was that had alerted him to the fact that the 
woman in his arms wasn't his wife, that the body writhing beneath 
him wasn't hers. It was something beyond instinct, beyond knowing. 
It was just so. 

Christmas tree lights. He frowned at the random thought, but 
realized that it fit as well as anything else. There had been no spark, 
none of the blood pounding, heart thundering electric heat between 
them that had always been there before. 

And then, confronting her...

He guessed it was natural that his first thought was that this was the 
woman who had impersonated Lois once before. He hadn't kept up 
with Karen Stapleton's prison term; he and Lois had consigned her to 
the past, forgotten her. But his first thought had been that she had 
somehow managed to get released. She and Arianna both? Or was 
Arianna masterminding this cruel hoax on him from her prison cell?

But the look on her face... She clearly hadn't known who he was 
talking about. The names Arianna and Karen Stapleton meant nothing 
to her. And he refused to believe she was that good an actress. She 
hadn't even been able to make him believe she was...

No. She hadn't known. That much had been clear. His mind had 
tumbled over a myriad of dark possibilities...  Okay, so it hadn't been 
some revenge from Arianna. But if she could produce a double of Lois, 
then so could - 

And that was when the faint noise had intruded on the desperate 
strands of his reasoning and he'd turned his head towards the 
darkened bathroom behind him. 

He'd heard it again. Strange...and something he'd never expect to 
hear, here in his apartment. His bedroom...

Frogs?

He'd shaken his head, bewildered, and had arrowed in his hearing on 
the low croaking again, finally tracking it to Lois' abandoned make up 
bag. He'd directed a beam of x-ray vision at the jumble of containers 
and accoutrements within. The jars and 
bottles...moisturizers...toners...foundation...eye shadow...cold cream...

He'd frozen.

Frogs. In fake containers.

The impact of his discovery struck him immediately, with a blow that 
almost seemed physical, like someone had just driven a stake through 
his heart, and his head had swung back to the cowering woman on the 
bed.  

A clone.

A clone made by...Luthor?

Luthor!

Luthor. The name had slithered into his head like a live cobra, 
venomous and dark. It was a howl in his head and for a moment he 
thought he'd shrieked it aloud as her eyes had widened.

A small worm of thought was squirming in his skull. Lois was vulnerable 
to Luthor. In ways she probably didn't even understand or could 
guard against. The man's singular talent was to ferret out the 
weaknesses of his opponent and turn them to his advantage with a 
knack that was almost uncanny. Of knowing that opponent at an 
instinctive level more deeply than he ever knew himself.

How much of herself had Lois unwittingly given him in the past? How 
many clues had she revealed as they'd discussed wedding plans and 
set out their future together? How many childhood secrets, teenage 
fears, wounds and insecurities had she confided to her 
fiancee...moments of crystal clarity that were ammunition for Luthor 
to use against her.

Clark felt cold as his thoughts processed his fears and laid them bare 
before him, stark and frightening. 

Exactly when had Lois been replaced, he found himself wondering. 
When they'd shared pizza and wine and she had told him how much 
she loved him? When she had been so delightfully pleased at his 
endearments in the conference room? Had she been Lois then? Or 
that thing that aped her? How long had Lois really been missing? How 
long had Luthor had to spirit her away without him even realizing that 
she was in danger? 

He berated himself, tortured himself, with the thoughts. He should 
have known! Damn it all to Hell, he should have known right from the 
first instant that monster had gotten close to him!

Why hadn't he known? He cast the silent scream out into the dark, 
feeling it shudder through him like a blow.

He had dismissed her fears. She had known something would happen. 
She had tried to tell him, tried to make him understand the danger 
they were in. And he hadn't listened. If only he'd listened! Smashed 
wedding cake. Dead flowers. How could he have shrugged it all aside 
like he had? Why hadn't he checked on Luthor? Why hadn't it 
occurred to him even once that the one person in all the world who 
would most want to ruin their lives, their wedding, their hopes for the 
future, was Luthor? 

Why hadn't he *done* something? Anything. Anything but laugh at 
Lois' fears and leave her alone for the monster to reach out and...

<Stop it!> he told himself roughly. This wasn't getting him anywhere. 
This wasn't helping Lois. Enough! He had to turn this around. Stop 
wallowing in self-pity and find some way to get Lois back. Away from 
Luthor. There was a way. He just had to find it. And dwelling on how 
this was all his fault, how he'd let this happen, wasn't going to do it.

Okay...he sucked in a long, hard breath...then how?

Searching haphazardly with no clear idea of where to look wasn't 
going to help him. He was beginning to understand that now. The city 
was too big. Heck, the country was too big. She might be anywhere by 
now. 

So what? What could he do to give himself the edge over his 
opponent? What could he use to...

His thoughts froze.

Her. That...thing...back in his apartment. Part of the plan. Part of the 
deception. Part of what had taken Lois from him. How much did she 
know? How much had she heard? 

Cursing, he began to realize that it would perhaps have been wiser, 
and more useful, to have questioned the clone, rather than barreling 
off on his own on a fruitless search. At the time he hadn't been able 
to stand being there in the same room with...that thing...a moment 
longer. His rage, his disgust, his terror, had been dark blossoming 
flowers in his chest, tightening their thorns and tendrils round his 
heart till he could barely breathe...but...she was his best clue to 
finding Lois. What might she be able to tell him? 

The thought seeded a new flare of panic in his chest. He'd left her 
there. Alone. He'd told her to go, get out! What if she'd gone? What 
if she'd run off soon as he'd left? What if she'd phoned Luthor and 
he'd sent men to get her? What if Luthor was somehow aware of her 
failure and had -- 

Luthor eliminated his mistakes - ruthlessly and without second 
thought. Did he know? Was he having the apartment watched? Hoping 
for some sick, twisted thrill when his spies reported back to him that 
Mr. and Mrs Clark Kent had retired for the evening? Their wedding 
night. Had he? Would he? Clark's mouth had gone dry as the 
realization dawned. He uncoiled abruptly from his miserable position 
perched on the ledge, jerking, dismayed to his feet.

His only link to Luthor, to perhaps the only person who could lead him 
to that monster, his only chance at finding out the truth - of finding 
Lois...was vulnerable and alone back at his apartment. 

Alone and perhaps already eliminated. 

His only link to Luthor. His only link to where Lois might be. His only 
chance could be out there in the night, lost to him, thanks to his 
stupidity.

With a curse, he wheeled in the air and sped like a bullet back to the 
apartment.


~@*****@~


The apartment was dark. 

Heart thudding, he raced up the stairs in a shapeless blur of color. If 
there had been watchful eyes surveilling the area before, they were 
long gone now. He had scanned the immediate vicinity of the street 
and its surrounds, any possible lookout point and position, before 
landing. Another missed chance? Another link to Luthor lost? Let 
escape him? His fingers clenched into spasmodic fists at his sides.

He stopped with a jolt at the door...and hesitated. Then, squaring his 
shoulders, drawing in a steadying breath he reached out and pushed it 
quietly inwards. He stepped through.

Again he paused, standing on the landing and listening intently. 
"Hello?" 

Immediately the word was out he chided himself for his stupidity. He 
felt foolish, calling out like a stranger in his own home. Sneaking 
around awkwardly like a thief in the night. But...

What if she was gone? 

The fear that had begun to thread itself in him returned full force, 
hard as a blow.

If she was gone - 

She was here!

Someone was here.

Tensing, his head turned, arrowing in on the soft sounds of breathing 
coming from deeper within the room. Slow and somnambulant, not the 
quickened rasp of panic or fear. Nor of stealth.

Carefully, sure now of what he'd find, he made his way unerringly 
down the stairs and over to the armchair. Reaching over, he clicked on 
the table lamp beside it, already turning as the soft light swept aside 
the dark.

She was lying on the sofa. Asleep. Clark puffed out an irritated 
breath. What was this? Goldilocks? He shook his head and his heart 
clenched. She looked so... So much like...

He found himself halfway towards her before he even realized what 
he was doing. His hand reaching automatically to pull the comforter 
she'd wrapped herself in further up around her shoulders...to put out 
a gentle hand and stroke back the hair that had fallen across one pale 
cheek...to lean forward and lay his lips against the curve of her 
ear...the side of her throat...to have her wake and smile up at him...

He turned on his heel abruptly and fumbled his way for the chair. 

...to have her wake and tell him this was a nightmare. Nothing more. 
Something he would wake from, sweating, heart racing a rapid beat of 
terror in his chest, to be soothed away by a soft touch in the dark, a 
sigh of breath against his ear...a warm body pressed against his in the 
darkness...

He closed his eyes. His knees sagged and he half fell into the chair 
behind him. He dropped forward, elbows on knees, burying his head in 
hands that shook...fury and grief and fear warring within him. 

After a time, he straightened to slump back against the back of the 
chair, his eyes bleak and distant as they rested on the 
sleeping...whatever. The thing that had invaded his life...tried to 
cuckold his heart...Luthor's twisted creation. 

Somehow...some way...he would take that and mold it to his own ends. 
Use it to thwart its master. 

But quietly. He drew his hands across his face, feeling the trials of 
the long night begin to settle themselves heavy on his shoulders, 
weariness spreading its thin tentacles throughout his body like a slow 
seeping warmth, a blanket of dark. He had to think this through. 
Calmly and logically. He had learned a lesson this night - one he 
wouldn't soon forget. Letting the anger, the panic, control him would 
lose him the fight before it even began. Would lose him Lois. 

He had to take this one step by step. Work out how to handle things 
to his best advantage, harden himself to dealing with the thing 
sleeping the peaceful conscienceless dreams of the corrupt on his 
sofa, to steel himself against seeing it as the woman he loved, as 
anything innocent at all. 

It looked innocent. Oh so innocent and oh so vulnerable as it lay 
there, his Mom's comforter keeping it warm, its slim body curled up 
like a child's, its face wiped free of deceit...

He couldn't think like that. He couldn't let it deceive him. Couldn't 
let it work on his desires, his fears, his love. 

In a moment...just a moment for him to think of the best way to 
proceed...he would wake it. Question it. Find out what it knew. How it 
could help him. How he could use it.

In a moment...

Just one...

Yes...just one....

Despite himself he closed his eyes again, let the warmth sneak deeper 
into him, too wearied, too emotionally drained, to handle a 
confrontation right then. 

In a moment.

Just give himself one moment to gather his thoughts, gather his 
strength, and he would...

He would...

In a moment.


~@*****@~

 
The rich smell of crisping bacon woke him. 

He came out of sleep sluggishly, wisps of a forgotten, restless dream 
tugging at the edges of his mind and disorientating him. For a 
moment, that coffee and bacon mix of scents sent him back to his 
childhood. To early mornings when he'd wake to the rich, thick smells 
of his Mom cooking up breakfast down in the warm farm kitchen, and 
the sounds, faint from beyond his bedroom window, of his father 
already up and at the chores. 

Still drowsing, struggling his way up through the layers of sleep, his 
brow furrowed in a frown. Since when had his Mom burnt the bacon? 

Opening his eyes, his nostrils twitching at the rank stench of charred 
meat, he came fully awake as time snapped back into place and he 
realized he was in his apartment. A million miles away from the farm 
of his childhood in every sense that mattered. A small, wistful 
thought, half-formed and pushed aside almost as soon as it was 
birthed, floated past him that he would give most anything he had to 
be back in his bed at the farm, hearing his Mom call him downstairs 
with the admonition that breakfast was getting cold. Back to the 
simplicity of his life then. Where the unpleasant truth that was now 
spreading blackly in his mind, and which he shied away from 
instinctively before it could become clear enough in his head to 
threaten him, would never have to be faced.

He surveyed the apartment, still a little disorientated. It had the 
claustrophobic dullness to it that only came from a room lit 
artificially when natural light was absent. Outside, the darkness of a 
heavy storm showed, oppressive as it pressed against the glass of the 
windows. 

His eyes found the kitchen and his lips curved into a smile as he saw 
Lois bustling around in there. The cold tendrils of his dream - for 
surely that's all they'd been, remnants of dark unease brought out 
into the light for a moment, but unsubstantial - faded as a sudden 
warm affection and calm appreciation of her settled into him. She 
was there. Of course everything was all right. He sat, shoving aside 
the blanket covering him, and then his fingers froze on the soft wool 
and the smile faded, the greeting that hovered at his lips dying 
unspoken. The run of his thoughts rolled inexorably onwards, like a 
dream turning to nightmare, in defiance of his attempts to stop them 
breaking through and forcing reality on him. And he remembered...

He frowned. Had he been dreaming? Had he dreamed that Luthor had 
destroyed his life and - 

He glanced down at himself and his lips tightened.

He was sleeping in an armchair on his honeymoon night? With Lois?

Not likely!

He stood convulsively, heading for the kitchen at a sharp, angry 
march.

"What do you think you're you doing?" he demanded of the woman 
standing beside the counter.

For a moment, despite his fears of losing her - of losing the precious 
though unwelcome link to finding Lois that she represented - that had 
plagued him the previous evening, he found himself angered by her 
presence, at her for still being there. Irrational or not, contradictory 
nor not, he couldn't seem to hold on to rational thought or logical 
purpose when he was this close to her. In his head she was Lex. They 
were inseparable. Both of them the reason Lois was lost to him, both 
instrumental in having taken her from him. 

Engrossed, she hadn't heard him approach. A squeak escaped her as 
she whipped sharply around to face him, eyes wide as a startled 
doe's. The jar of mayonnaise with which she'd been struggling slipped 
from nerveless fingers and shattered on the tiles with an implosion 
that sounded loud enough to rock Metropolis to Clark's overworked 
senses.

"Oh!" She jerked to her knees and he followed, irritable with her 
attempts to clear the mess. 

"Leave it."

"But - "

"I said, leave it!" He caught at her wrist, yanking her hand clear, and 
she froze. He did too. For a moment, they stayed that way, and then 
Clark shook his head and let her go. "You'll cut yourself," he mumbled 
lamely as he began to pick up the shards of glass.

She remained where she was. He could feel the weight of her eyes 
fixed on him, burning at his skin. Then she rose to her feet. She 
stood, watching, for a moment longer before she turned away, going 
back to the stove. Clark ignored her, getting a pan and brush from 
the cupboard and methodically clearing up the gooey mess and glass 
as he gave himself time to think, to figure out a way to deal with 
this...this imposter in his kitchen.

"Where's my wife?" he said, fingers stilling, unable to stop the 
question, that was screaming inside him with every beat of his heart 
and every breath, from escaping. As soon as it was out of his mouth 
he savaged himself for a fool, blundering his way into it. But he 
needed to know. He had to know.

He lifted his head when her silence registered. She hadn't moved 
from the stove, hadn't shown any indication that she'd heard. 
"Where is she?" he grated out a second time and then, hating himself 
for it, but unable to stop, "Please..." The pleading tone he heard in his 
own voice sickened him, made his throat raw with pain, but he 
couldn't hold it back, he felt like screaming, sobbing, "Please...I have 
to know what...I have to know...please..."

She had turned to face him now, and his heart sank as he saw nothing 
of pity on her face. Just curiosity. She shrugged. "Dunno."

He sat back on his heels and swallowed hard. "What do you mean, you 
don't know?" Fear stirred in the pit of his belly, like a snake uncoiling. 
He shoved it down, trying to keep his voice level and calm as he 
added, "Do you know where...where Luthor is?"

She shook her head. Despair swept over Clark like a tide of 
smothering darkness. She really didn't know. He could see that. And 
why would she? he thought bitterly. Why would Luthor confide in 
this...shell. This mockery. This soulless, mindless...

"Why are you still here?" he choked out dismally, going back to the 
mechanical act of clearing up the mess, shutting himself off from 
everything but the motions of his fingers. He thought he would go 
insane if he had to feel a moment more. The fear was a live thing in 
his chest now, struggling to escape. 

"I'm making breakfast," she said, answering his question as he 
finished mopping up the spill. Her tone was blatantly cheerful, sunny 
and sweet. As though his anger hadn't touched her at all. It soaked a 
deep chill into his bones. "Are you hungry? I'm not..." She gave him a 
small, anxious glance, belying her relaxed manner, and changed tack 
hastily. "I can eat, though, if you want. Keep you company, I mean..."

She trailed off and made a half turn, surveying the kitchen with a 
helpless look, as though seeking inspiration. Then she continued, "I 
didn't do so good." 

She gave the table a quick, miserable glance and then added, almost 
thoughtfully, "Lex said I wasn't a good cook, he said I told him that. 
I...we had a joke, good thing he had a chef and staff because when we 
got married all he'd get from me would be dial in pizza and 
he...laughed, said he hoped that wasn't *all* he'd get and..." She 
tailed off suddenly, standing there in the center of the kitchen, face 
blank, like an automaton whose batteries had died.

Listening to that monotonous retelling by rote of his wife's earlier 
relationship with the monster who'd destroyed their lives and who, 
even now, may be hurting her beyond Clark's capacity to imagine, he 
felt bile rise thickly in his throat. 

What kind of bizarre Stepford Wives nightmare was he living here?

And then she shook her head and turned to pick up a plate of charred 
bacon. She stared at it ruefully. "I never got showed how." She 
glanced up at him then, with a sunny smile that etched a sharp arrow 
in his heart. "But I can learn! You'll see...I can learn real good and 
then...then it'll be okay."

His silence seemed to unnerve her. She looked away and then moved 
around the kitchen, shifting a plate here, turning a fork there, all the 
while keeping up a mindless, inconsequential babble of words, as 
though they could form a shield against his anger, against the storm 
that was threatening within the room. An anger that was palpable in 
the very air around them. She kept her eyes averted. Her hands 
trembled slightly, a palsy that increased as she nervously and 
unnecessarily rearranged the contents of the table for a second time.

"I *was* hungry, I was really, really hungry...when I started..." she 
paused, looking flustered and then went on, brightly, "so I made 
pancakes and bacon and eggs - you like eggs, I know that - and 
there's honey and marmalade and strawberry preserve on the table. 
You *don't* like marmalade, but Lois - I mean I - Lois - does..." 

She trailed off, a machine whose programming had suddenly come into 
conflict, Clark thought, disgust slick like oil in his throat, then 
launched onwards over the awkward moment,  "And toast. With 
butter, not spread. Because you like -  "

"Stop it!"

She started violently as at the sharpness of the interruption, 
shoulders tensing, clutching to her chest the mug she'd been turning 
aimlessly. Around it her knuckles were bone-white. 

"Stop it," he repeated, tone low and savage. "You don't know what I 
like! You don't know anything about me! You're not my wife. You're 
not Lois. Do you hear me? Do you understand? You're *not* Lois!" His 
voice was rising again, anger beginning a low beat of blood behind his 
eyes. "I don't want you here. I don't want you acting like some kind 
of...of Geisha! I don't want you!"

Her face crumpled instantly. "I was just - " 

She broke off with a gasp as he grabbed her, his fingers clenching 
hard in her arms, hard enough to bruise, his eyes, blazing now with a 
hard, cold fire only inches away from her terrified ones as he spat, 
"What I *want* is to find my wife. And if you can't help me with that, 
just keep out of sight and out of my way!"

A flicker of motion caught at the corner of his eye as he stood there, 
nonplussed and breathing heavily. He looked up. Across the room, in 
the mirror formed against the cloud-heavy darkness that pressed 
against the glass, he saw a doppelganger image of himself. A man he 
almost didn't recognize, couldn't recognize; the rage transfiguring 
that familiar set of features was something he had never seen on his 
own face, something he had never held to be a part of him in any way. 
And yet...it was there.

Reflexively, his grip on her had tightened with the angry words he'd 
thrown at her. She cried out, the sound jerked from her involuntarily, 
and it was only then that he became aware that he was shaking her. 
Worse that, even knowing it, he couldn't seem to stop. At that 
moment he wanted to wring that beautiful neck of hers, snap it in 
two. The realization and the sound of her fear, the brutal image that 
reflected back at him from the storm-darkened windows, jolted him 
back and out of his fury.

Shocked by how close he'd come to actually hurting her, his anger 
was swallowed by shame and disgust at himself, snuffed out in an 
instant. He pushed her clear of him, the motion abrupt, suddenly 
unable to bear the touch of her on his skin. It was more violent a 
gesture than he'd meant it to be, the remnants of his anger making it 
hard to judge. Violent enough that she stumbled and almost fell 
before she caught her balance. Her hand clutched defensively at her 
throat, her eyes fixed on the disgust twisting darkly on his face, and 
then with another low, choking sob she spun away, running blindly for 
the bedroom.

Clark swore mildly but with feeling, ran a frustrated hand through his 
hair and took a step or two after her. Then he stopped, his lips 
tightening over the apology that almost escaped him. 

Lois.

That thing had taken Lois from him. Had turned what should have 
been the singularly most beautiful, most memorable, most important 
moments of his life into a mockery. A sham.

He turned away. 

Something snapped beneath his foot, a brittle implosion of sound, and 
he stared down blankly at the crushed glass on the tiled floor for a 
moment before he sighed. He hunkered down and began methodically 
to gather the broken pieces of mayonnaise jar that he'd missed. 

Muffled, from the bedroom, he heard the sound of her crying. A 
forlorn whimpering that his traitorous heart clenched at hearing and 
every instinct in him clamored to attend to, urging him to soothe and 
comfort. But he was too sunk in the whirlwind of emotions that 
battered at his soul to pay attention to them and they were easy to 
resist.

He took his time cleaning up and in his almost obsessive hunt for 
every last splinter, every tiny fragment, his mind bolted down to the 
narrow confines of the task and allowing nothing else to enter, he 
found some inner calm by and large.

And, throughout, the movements of his fingers, the gathering of 
broken glass into his palm, the remote actions of his hands in dusting 
them off into the garbage pail beneath the sink and brushing up every 
trace of disaster were all underscored by the soft weeping of his 
wife...of that thing that had helped Luthor to steal his wife...from the 
bedroom behind him.

By the time he'd finished gathering the remains of the jar he had 
come to a decision. Found his way to some kind of solution.

A plan.

The only possible plan.


~@*****@~

She was huddled face down on the bed when he strode into the room, 
her slender frame shivering with the force of her sobs. 

For an instant his eyes were drawn to her, despite his resolve not to 
be fooled by her distress. A distress that was surely as 
manufactured, as calculated to disorient him, and as programmed as 
she was. His enhanced senses might be able to pick up a racing pulse, 
a hammering heart, all the physical signs of emotional turmoil, and 
those tears might look real enough, but what did that prove?, he 
thought with a sour twist of his lips. Only that Luthor's cash had 
been able to buy the best in robotic programming, the deluxe model. 
Still, he was drawn to her, and his traitorous heart followed. 

She'd lifted her head when he'd entered the room. Her eyes were 
rimmed in red, holding dark wounds within them. He looked quickly 
away, dragging himself from her, and focused grimly on the plan. The 
plan. That was the important thing. The plan that would get him back 
Lois. That would find Luthor. And when he did...

He realized his hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides. He 
forced his fingers apart and tugged open the wardrobe doors. He 
rummaged for a moment, pulling aside items seemingly at random. 
Then he grabbed at the first appropriate outfit he found within. A 
pants suit in soft gray. For the smallest instant he froze, the warm 
wool-mix of the material seeping into his fingers. Soft...it had been as 
soft and as warm as she was that last time she'd worn it. When he 
had....

...and then he turned sharply around to toss the heap of clothing on 
the bed beside her.

"Get dressed," he ordered peremptorily. He hesitated, surveying the 
clothing. "You'll find.... You know where..." He could feel himself 
flushing and his irritation increased. "Underwear is in the chest over 
there. Second drawer down," he concluded, clipping out the words 
tightly. He turned away without waiting for a response to drag out 
the large suitcase, which he had packed a couple of nights previously 
in preparation for their flight to Hawaii, from its hiding place in the 
cupboard. He placed it in the archway and then added the bundle of 
luggage that Lois...that it...had brought with her the previous evening. 

For a few, dangerous moments his thoughts began to unravel as they 
were prompted by the sight of those cases to wonder, yet again, when 
the switch had been made. Had Lois packed those bags? Had she been 
happy when she had? Smiling over some piece of lingerie calculated to 
drive him crazy when...  

Or had they been packed later? By her. By...

He realized he was staring blankly into space and forced himself to 
focus. He stood for a moment, considering. What else? Oh...right. He 
headed purposefully for the bathroom. He scooped up an armful of 
cosmetics from the glass shelf at random and was halfway to the 
door when he paused. He shook his head, face twisting, and then 
turned back. He couldn't use these. Couldn't let her use them. Having 
her looking like his wife was painful enough. Having no choice but to 
let her wear Lois' clothing was worse. But having that scent on 
her...that familiar, tantalizing scent that drove him crazy with desire 
and filled him with warm affection in equal measure was a wound too 
far.

He grabbed for the trash can under the sink and began to pile the 
various bottles and containers into it. He'd shop fresh for more 
for...for her. Yes, he'd take her to the store. What was the name of 
the perfume he hated? He'd smelled it in Atkinsons' department 
store once - thick and cloying, heavy with exotic spices. Temptation, 
that was it. He'd made a disgusted face and Lois had laughed and 
when she told him how much the obnoxious stuff cost an ounce he'd 
thought the world had gone - 

Pain flared in him, as though the sound of her name in his head had 
torn open a wound. He knew that he was grieving. He knew he didn't 
have time for it. Didn't have the luxury of letting himself go, letting 
himself curl up in a ball and weep as he wanted to. And yet he couldn't 
seem to stop it sweeping over him like a tide, dragging him down with 
it into the dark pit of despair and hurt. 

He couldn't let go! He roared the brutal command at himself, 
struggling against the pull of his emotions. Forcing them back, 
down...in check, under control...under... 

A low cry, like the howl of a wounded animal tore itself free of him 
and he swept the last of the cosmetics from the shelf with a vicious 
swipe of his hand, oblivious to the shattering of glass on the tiled 
floor as he sank to his knees among the glittering shards and oozing 
puddles of oil and lotions. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and his 
hands into fists against his thighs as a burst of sweet fragrance that 
was familiar enough to cause his heart to burn and his soul to weep 
wafted up from the mess and surrounded him.

Lois...

Oh, sweet God, Lois...where are you?

His large frame shuddered, he pounded a fist against his leg. Again. 
And again. Harder. The bottle still clutched in his fist imploded within 
his fingers and his grip tightened, crushing it until it was nothing 
more than dust. But he couldn't find the pain. He couldn't find that 
sharp, lancing pain that would distract him from the open wound 
suppurating in his heart. He was invulnerable - or at least his body 
was - and it wouldn't come. No matter how much he wished for it. 

It was senseless hoping to find pain that would be greater than the 
sliver of agony and grief that was stabbing at his heart, that would 
concentrate his mind. Physical pain meant nothing to him, had no 
meaning for him. Was that why the emotional pain seared him so 
fiercely, he wondered disjointedly. Was that why his heart was so 
vulnerable when it came to Lois? To make up for his invulnerability 
elsewhere and his physical strength?

<Don't think. Don't think,> he told himself desperately. <Do. Time. I 
need time. Keep moving. Keep going.>

He went back into the bedroom, roaming the room, picking up items of 
clothing, packing them into the suitcases, all with the remote, absent 
motions of a sleepwalker.

The thing that wore Lois' face watched him with empty eyes from 
her position, huddled against the boxed cupboard at the head of the 
bed. Her shoulder pushed up against a red-spined book among the 
collection housed in the open shelves within. Clark's gaze rested on it 
for a moment, recognizing it instantly.  Cappon's Associated Press 
Guide to Newswriting. 

Lois had given him one of her looks when she'd presented it to him 
arbitrarily. One of those cool, ice-maiden looks that had earned her 
the title Mad Dog among the Daily Planet staffers. Perry had just 
announced that he was making them partners and she had made it 
clear she was going to get Clark Kent up to her standards if it had to 
kill her to do it. Even back then he had been amused rather than 
wounded by her downgrading of his skills. Even back then he could see 
beneath the masks she wore, the armor she sheathed herself in, to 
the strong, independent and courageous heart within. He'd often 
wondered why no one else could. 

She had annotated practically every margin in that book with 'helpful 
notes'. And employed the liberal use of yellow marker to highlight 
passages he should take particular note of. Yellow was especially in 
evidence in the passages dealing with respecting senior partners as 
being wiser than you in the ways of journalism and humbly learning all 
you could from them on how to achieve your goals.

When, two days later, he had retaliated by presenting her with David 
Savran's Taking It Like A Man, with its presentation of the American 
male as the browbeaten victim of powerful, domineering women 
through the ages, she had been less than amused.

Some time later, as their relationship had grown less abrasive and 
they'd found their way to becoming good friends, and obviously 
embarrassed, she had tried to pass off her 'gift' as a joke. Later still 
- a still new engagement ring glimmering on her finger - she had self-
consciously come across the opus tucked into the bookcase behind his 
bed and had wondered at its presence, suggested he throw it in the 
trash. And he had disagreed with vigor, had told her...

He had told her that maybe he should keep it. Just in case he ever 
stepped out of line and forgot how a partner was supposed to behave.

"Just a partner?" she'd said, turning to view him, eyes glowing and 
her smile lighting up the room as she'd risen up on her knees on the 
bed to hook her arms around his neck. 

"What, you think maybe you need to teach me how to behave like a 
fiance too?" he'd asked teasingly, before kissing her with enough 
passion that the subject under discussion had been quickly forgotten 
amid soft caresses and the tender melding of lips on skin.

After a time, as she'd lain in his arms, she'd murmured softly, "Clark 
Kent, if you learn any better about how to behave in the bedroom 
you're going to kill me before the wedding night is through."

And he'd chuckled, drawn her closer against him, whispered against 
her hair, "You ain't seen nothing yet. Best is yet to come."

Yet to come. 

His vision clouded as those memories overwhelmed his senses for a 
moment, lancing into his heart with another sharp twist of pain.

It took him a moment to find the will to look directly at what was on 
his bed - and to keep the rage boiling within him in check when he did.

"I said get dressed," he said coldly, noting that the clothes he'd 
tossed onto the bed still lay there untouched. He frowned as 
something occurred to him. "You can use the..." He glanced over his 
shoulder at the bathroom and changed his mind. "I'll leave you to it. 
I'll stay in the living room until you're done." 

He made the offer with a certain reluctance. To grant her modesty - 
to grant that she might require it, might expect or want it, that she 
might be unwilling to dress with him in the room, watching - bestowed 
on her a human quality he wasn't ready to admit she might have. 

Thinking of her as something less than human - an extension purely of 
Luthor's will, a biological machine programmed with his commands, a 
thing of plastic and manufactured emotions - made it easy for him to 
use her as a proxy for his nemesis, easy to rail at her and focus his 
rage at Luthor on her without guilt. 

It made him uneasy to consider her more than that; his mind shied 
away from it, ignoring it as a truth, his rage unwilling to offer the 
concession.

And, too, he had no desire to get even a glimpse of that slender, 
sensual body. No more than he would of any stranger to him. The 
random thought provoked a sudden surge of bitter images in his head. 
Last night he had seen more than enough, more than he wanted, of 
her. He had...he squeezed his eyes shut painfully but that only made 
the bilious memories more intense...he had touched that smooth skin 
and tasted those lips and...

<Stop it! Just stop it!> he told himself viciously. He had to get out of 
here. He couldn't take much more of this.

...and he had enjoyed it. All of it.

<I didn't know!> he cried out in the throes of guilt and despair. <I 
didn't know it wasn't Lois! I didn't know!>

He felt nauseous, eaten alive by guilt and the sense that he had 
betrayed something precious. Remembering how he had held that 
thing in his arms and what he had said to it. How he had caressed the 
naked flesh beneath his own...

He forced open his eyes. She had taken more than one thing precious 
from him. Lois, the joy of being married to the woman he loved, the 
sweetness of consummating that love in the marriage bed. The 
precious moments of sharing himself for the first time with the 
woman he'd chosen to spend his life with. To give himself up to. That 
she had almost coerced him into that betrayal cut deep and that she 
had been unaware of just how important an act it was to him or that 
he had discovered her duplicity in time to prevent the debasement of 
that sacred act was no help in finding some measure of calm in dealing 
with her. The eyes he turned on her were frigid with the knowledge 
of just what she had come close to stealing from him. From Lois. One 
more heinous act that didn't bear forgiving.

"We have to go. Now."

The...woman...on the bed simply looked at him. Then she said, voice 
trembling, "What are you going to do with -- Where are you taking 
me?"

Clark looked away, trying not to notice the fear on her face - that 
face that was so like his wife's and that could tear compassion out of 
his heart with its wiles - as he tossed a jumble of shirts into the 
nearest case.

"Lex wants me out of the way, doesn't he?" he said, taunting her. "He 
wants me distracted, in Hawaii, on my honeymoon with my *adoring* 
wife!" His eyes raked her for an instant and then he turned away. 
"Well, just for once, let's give Luthor exactly what he wants!"

Hawaii. Time to think, time to plan, time to find a way out of this 
mess and rescue Lois from Luthor's clutches. Time he didn't have. In 
a few hours, Luthor would expect him and his new wife to fly out on 
their honeymoon. If they didn't, the deception would be up, and 
Luthor would know something had gone wrong with his plans. He had 
to prevent that, keep Luthor in the dark for as long as he could. With 
Clark Kent seemingly distracted and out of the city, Luthor's guard 
would be down. 

So...he would spend his days in Hawaii with this blurred, imperfect 
fake, acting the part of besotted newlywed, and his nights - and any 
moment he could take away from the masquerade - would be spent 
searching for Lois back in Metropolis. No one would question 
Superman on patrol. 

Sleight of hand. Schemes and deceptions. Distracting the eye with 
one hand while pulling the ace from the sleeve with the other. Luthor 
wasn't the only master of that. 

As he was going to prove.

"No."

The soft voice jerked him out of his musing. He stopped in his tracks 
and then turned back slowly to face her.

"No?" He frowned and then, bewildered, "No, what?" 

"No," she repeated. Her voice quivered and she flinched, shrinking 
back against the books as he ran an exasperated hand through his 
hair, startling her with the sharp motion. But her tone had a definite 
air of finality about it nonetheless. "Wherever it is you're going, I'm 
not."

Clark scowled at her, reacting solely to her tone of denial. Then, as 
her words registered, his eyebrows rose. "You're not - ? What do you 
mean you're not?" His tone sharpened. "Now you listen to me - "

"No!" This time she shrieked it as she scrambled from the bed. She 
was past him before he realized what she was doing, still stunned into 
open-mouthed silence by this defiance. The slam of the bathroom 
door was followed by the click of the lock.

"Loi - dammit!" Cursing, he strode over and pounded on the door.

"Will you come out of there!"

"Go away!"

"This is ridiculous. You're being ridiculous! Come out of there. Right 
now!" 

Silence.

Clark kicked at the base of the door, a petulant action that caused a 
ripple of astonishment from a saner half of his mind. He was also 
aware in a frozen instant of just how hard that saner half had had to 
work there to rein back his strength and keep him from kicking the 
door clear out of its frame. It had been a long time since he'd been 
so dangerously close to being out of control.

Control was everything. He had learned that lesson harshly when he 
was a kid. He knew that most of the people he knew ascribed his mild-
mannered, slow-to-anger, nature as a product of his country roots and 
an old-fashioned upbringing. And in part it was. But it was also the 
result of knowing that in letting his anger loose he could maim. Or kill. 
It frightened him now how close those subconscious mental restraints 
that usually held him in check had frayed so badly when faced with 
one intractable...woman...who looked so like his wife. 

He subsided against the door, laying his shoulder to the cold, smooth 
surface as he closed his eyes. He took a few deep, steadying breaths, 
trying to settle the boiling frustration in his gut into stillness and 
calm, controlled meditation.

Finally, he stepped away. "Are you going to come out of there?" he 
asked through the door.

"No. No! No! NO! You got that?! You speak English?! Comprende?! You 
listening out there? *No*! I'm not going! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not! O-
-*kay*?!" It was the enraged shrieking of a child having a tantrum and 
it raised the hackles of parental indignation on the back of his neck.

He viewed the door judiciously. He *could* break it down of course. 
If she thought she could hide behind something as flimsy as this she 
had another think coming.

Door kicking?

"Now *you're* being ridiculous," he murmured aloud with a wry shake 
of his head. He sighed and stared at the door in consternation. He 
had no idea how to get her out. Or make her co-operate. He would 
have known how to deal with Lois - but then Lois would never have 
balked at his plans. Of course they would have discussed it first. He 
would never have acted so...well so boorishly...with her. He winced, but 
the truth of that was inescapable. He'd been inconsiderate and 
ungentlemanly and...and, dammit, how exactly was he supposed to act 
towards some unholy automaton that mocked his feelings for his 
wife? Chivalrously?! His anger, a simmering heat that roiled 
constantly in his chest and belly, rebelled against the notion. 

The plain truth of it was, she was coming with him, helping him, 
whether she liked it or not. If he had to drag her kicking and 
screaming every step of the way. She was necessary to rescuing Lois. 

Of course it had never occurred to him that she would challenge his 
plans. It had never occurred to him that she had a mind to challenge 
him at all. Up until the moment she had screamed her refusal at him 
he had seen her purely as an extension of Luthor's will - his drone, his 
machine. Now he was rapidly beginning to understand that clone or 
not, fake or not, she was some kind of individual in her own right. And 
with her own, very definite, opinions. Whether those opinions were 
manufactured or not hardly mattered. Though he wouldn't have put it 
past Luthor to have programmed her just to be contrary for the sake 
of it and drive him crazy. They were real enough to thwart him, to 
stymie him. Like Lois he hated that word. He resisted the urge to 
kick the door again as frustration welled up in him.

Okay...think. So she had opinions of her own. And right now those 
opinions were locked up with her in his bathroom.

So...first plan of attack. Get her out. Then deal with the rest later.

He took a small, steadying breath. "Look...come out. We'll talk. I...I'm 
sorry I yelled at you. I won't do it again."

It galled him to apologize, to this - this creature, this *thing* that 
had invaded his home, his life, that had helped Luthor take Lois from 
him. That had tried to take her place, tried to defile the perfect, 
wondrous bond they shared. Had tried to make him betray her. Even 
simple civility gave it too much of himself. But...Lois...was depending 
on him. Somewhere out there. Perhaps afraid...hurt...

He closed his eyes.

Her life might depend on gaining the trust and the co-operation of 
her doppelganger. And right then he'd have lunched with the Devil 
himself to get it. Dancing with his spawn was the least of the 
sacrifices he'd make to rescue his wife from the clutches of the 
madman who tormented them.

He swallowed hard on the nausea rising in his throat and battened 
down the anger swelling in his chest.

"Please..." he said, grating out the word.

There was silence from within the bathroom. Then, "Promise?" 

Clark clenched his teeth, hard enough to almost make his jaw ache. "I 
promise."

"Okay."

He stepped back in surprise as the door cracked open. A small, 
suspicious face peeked around its edge. "You promised. No yelling?"

Clark pasted what might have passed for a smile on his face. To him it 
felt like a rictus grin, stretching the skin of his face taut. "Scout's 
honor," he said, lifting his fingers in the familiar salute.

She frowned. "No touching either."

He stepped back a pace. "You got it." Now that one was going to be 
easy. 

"All right." She opened the door just wide enough to ease her way 
through and then sidled towards the bed, her gaze fixed on him 
cautiously all the way. When she had seated herself on the edge, she 
stared at him with an expression of wary expectation.

After a moment or two, as they contemplated each other in uneasy 
silence, Clark moved carefully across the room and perched himself 
on the top of the low packing chest in the corner. Far enough away 
that he wouldn't crowd or threaten her. Far enough away that he 
could breathe more easily.

He shifted impatiently as the silence lengthened. Out beyond the 
little patio behind the bedroom windows a dog barked sharply once or 
twice and then was silenced by an abrupt command. Over on the 
opposite side of the street, Mr. Capriona was grumbling about having 
to do chores on his first day off in months, as he slopped water onto 
his car. Another vehicle - a Ford Taurus if he wasn't mistaken - rolled 
past at a clip, tires squealing and young voices hooting as it went. 

How could life be rumbling on for everyone else just like always, just 
like normal, when his was falling apart at the seams, he thought 
dismally. When he was here living some weird Twilight Zone episode.

"So," the woman sitting on the bed said brightly, making him start. 
"Where you going?"

His gaze followed hers to the pile of luggage in the archway.

"*We're* going to Hawaii," he said firmly. His eyes shifted, 
calculating the distance to the bathroom as he did, just in case.

Her eyes widened. "Really?" She leapt to her feet and, as he tensed 
in expectation of more hysterics, clapped her hands together in an 
explosion of sound. Her excited squeal drove a sudden ice pick 
through his skull. "Right now? Oh, my gosh - I love Hawaii! Did I 
mention I love Hawaii! All that sun and the beaches and cabana boys 
and those little umbrellas in your drink and - "

Clark stared at her. "You mean you want to go?" he interrupted 
numbly.

She froze. And then turned on him, her delight dying on her face, 
replaced with suspicion. "We're going to have fun. Right?"

Clark sighed. "We're going..." he paused. "Yeah," he said. He was sure 
the smile on his face looked sickly, but it seemed to be enough to 
appease her as he saw her relax slightly in response to it. "That's 
right. We're going to have fun. You know - just like Luthor told you 
to? You - " he swallowed roughly. "You pretend to be Lois - "

"I am Lois!"

"You *pretend* to be Lois," he continued doggedly, ignoring her pout 
as he contradicted her, "and we have...fun."
 
She dropped back to the bed, her expression suddenly full of 
calculation. "I thought you didn't want to have fun." She looked down 
at the comforter and ran a light finger over its pattern before 
looking up at him from beneath sly lashes.

Despite himself, a part of him, the part that was rational and 
perceptive, the observer - the reporter - found itself studying this 
new apparition intently. Beneath the hurt and the anger, it seemed, 
there was still something enough in him that watched coldly out of 
analytical eyes. Seeking some flaw, some Achilles heel, some chink in 
the programming that he could use against Luthor. Use to help him 
out of this nightmare. Help him find Lois. 

That part now found something strangely compelling in the artful 
posing of the creature on his bed. Only a moment before she had 
been adamant he wasn't to touch her at all. And now...every line of her 
body called to his libido, the look in her eyes that of a coquette. And 
yet he had the strangest sense that everything about that pose, 
that...invitation...was fake. There was something deep beneath the 
sheen of sly and wanton solicitation that was false. As though it 
wasn't only a set of pre-programmed actions drilled into the thing 
sitting opposite him, to be used as a weapon, to seduce and confuse 
him, but that it was a set of actions even the clone wasn't willing to 
perform. 

Ever since he had sprung Luthor's trap, realized what she was, she 
had reverted to what he presumed was the generic core of the clone 
persona. Child-like, petulant, belligerent and willful. He had seen 
those traits in his own clone. This sudden reversal, back to what he 
imagined was the personality imprinted on top of that basic mind-set 
- the personality that Luthor apparently believed to be that of Lois - 
was unsettling to watch.

And yet he had the strong impression - formed more at an instinctive 
than a rational level and gleaned from where he knew not - that if he 
were to get up now and respond to the clone's current actions and 
demeanor as normality would demand he do - as he would do if 
confronted with sexual teasing from his wife - the reactions of the 
clone would be less than welcoming. Why did he imagine that should 
he call that bluff her reaction would be horror? Terror? 

He shook his head. He didn't know. But the sensation that there was 
something of the child still there, behind the slyly watchful eyes of 
the coy flirt, and that that child was afraid, didn't leave him. No 
matter how much he tried to shake it.

She was still watching him, he realized, sharply aware all at once that 
he'd become lost in his thoughts. Dangerous, he admonished himself. 
He couldn't afford to let down his guard. No more than he could if it 
had been Luthor himself in the room with him. 

"Not that...not that kind of fun," he said softly.

She looked at him for another moment or so, considering, playing the 
wanton so artfully that his nerves began to shriek with the strain of 
holding himself in check and he began to revise his earlier opinion of 
how unwilling she was to perform the act. Then she shrugged and 
tossed her head. She leaned back against the hands spread on the 
comforter, rocking almost imperceptibly back and forth. "Maybe I 
don't want to go," she decided. "Maybe I've changed my mind. It's a 
woman's prerogative, you know," she added as though she was 
imparting some wisdom he may not be aware of.

Clark watched her with dismay. Coercing this woman to go with him 
wasn't going to work, he was finally beginning to realize. That should 
have been obvious from the first. He wasn't even sure how to start 
with that, even if it had been a viable course of action. But, 
regardless, it wasn't. He needed her whole-hearted co-operation if 
this was going to work. Luthor wasn't going to be fooled by anything 
less. He was going to have to work at enlisting her aid, make her an 
ally. But she was Luthor's. Luthor's creation. Luthor's minion. Was 
she loyal to him? Could she be persuaded to thwart him?

"Listen," he tried, leaning forward earnestly to engage her wandering 
attention. "In a little over two hours, Luthor is going to expect me to 
jet off to Hawaii with my...with Lois..." He h