The Long Road Home
by Erin Klingler <erinklingler@cableone.net>
Rated:  PG13
Submitted:  September 2005


I'd like to dedicate this story to my great friend and awesome
beta reader, CC Aiken, who stuck by me throughout this monster,
and encouraged me to finish it even when I felt overwhelmed with
the task.  CC, I owe this story's completion to you.  :)

A *huge* thank you goes out to my brainstormers, LabRat and Wendy,
who both helped me smooth out this story when it was still a rough
draft.  I also need to give a lot of credit to Tank and Paul
(Hatman), for selflessly jumping in to help me with this when I
first started it almost two years ago, by giving me all kinds of
feedback and ideas.  In fact, many of the ideas and scenes in this
fic are a compilation of ones suggested by my brainstormers and
beta readers.  I owe so much to you guys!

Many thanks also go out to the readers on the fanfic message
boards, who gave me such wonderful feedback and stuck with me
clear through to the end.  You have no idea how much your devotion
and cheerleading has motivated me.  I owe you, my friends, a debt
of gratitude.

Even though I thanked her already <g>, a big "Thank You!" goes out
to LabRat, our amazing editor-in-chief of the fanfic archive, who
went above and beyond the call of duty and offered to GE this fic
of mine.  She did a fabulous job of finding the things I
overlooked. Thanks, Labby! You're the best.  :)

Standard disclaimers apply:  The story is mine, as are the
original characters in this story; the other characters, however,
belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers.  A couple of sections and
some miscellaneous wordings in particular came directly from a
couple of the episode's scripts.  In order to avoid spoilers,
those credits will come at the end of the story.  No copyright
infringement was intended on my part as I borrowed them for a
couple of scenes in my story.

I hope you enjoy!  Comments are always welcome.  Feel free to
email me at erinklingler@cableone.net, or erink@lcfanfic.com.


**********


Some people are lucky enough to start and finish their lives right
where they belong, always feeling comfortable with themselves and
their lives.  They have exactly what they want, and they feel an
amazing sense of contentment.

Others, however, spend their entire lives searching--searching for
themselves, searching for something...for whatever it is they feel
they are missing.  Their journey is wrought with difficulties and
disappointments, a need to fulfill some part of themselves they
simply don't know how to satisfy.

For these people, their lives continue to feel like the very first
step on a long road home.


**********


With weary fingers, Lois typed the final few keystrokes to finish
her story--a damning expose on a San Francisco crime ring.  She
sent the file off to Jim Langley, her editor-in-chief, then leaned
back in her chair with a sigh of relief.

She was finally done.  The realization left her both
exhilarated...and exhausted.  She'd been working so hard and for
so long on this investigation, and now that all the evidence had
finally been gathered, every source had been checked out, and
every fact had been documented, she felt too tired to even move
from her chair.  But she also felt an incredible sense of
exhilaration, knowing that when her article came out in tomorrow's
morning edition, heads were going to roll.

Her editor had been momentarily concerned when she'd come to him a
month ago asking to be put on the story.  He knew that, without
hard evidence, a story naming several high-ranking officials in
the city and its surrounding area could cause the San Francisco
Chronicle a world of trouble.  But even he hadn't been able to
find fault with the tirelessly obtained evidence she'd presented
him with the day before that would, most certainly, be one of the
most incredible exposes the newspaper had ever printed.  It would
also present prosecutors with enough evidence to make the
necessary indictments.  It was investigative journalism at its
best.

A confident smile worked its way across her face.  'Dang, I'm
good.  And this story proves it.'

'Not that I have anything to prove,' she quickly amended.

In the six years she'd been a reporter, she'd built a name for
herself by writing stories that had exposed everything from
illegal gun-running operations to money-laundering schemes.  She
had even dealt local crime lords blows by exposing their carefully
constructed operations, thereby cleaning up her little corner of
the world.

She was known among her colleagues and peers as one to be reckoned
with, an investigative journalist who got to the bottom of
absolutely any story.  If something were hidden, she would find
it.  That was all there was to it.  Everyone knew she was the
best.  And she was.

But strangely enough, lately, being the best didn't seem to be
enough.  It felt like something was missing in her life.
Something...

"Lois!  Where's that story of yours?"

Lois jerked her thoughts back to the present and turned in the
direction of the voice.  She immediately spotted the familiar
scowl on her editor-in-chief's stern, dark face as he stormed
about the newsroom, making sure everyone was going to meet the
evening deadline.

"It's done, Chief," she called back wearily.  "I just sent it to
you."

He nodded with satisfaction, but his mouth maintained its firm
line.  "Great.  Now get out of here.  Go home and get some sleep.
That's an order."

Lois let a weary smile slip out and she pushed her chair back from
her desk.  "You don't have to tell me twice.  G'night, Chief."

"'Night, Lois."  This time his voice was a little less gruff as he
turned and headed back to his office.

Lois shook her head as she gathered up her overcoat and attache
and headed for the elevator.  She'd worked for Jim Langley for a
long time now, and she knew that underneath that gruff exterior,
he was really a softie.  He'd seen her through losing her parents,
through threats of suspension from her job when witnesses hadn't
panned out, through everyday hardships and trials.  He'd become
more of a friend than anyone knew.  And these days, she was glad
to have every friend she could get in her often lonely profession.

Yet, even though she was grateful to have a handful of people she
could honestly call friends, she felt the same hint of depression
trying to work its way into her soul.  With great effort, she
pushed it aside.

'What on earth do you have to be depressed about?' she asked
herself as she stepped out of the elevator and into the
Chronicle's below-ground parking garage.  'You just nailed the
expose of the year.  If this story doesn't earn you the Pulitzer
prize, nothing will.  Enjoy the moment!'

But even as she insisted, she found it hard to do so.  She always
craved the action, the intensity, the battle to get the story--and
usually the glory that came along with it--but this time, she just
didn't feel her usual enthusiasm.

'It's the after-story blues,' the little voice in the back of her
head reasoned.  'You always feel like this after you finish a big
story.  All those weeks of tracking down leads and digging up the
dirt--it's only natural that you would feel a sense of letdown.'

Somehow, though, Lois didn't think that was the only reason she
was feeling this way.  She felt restless.  Discontented.  With
everything that she had going for her, for some reason it didn't
seem like enough.

As she rounded the corner and approached her silver BMW, she
couldn't help glancing over the car for any signs of tampering.
It wouldn't have been the first time someone had set out to get
her, to attempt to stop her from printing her articles.  It was a
fact that her investigative reporting made more enemies than
friends.

When nothing seemed out of the ordinary, Lois hit the unlock
button on her car's security remote and climbed in.  So many
times, her editor had voiced concerns about her ability to watch
out for herself.  He knew she was in a dangerous position,
remaining in the public eye as her exposes tore down criminals and
even occasionally sent men of power and wealth to prison.

On more than one occasion, he had wanted to assign one of the
Chronicle's security officers to at least get her safely home, but
Lois always insisted she could take care of herself.  She knew the
risks.  There was always the possibility that the person or
persons she was exposing would threaten her life.  She had to stay
on guard and remain watchful.  But strangely enough, that's what
made her feel alive, knowing she was constantly in the line of
danger.  It was an adrenaline rush, and it was addictive.  But she
knew it would be useless to try to explain all that to her editor-
in-chief.

She started the engine and steered the sports car through the busy
streets of San Francisco, dodging in and out of traffic.  At her
increased speed, it was only a few minutes before she was parking
her car in her apartment's garage and taking the elevator up to
her fifth-floor apartment.

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, and Lois stepped out
onto her floor.  She crossed the hall to her apartment on the left
and was just inserting her key into the lock when the door to the
next apartment opened.  A head with a bright blue, clear plastic
cap that covered a dozen or more bright pink rollers poked through
the crack.

Lois raised her eyebrows at her elderly neighbor.  "Hello, Agnes.
Nice hair-do."

The elderly woman let out a noise of disgust as she stepped the
rest of the way out of her apartment.  She was dressed in a wild,
floral print robe and hot pink slippers that almost matched the
color of her hair rollers.  A tiny white poodle with little red
bows secured above each ear was held securely in her arms.

"Don't get smart with me, young lady," Agnes scolded, yet an
unmistakable note of affection contradicted her firm tone.  She
glanced down at her thin, gold watch.  "You're home late again.
What have I told you about working too hard?"

Lois let a smile slip out at her neighbor's familiar reprimand.
"That I'm going to grow old before my time and end up an old
maid."  She repeated the words Agnes had told her many times
before.  Then she pointedly glanced at the little dog her neighbor
was holding, and her voice took on a light, teasing tone.  "Like
you, perhaps?  Living alone in an apartment in San Francisco with
only a dog for a roommate?"

Agnes snorted good-naturedly.  "Never you mind about that.  This
isn't about me, this is about you.  You just need to have a little
fun once in a while, instead of working at that newspaper of yours
all hours of the day and night."

Lois stepped away from her door and closed the distance between
her and her neighbor.  When she was close enough, she reached out
to rub the little dog's ears and coo softly at her.  The dog
responded by twisting her head into Lois's hand, obviously
enjoying the attention.  "She sure loves people, doesn't she?
Seems unusual for a poodle."

Agnes chuckled.  "It's true poodles can be yippy and sometimes
mean, but Princess has always been sweet.  She loves people and
the attention they give her.  But she's a good judge of character.
I'd hate to see her meet up with someone she didn't trust.  She
knows you're a good person, so she really loves you."

"Or maybe she just knows a sucker when she sees one."  Lois
grinned as the dog licked her hand.  When she pulled her hand
away, she took another look at her neighbor's interesting
hairstyle.  "You have a hot date tonight, Agnes?"

"One never knows."  Agnes flashed a cryptic smile.  "Just because
I'm old doesn't mean I can't have a life.  And that holds true for
you, too, dear.  Not the 'old' part, but the 'having a life' part,
I mean.  Are you going out tonight?"

Lois felt a pang of sadness come over her, but she quickly pushed
it aside and shook her head.  "Not tonight.  I think I'll curl up
with some ice cream and a good book.  I'm tired."

Agnes made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue and shook her head
reprovingly.  "You're young and beautiful, Lois.  You probably
have a dozen dashing young men eager to take you out.  You should
take one of them up on their offer."

"Maybe sometime."  Lois sighed.  "None of them interest me, I
guess."

"Interest, schminterest," the old lady scolded as she scrunched up
her already wrinkled face at her younger neighbor.  "I'm not
saying you have to marry one of them.  Just go out, for once!
Having some kind of life outside that paper of yours would do you
some good."

"I know."  Lois nodded half-heartedly.  "I just...I don't know.  I
seem to be looking for something that doesn't exist."  She paused
a moment, afraid of moving into territory that was better left
unexplored.  Finally, in an attempt to lighten the mood, she
grinned and met Agnes's gaze.  "I guess I'm just waiting for that
knight in shining armor to sweep me off my feet, just like you
are."

Agnes let out a laugh that could be heard clear down the hall.
"Smart girl.  And a romantic at heart, I must say.  I always knew
there was a hopeless romantic in you beneath all those exposes you
write."  She reached out to pat Lois's arm.  "Good for you, Lois.
Good for you."

Then, without another word, Agnes turned and went back into her
apartment, shutting the door soundly behind her.

Lois smiled after her neighbor.  Despite their age difference,
Lois thought of her as a friend...as kind of the mother she didn't
have.

Turning back to her own apartment, she unlocked her door and went
inside.  The lights were dim in the entryway, and she tossed her
overcoat and attache onto the Victorian chair next to her.  Then
she crossed the darkened living room to the floor to ceiling
windows that overlooked the bustling city.

Settling into the overstuffed armchair beside the windows, she
stared out at the flickering lights of the houses and buildings
below her and in the distance.  It was a beautiful sight, one she
never tired of.  It had soothed her on many an occasion after a
long, stressful day of work.  But tonight, even the beautiful
views and the twinkling lights of the city spread out before her
couldn't soothe her soul.

Lois shook her head.  She didn't know why she felt so restless.
She had a good career that earned her a nice living, a nice
apartment in a safe part of town, and a life that was her own.
She could come and go as she pleased.

'Then why am I not happy?' she asked herself as she felt a hint of
depression sinking back in.  'What is it, exactly, that I think
I'm missing in my life?'

She propped her elbow on the arm of the chair and dropped her chin
into her hand as she stared out into the darkening night sky.  She
didn't know what it was, but something was missing.  Something she
just couldn't put her finger on.

She wanted more out of her life.

But for the life of her, she had no idea what it was.

**********

Lois walked into the newsroom bright and early as usual the next
morning.  She was just nearing her desk when Jim Langley noticed
her entrance and came rushing over.  He had the morning newspaper
in his hand and a huge smile on his face.

"You've created a real media frenzy with your story, Lois.
Indictments were issued early this morning, and I hate to say, I
think you have a whole slew of new enemies.  You've really outdone
yourself this time.  Great work."

Lois smiled back.  "Thanks, Chief."

She wasn't surprised by his news of the indictments issued that
morning, however.  The moment she'd woken up, she'd turned on the
television to see if anything was being said about her article.
To her satisfaction, the news channels were humming with reports
of indictments and businesses were quickly issuing statements in
an attempt to do damage control.  Even more satisfying, video was
being shown of the influential men involved being led away in
handcuffs.

She smiled.  She loved this part.  It made her feel like she was
making a difference in the world.  Or at least in her little
corner of it.

She went through the rest of the day catching up on various things
that had been cast aside while she'd worked on her investigation.
She actually felt relaxed for a change, with the weight of her
time-consuming and stressful story off her shoulders.

By late afternoon she had caught up, and she was just
contemplating going home a little early for a change when a
startled cry came from somewhere to her right.  She looked up and
saw that a group of her coworkers had gathered around the newsroom
televisions to watch the east coast launch of the space shuttle
bound for Space Station Prometheus.

Curious, she ambled closer to the bank of televisions.  She heard
the television reporter saying something about a bomb being
detected on the transport, and attempts to defuse it were failing.
Suddenly, shrieks of surprise could be heard from the large crowd
gathered at the launch site out of the camera's range.  Lois's
brow furrowed.  What was happening now?

Just then the cameras panned to the right and gave viewers a
glimpse of something streaking through the sky toward the
transport.  She watched, her eyes glued to the television, as the
commentators tried to describe what was happening.

"There appears to be something flying overhead, but it doesn't
appear to be an aircraft.  It appears to be..."  The reporter's
voice drifted off and Lois leaned in closer, waiting anxiously
along with the rest of her coworkers to hear the reporter's next
words.  Finally, the reporter continued, her voice reflecting her
disbelief.  "It appears to be a man!  Yes, reports are coming in
saying it's a man, dressed in a tight blue suit with a red cape,
flying toward the transport!"

Lois's jaw dropped, and a collective gasp came from the crowd of
people around her.  'A man?' she thought.  'How could it be a man?
There's no such thing as a flying man!'

But as she watched the cameras zoom in on the mysterious figure,
Lois caught a better glimpse of what the people in Metropolis were
seeing.  It did indeed appear to be a man.  He was dressed in a
rather revealing blue costume, with a red cape billowing out
behind him as he flew.

Or appeared to fly.

She shook her head.  This had to be a publicity stunt.  It didn't
make any sense!  Maybe this man was being held up by cables and
supported by an overhead helicopter or something.  She couldn't
see why such a publicity stunt would be appropriate in the face of
looming danger, but at least it made more sense than the other
explanation--that a man could really be flying under his own
power.

Unable to tear her eyes away from the screen as the events
unfolded before her, she watched as the picture on the televisions
changed from the outside footage view, to the view inside the
shuttle where glimpses of the colonists had been broadcast for PR
purposes.  The monitors showed the mysterious, costumed man pry
open the door of the transport and hurry in.  The security members
of the colony froze upon seeing the strange newcomer.  She
couldn't hear the words they exchanged, but it was obvious one of
the members of the security team was directing the costumed man to
the bomb's location.

Lois watched along with everyone else around the world as the
mysterious man reached the bomb.  She didn't have long to wonder
what he was going to do with it.  With quick determination, the
man ripped off the connecting wires, yanked the bomb from its
casing, then flew out of the transport so fast he was a blur of
blue and red as he streaked into the sky.  The cameras panned up
after him, and a moment later there was an explosion.  A brilliant
cloud of oranges, reds, and yellows lit up the night sky.

There was a shocked cry from the crowd of onlookers in Metropolis,
as well as from Lois and the group of coworkers around her.
Moments later, there was another streak of blue and red heading
back toward the transport.

As the reporters at the scene tried to explain what was happening,
Lois's coworkers started to chatter excitedly amongst themselves.
The cameras on-board the space transport showed glimpses of the
mystery man back amongst the colonists.  The few smudges of black
powder on his face and colorful suit were the only signs he'd been
near the explosion.

Lois ignored the chatter around her as she studied the screen
carefully.  Who was this man?  Where had he come from?  If this
wasn't some illusion, there were a lot of questions to be
answered.  The world was going to want those answers.  And so was
she.

Lois's attention was immediately drawn back to the TV when the
picture shifted to a distance shot that showed the transport
slowly lifting off the ground.  A gasp escaped her lips.  Was what
they saw happening really happening?  Moments later, the transport
disappeared from view into the night sky.

The cameras panned away, once again focusing on the reporters who
were making a valiant attempt to report the events that had just
unfolded before the world's eyes.  But Lois was no longer
interested in what they had to say.  Nothing they could report
would tell her what she wanted to know.  That information she
would have to gather for herself.  And there was only one way to
do that.

"Chief!"  Lois stormed over to her editor's office, where he was
standing and watching the events unfold from his doorway.  "I need
to get to Metropolis.  Now."

Jim Langley shook his head and held up his hands placatingly.
"Now, Lois, calm down.  I know this is big news, but you know I
can't authorize sending a reporter across the country just like
that.  One of our sister companies can cover this.  They're closer
to the action and won't have an expense account to consider."

"Chief, come on!" Lois pleaded.  "There's no one good enough there
to get to the bottom of this story!  This isn't just news.  This
is huge!  If this isn't just some illusion or PR stunt, imagine
the ramifications this could have.  To be able to do the things
this man did, he would have to be some kind of genetic
experiment...or maybe even some kind of alien!  No human I know is
capable of doing those things."

She paused, studying her editor-in-chief for any signs that he was
wavering.  When she didn't see any, she rushed on.  "Chief, think
about this.  This man could be the biggest story *ever.*  The San
Francisco Chronicle could go down in history as the newspaper who
got the exclusive!  And you would go down in the history books as
the editor-in-chief at the time it happened."

Lois saw a light of interest spark in her editor's eyes.  That had
done it.  She had him.

With renewed confidence, she rushed on.  "How could you let some
sister newspaper send some inexperienced reporter to cover this?
They'd blow it, and then what kind of story would you have?  Send
me.  This has Pulitzer written all over it, and I want it."

Jim Langley studied his star reporter carefully, mulling things
over.  She was right.  If anybody could get the scoop, she could.
She was ruthless, determined.  In all his years in the business,
he'd never met another journalist so passionate and resourceful.

After what seemed like hours, he finally nodded.  "Okay, Lois.
Let me make a few phone calls and I'll see what I can do."

"Great!"  Lois flashed him a triumphant smile.  "Thanks, Chief.
I'll be at my desk."

Leaving her editor alone, Lois wandered out into the newsroom and
sat down at her desk.  From there, she was able to continue to
watch the footage of the averted disaster being played over and
over again on the bank of televisions.

It was amazing, really.  If it had been staged, it could go down
as the world's most amazing hoax.  If it was, she was ready to
expose it.  If this wasn't a hoax, though...if there really was a
man out there who could fly, dispose of bombs, and lift transport
vehicles into outer space...well, that would be even bigger news.

As the minutes ticked by, Lois tried to occupy herself with going
over her notes for the next story she was working on.  Instead,
she kept glancing up at the clock on the newsroom wall.  The
anxiety building within her, she allowed herself a glance at her
editor's office.  He was still on the phone.

Unable to sit still as she awaited the verdict, she got up to pour
herself a cup of coffee.  She had just returned to her desk when
Jim's voice boomed out across the newsroom.

"Lois!  In my office!"

Lois jumped at the sound of her editor's voice, then quickly
obeyed his command.  Her eyes searched his intently as she stood
in his doorway, awaiting his answer.  Her heart skipped a beat
when she finally saw him nod.

"You catch the Red Eye first thing tomorrow.  I've managed to get
permission for you to work out of the Daily Planet there in
Metropolis.  Since we're owned by the same investment group, you
won't be stepping on anybody's toes.  But be sure to check in with
Perry White when you get there.  He's the Daily Planet's editor-
in-chief, and an old friend of mine.  He'll be expecting you."

Lois could hardly contain her excitement.  "Thanks, Chief.  You
won't be disappointed."

"I'd better not be."  He gave her a stern look.  "And just so you
know, you only have three days.  That's all I could manage."  He
held up his hand at her exclamation of dismay.  "There's no use
arguing.  It's the best I could do.  Be back here by the end of
the week.  And you'd better have something spectacular to show for
it, understand?"

Lois nodded reluctantly as she turned to leave his office.  Three
days!  How was she supposed to get to the bottom of this in three
days?  It wasn't much time, but if that was all she was going to
get, she'd just have to make the most of it.

Deciding she'd better get home to pack, Lois hurried to the
parking garage and was soon navigating the congested late
afternoon traffic.  By the time she pulled into her own apartment
building's underground parking garage, she knew she'd better
hurry.  She had three days to pack for, and she wanted to do a
little research before she left.  She planned to scour the
Internet to see if anything had turned up about this mysterious
man.  Hopefully there would be something to give her some clues as
to how to contact this flying phenomenon.

Lois hurried into her building only to see a group of a dozen or
so tenants waiting to get into the elevator.  She growled in
frustration.  She didn't have the time nor the patience to wait.
Instead, she hurried down the hall and threw open the door to the
back stairwell.  Taking the stairs two at a time up all five
flights, she felt winded but exhilarated when she finally burst
through the fifth-floor stairwell door.

The door banged open loudly, and down the hall, Agnes looked up in
surprise from where she was waiting with Princess at the elevator.
The elderly woman's eyebrows lifted when she saw Lois, still
breathing heavily, emerge from the stairwell at a jog.

"Where's the fire?" Agnes teased.

Lois attempted to grin as she panted for breath.  "I didn't mean
to startle you," she said as she hurried down the hall toward them
on the way to her apartment.  "I just got the okay to head to
Metropolis on the Red Eye tomorrow to do a story on that
mysterious man at the Prometheus transport vehicle.  Did you see
what happened?"

Agnes nodded, a light of curiosity brightening her features.  "I
saw it on CNN just a while ago.  Do you think that man's for real?
Or just some carefully orchestrated hoax?"

Lois laughed.  "Agnes, you sound just like me, questioning
everything."

"I guess you're rubbing off on me."  Her neighbor smiled good-
naturedly.  She watched Lois fumble with the keys to her apartment
in her hurry to get in.  "How long are you going to be gone?"

Lois finally managed to get the key into the lock and open the
door.  "Just 'till the weekend.  My boss says that's all the time
I have.  How am I supposed to track this guy down and get the
story in three days?"

Agnes smiled supportively.  "If anyone can do it, Lois, you can."

"Thanks," Lois breathed.  "I only hope I get there in time.  I
want the exclusive, and I don't want anyone to beat me to it."

"Go get 'em, girl!" Agnes called out.

Lois smiled as she hurried into her apartment.  Agnes was her
number one cheerleader.  She loved that about her kindly neighbor.
She didn't know what she would do without her.  After all, Agnes
was the closest thing to family she had.

Lois forced herself to shake that last thought from her mind,
refusing to allow it to pull her into a momentary bout of
depression.  She wasn't alone.  She had friends.  Well, she had
Agnes, she corrected herself.  But Agnes filled a huge void in her
life, and for that, she would always be grateful.

Turning back to the task at hand, Lois retrieved her suitcase from
the hall closet and carried it into her bedroom.  She set it down
onto her bed and unzipped it.  Then she turned to her closet.

Staring at her closet's contents, she tried to decide what to
pack.  It had been a long time since she'd been back east.  It was
fall; did that call for sweaters and suit jackets?  Or was it
still warm enough for skirts and blouses?  She wanted to make sure
she looked her best.  After all, she knew there would be hundreds
of other reporters vying for the story.  And not just any story.
*The* story.  And to get a story of this magnitude, one needed to
know what was involved in getting that story.

Then it came to her, and she knew exactly what she had to do.

If this wasn't a hoax, if there really was a man who could fly,
she was going to have to dress and look incredible enough to catch
this mysterious man's eye.  She didn't know anything about him in
particular, but he looked human enough to her.  And she knew men.
No man could resist a sexy woman.

She smiled smugly.  This called for skirts.  Short skirts.  And
drooping necklines.  And curve-hugging clothes.

'You don't want to look like a tramp, though,' the voice in the
back of her head insisted.  'Pick something sexy yet tasteful.'

With renewed vigor, Lois started pulling carefully selected
articles of clothing out of her closet and tossing them onto her
open suitcase.  She made sure to include several of her most
heart-stopping outfits--her red suit; a low cut blouse; a pair of
dark slacks that showed off her slim, curvy figure; a couple of
tight-fitting yet tasteful sweaters.

When she was at last satisfied that she had everything she needed,
Lois folded everything carefully and packed them into her suitcase
and garment bag.  A look at the clock told her it was almost
eight, and she knew she'd better grab a bite to eat and then
unwind for the evening.  She would have to leave very early the
next morning to catch her flight, so it would be imperative to
turn in early.

Besides, it was going to be a big day tomorrow.  She would need
every ounce of her energy to get this story.  She knew all her
hard work would pay off in the end, though.  It always did.

When Lois finally changed into her favorite sleepwear--an
oversized T-shirt and boxers--she wandered through her apartment
turning off the lights.  As she did, her apartment was immediately
bathed in a comforting moonlit glow.  The peaceful, serene feeling
the moonlight cast conflicted with the myriad of emotions pulling
at her from within.

When Jim had first told her she only had three days, she'd been
disappointed.  But over the course of the evening, her
disappointment had been replaced by excitement.  Even if it was
only for three days, there was nothing she loved more than the
thrill of the chase.  She was able to put her abilities to the
test, to let her mind work all angles of a potential story, and
challenge herself mentally as well as physically.  And being an
investigative reporter was a much more physical job than most
people realized.  There were times when she spent all day walking
from place to place, tracking down leads and trying to beat other
reporters to the story.  But she loved every minute of it.

She climbed into bed a short time later, but sleep continued to
evade her.  The excitement of what was to come continued to grow
within her, and as hard as she tried, she couldn't still her
thoughts or quell her jittery stomach.  She was simply too wound
up.

Throwing off her covers, Lois climbed out of bed.  She walked into
the living room where her terrace beckoned her, the moonlight
spilling across it invitingly.  She slid the door open and stepped
out.  The cement was cool beneath her bare feet as she walked to
the edge and rested her forearms on the wrought iron railing.  As
she stood there, looking out over the glimmering lights of the
city, she closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep breath of the
cool night air.

A sigh of contentment escaped her lips.  There had always been
something soothing to her about the night--the inky black sky
sprinkled with stars, the cool breeze that tickled her face, the
feeling of oneness with the universe.  It was a feeling she had
only at night when the darkness seemed to ease her repressed
heartache, and mask the cares of the world behind the veil of
moonlight.

Some people felt more lonely at night; for her, it was just the
opposite.  The night seemed to reach out for her, to draw her in.
She often wondered what it would feel like to drift on the clouds
that were cloaked in darkness, and stare down at the city beneath
her.  She supposed it might give her a whole new perspective,
maybe even help her understand what she felt was missing from her
life.  Maybe the clouds would even whisper to her about how to
make her life complete.

She shook her head.  'Foolish thoughts,' she chided herself.
'Staying grounded is the only way to make it through life.  Keep
your head out of the clouds and maybe someday you'll find whatever
it is you're looking for.'

The breeze picked up, causing an unexpected chill to run down her
spine.  She stared out over the horizon.

Something felt different, something she couldn't quite put her
finger on.  In some strange, eerie way, it felt like there was
change looming on the horizon.

She found herself wondering fleetingly if the strange sensations
she felt had anything to do with the strange newcomer she was
about to travel across the country to investigate.  Maybe the
change she felt coming had something to do with him.

'Of course it has something to do with him,' the little voice in
the back of her head chided.  'This man is going to change your
life--by being the means to the end for earning that Pulitzer
Prize you've been working for all these years.  That's why you're
feeling what you are.'

Lois knew the voice in her head was probably right.  That's all
she was feeling.  Still, she couldn't help wondering if there was
more to it than that.

She shivered at the sudden breeze and wrapped her arms around
herself to ward off the chill.  It was getting late.  She needed
to get to bed.

With one last, lingering look at the twinkling stars overhead, she
found herself wondering if the mysterious man was off flying
somewhere in that darkness of a night sky, the sky she'd long
since emotionally reserved as her own.

**********

Clark hovered in the darkness of the night sky high above
Metropolis, looking down over the millions of lights twinkling in
the city and its surrounding areas.  Flying at night, cloaked by
darkness and concealed from prying eyes, used to be the one
comfort he could rely on to make himself feel better.

But not tonight.

It had been a long day, longer than he'd ever had in his life.  He
had finally managed to use his powers openly, to help the doomed
colonist transport by intervening at the launch site.  He had
averted disaster by removing the bomb, then had helped put the
space shuttle into orbit and dock it at Space Station Prometheus.

He was exhausted--more mentally than physically--yet he felt
exhilarated at the same time.   Everything had gone even better
than he'd expected.  His mother's costume had worked perfectly,
and no one had suspected a thing.

So why did he feel so...down?

He knew he shouldn't feel that way. It didn't make any sense.  He
should be celebrating; he should be flying loops and performing
amazing feats of aerial acrobatics.  It was the first time he'd
been able to perform a rescue without worrying about people seeing
the source of help.  He'd been in plain sight for the world to
see.

All his life he'd been hiding who he was, what incredible things
he could do.  He always managed to find a way to use his powers to
help others, but always made sure to make the help appear to come
about by luck, or by some mysterious force of nature.  This time,
though, he hadn't hidden or rushed off in fear of being
discovered.  And he loved that.

The highlight of his night was when he'd been able to talk a few
minutes with the colonists on board the transport vehicle.  He'd
been terrified, at first, at the thought of interacting with
people while in his disguise, for fear of being recognized--or
worse, of scaring people.  It wasn't every day that people met a
man who could fly and do things that no other person alive could
do.  But the people on board had been so grateful, and they were
much more welcoming than even he could have hoped for.  It was a
moment, he knew, he would cherish for the rest of his life.

Finally he felt like he was making a difference, *could* make a
difference.  It gave him a sense of hope--about what his future
might hold, about what he might have been put here on Earth to do.
He'd finally mustered up the courage to help people openly, to
show the world what he could do.  It felt liberating.

And terrifying.

A whole new chapter in his life was upon him, and the fear of the
unknown threatened to overwhelm him.  Was he going to be able to
keep up this dual identity indefinitely?  The task seemed
daunting.  He had a normal life, one that he very much enjoyed.
He'd spent his college years and the years since working to
further his career as an investigative reporter.  He had traveled
the world over, freelancing and working for newspapers around the
globe.  He'd been able to choose where he wanted to work, but from
the start, he'd only been interested in working for one newspaper-
-the Daily Planet in Metropolis.  They strived for the same kind
of excellence in reporting that he expected from himself, and the
Daily Planet was renowned the world over.

When he finally applied and was offered a job, he'd been thrilled.
Finally he could settle down somewhere and stop hopping around the
globe from job to job, opportunity to opportunity. And something
about Metropolis just felt right.  He couldn't put his finger on
it, exactly, but this felt like where he was supposed to be.

He sighed.  Even though he felt right about his decision to settle
in Metropolis and had finally found a way to use his powers openly
to help, he didn't feel the thrill he'd been expecting.  Instead,
tonight he just felt...empty.

Empty and alone.

His future loomed bright and was clearly within his reach, yet
with everything that had happened in the last twelve hours, he was
terrified to go into it alone.  The feeling was more than a little
unsettling, and definitely not what he had expected after making
such a successful debut.

With one last look at the twinkling city lights below, Clark
turned and flew toward his apartment.  Hovering outside his loft
window, Clark slid the window open, suddenly realizing how lucky
he'd been that he hadn't locked it.  There was certainly no place
to put a key in the tight costume he was wearing, and he wasn't
thrilled about having to replace a doorknob on his front door, had
he had to yank it off to gain access to his own apartment.  As he
flew in through the window, he made a mental note to leave it open
from now on.  It was two stories up and without a fire escape, so
he wasn't concerned about someone trying to enter his apartment
through it.

He smiled as he touched down inside.  He could tell there were
aspects of this new identity he would have to consider.  He
supposed in time it would become second nature.

Going into his bedroom, he struggled to change out of the costume.
Man, it was tight.  He sucked in his breath in an attempt to strip
the material from his torso.  He was grateful his mother had
thought to install a zipper in the back beneath his cape--and even
more grateful that, with a few minor contortions, he managed to
undo it himself.  He chuckled to himself when he thought of the
repercussions of being stuck in the suit and having to ask
somebody for help unzipping it.

Once Clark managed to strip the suit off, he stared at it for a
long moment, wondering what to do with it.  He glanced around the
room.  When he had approached his mother only a few days ago about
making some kind of outfit for him, something he could wear when
he wanted to perform a major rescue, yet still keep his real
identity concealed, she had been skeptical yet supportive. They
had talked about what kind of disguise he had in mind, then his
mother had spent the next two days working on various outfits
before they'd finally settling on the one he now held in his
hands.

It seemed like fate that his mother had just finished the costume
minutes before the news was broadcast on TV that the space shuttle
was in trouble.  At least the costume's maiden flight had been
successful.  He hoped his debut that night had made his mom and
dad proud.

Clark turned his thoughts back to the costume in his hand.  He had
known going in there were going to be many aspects of having a
secret identity he would have to deal with.  This was obviously
one of them.

Clark considered his options as he studied his bedroom.  The
dresser was out.  The costume could be too easily stumbled upon
there.  His closet wouldn't work either for the same reasons.
What he needed was a place where it couldn't be innocently
discovered, hence arousing curiosity and suspicion.  Maybe a box
under his bed or up on a shelf in the hall closet?  He shook his
head.  No, he didn't feel comfortable storing it in popular hiding
places.

Suddenly it hit him.  The secret closet off his living room!

When he had rented the apartment, he'd had no idea the place
contained a hidden closet.  He discovered it shortly after moving
in and remembered thinking it was cool, but then promptly forgot
about it.  Now, though, it seemed like fate.  It was the perfect
place to store the costume, to keep it hidden from potentially
prying eyes.

Feeling rather satisfied with himself, Clark changed into a T-
shirt and boxers, then hung the costume in the hidden closet,
making sure to shut the secret door securely.

That done, Clark relaxed a bit.  He thought again of his parents
and wondered if he should call them to let them know he was all
right.  Knowing his mom, she was worrying about him.

He walked over to his phone and caught sight of the blinking light
on his answering machine.  He pushed the 'play' button, expecting
to hear his parents' voices.  Instead, a gruff, no-nonsense voice
boomed out from the speakers.  He immediately recognized the voice
of Perry White, his editor-in-chief at the Planet.

"Clark!  Where are you?  I hope you're out covering this story of
the flying man who just saved Promethesus' future!  This could be
the biggest thing since...well, ever!  You're a great reporter,
Clark, and I know you have your sources.  Get to the bottom of
this, you hear me?  I want the exclusive...or else!"  There was a
click, then the machine fell silent.

Clark stood frozen in place for a long moment, staring at the
phone in wide-eyed realization.

He'd been so busy thinking about the rescue--and even feeling
inexplicably sorry for himself--as he'd lingered in the darkness
over the city, then turned his thoughts to finding a place for his
costume and wondering if his parents were worried about him that
it hadn't occurred to him what other repercussions his outing
might involve.  Perry's message brought him back to earth with a
bump.

He was still Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet.  He was
supposed to investigate, get to the bottom of things and then
write them up.  Not once had he ever connected the two.  He was
going to have to report on himself.

A momentary panic seized his heart.  How was he supposed to do
this--be two people?  He'd thought about it briefly, naively
thinking he could just change into the hero when his powers were
needed, then change back and go about his life.  He hadn't
considered what would happen when those two "lives" overlapped.

'I guess I always figured there would be a media storm,' he
thought, his spirits drooping a bit.  'But I never thought about
having to be the focus of it *and* report on it!'

Clark reached for the back of the couch and lowered himself onto
it a bit shakily.  There was much he hadn't considered, things
that were now glaringly apparent.  And for the second time that
night, he felt terrified.

'I can't do this alone.'

The realization weighed down upon him heavily, bringing on a
momentary bout of depression.  He had his parents, of course; they
were always there for him, to offer him the love and support he
needed.  But tonight, right that moment, that didn't seem like
enough.  He was still sitting by himself, staring around at a
resoundingly empty apartment.  Never had he felt more alone.

Clark forced himself to take a long, deep breath to collect
himself.  It was going to be okay.  This was what he had decided
to do with his powers; he would find a way to make it work.

His thoughts turned back to Perry's message and his jaw tightened.
So much for remaining inconspicuous.  But he knew Perry wasn't
going to be the only one who wanted the story.  The entire world
would have seen the footage by now, and the media was surely in a
full-force frenzy.  He didn't dare turn on the TV.  He almost felt
afraid to hear what they were saying about him.

Clark was almost tempted to ignore his editor-in-chief's request--
no, demand--for the story.  But the more he thought about it, the
more he realized that this might be a really good opportunity.

He could tell the world a little about himself without indulging
too much, or letting things slip out that he didn't want shared.
He could even put himself in a favorable light.  There was no
guarantee that he would get good media if he were to let the media
report on what little they knew about him.  They might even
propose such things as him being a threat to national security, or
try to turn the public against him by making them afraid of him
before he even had a chance to prove what good and honorable
things he could do for everyone.

No, the best thing to do was write the article about Metropolis's
new hero himself.

Before undertaking the task, he phoned his parents to let them
know he was okay.  Their concern for him was obvious even over the
phone line, and he spent several minutes reassuring them he was
fine.  They had noticed the media storm and voiced their concerns
over what would happen next.  Clark managed to calm them down by
filling them in on his plans to write the story himself, hopefully
dispelling fears and answering questions as to his purpose and
plans.  They promised to watch for it the next day.  Then, before
they said their goodbyes, they told him how proud they were of
him.

Clark's heart felt lighter as he hung up the phone.  Somehow his
parents always seemed to know what he needed to hear.

Feeling more ready to handle things, Clark next dialed his
editor's cell phone number.  The second Perry heard Clark's voice
on the other end of the line, he demanded to know what he had.
Clark told him he'd managed to talk with the mysterious man and
had gotten the exclusive for the Planet.  Cringing inwardly, Clark
hoped what he was telling his editor couldn't technically be
considered a lie.

To say his editor-in-chief was ecstatic was an understatement.
Perry told him if they hurried, they could bump the morning's
front-page story and replace it with his before the paper went to
print.  Clark promised to email it to him within the hour, then
hung up and decided to get to work.  With the phone calls behind
him, Clark sat down at his computer.

Perry wanted an exclusive.  Well, he'd just have to give him one.
With a favorable slant, of course.  Writing an article not only
proving the existence of alien life, but explaining that this
"alien" had super powers that he wanted to use to help the world
was definitely Pulitzer material.

At the thought, Clark balked.  He had always wanted a Pulitzer,
but this really wasn't the way he wanted to go about getting one.
It felt like cheating.  He would be interviewing himself to get
the scoop of the century.

Clark sighed.  There was nothing he could do about that now, he
supposed.  It was more important to tell the world who he was and
what he was doing there.  Then the chips could fall where they
may.

Staring at his computer screen for several long minutes, he tried
to decide what to write.  How much of who he was and what he was
hoping to do did he want to share?  After long minutes of
contemplation, Clark decided to simply share the basics.  He gave
himself a mental interview, working his "responses" into the story
as he would for anyone else he interviewed.  He struggled to come
up with something to call himself, but in the end, feeling rather
unoriginal, settled with calling himself "a friend."

He went on to state that he was there to help, shared that he was
from another planet without going into any further detail, and
declared Metropolis was now his home.  He knew he couldn't give
any specifics regarding where he had come from or what he had been
doing since his appearance at the colonists' shuttle launch, so he
left those references out.  He told of his special abilities--his
ability to fly, his superhuman strength, his speed, his enhanced
vision, and his invulnerability.

He worked to make the story intriguing and reassuring for those
who might feel threatened by the fact he mentioned he was from
another planet.  When he was done, he felt satisfied with the
results.  Clark Kent's exclusive "interview" with Metropolis's new
hero didn't exactly answer all the questions he knew would be on
everybody's minds, but he was confident people would read what he
had to say, and accept him for who he was and why he was there.

Sitting back in his chair, Clark read the interview twice more,
making sure it was perfect.  Then he emailed it to Perry with
plenty of time to spare.  That was one of the things Clark loved
about his special powers.  Writing an article quickly wasn't a
problem.

Clark smiled as he thought about what Perry's response to his
article would be.  He could just see his editor, grinning like the
cat who'd just swallowed the canary.  The story was guaranteed to
send the Daily Planet's circulation soaring, being the only
newspaper in the world with an exclusive on the new hero.

It was going to be a good day tomorrow.  Perry would undoubtedly
treat him like gold.

With the story finished and sent, Clark shut off his computer and
stood up from his desk.  He stretched.  It had been a long day and
he was tired.  It wasn't often he felt tired; his powers enabled
him to keep going longer than anybody else.  Tonight, however, the
excitement and exertion of the day's events were catching up with
him.

Clark turned off the lights in his apartment, then climbed into
bed.  As hard as he tried, though, he couldn't sleep.  His mind
simply wouldn't rest.  Finally he gave up.

Getting out of bed, Clark wandered around his apartment feeling
restless.  He wondered if getting back into the costume and going
for a fly might do the trick; it often helped clear his head.  But
Clark shook his head, dismissing the idea.  Flying hadn't helped
earlier.  It had only made him feel more empty than soothed,
flying up above the city and staring down at the lights of a town
where he wasn't sure he even belonged.

It wasn't Metropolis that made him feel that way, necessarily.  In
fact, he felt more comfortable here than anywhere else he'd been.
Well, except for Smallville, of course.  Smallville would always
feel like home.

Home, though, was an elusive term, he'd discovered.  Growing up,
it was easy to feel like he was home.  His parents were kind,
supportive, and always there for him when things got tough.  And
tough was exactly what it had been, growing up.  He'd had to
reconcile the fact that he was different from his friends.  Nobody
else could fly, burn and cool things with his vision, see through
walls, run faster than a moving vehicle, bend steel pipes with his
bare hands, or rip doors from their hinges.  The trials of pre-
adolescence had been compounded by his having to learn to temper
and control his powers, as well as try to learn where he fit in
the universe.

His parents had taken him aside in junior high when more of his
powers started to develop.  They told him how they'd found him in
a spaceship in a neighbor's field, and how they suspected he was
from another planet.  They told him they had once wondered about
him being some kind of government experiment, but had quickly
ruled that out.  If he had been such an experiment, then why the
space ship?  Why the strange writings along the craft, and
technologies they had never seen before?

When Clark had doubted their truthfulness, his father had taken
him out to the northeast corner of their field, telling him that's
where they had buried the spaceship.  His dad had stood back while
Clark used the shovel to dig, and in only a few seconds, there was
a large hole--but no capsule.  His dad had been angry and worried
at the fact that somebody had apparently dug it up and stolen it.

Clark remembered sitting in the dark field that night, staring at
the empty hole, thinking of what might have been.  Would seeing
the spaceship in which he had supposedly traveled to earth give
him any answers?

He couldn't *not* believe that his parents had spoken the truth
about him being from another planet.  It was the only explanation.
Besides, something in his heart told him it was true.  But what
planet could he have come from?  And who had sent him away in the
capsule?  Had there been a reason for sending him away?  And what
about his birth parents?  What had come of them?

His earth parents hadn't been able to give him any answers, and he
doubted those questions could ever be answered.  It frustrated
Clark, knowing there were so many unanswered questions--about who
he was, what he was doing there, and why he'd been given the
powers and abilities he had.  An even bigger question, though--
with more immediate consequences--was what he was supposed to do
with his powers.

He had found himself using his powers over the years to help out
here and there as opportunities presented themselves: stopping a
ladder at school from falling when the electrician leaned out too
far from it to reach a faulty wire; dashing out into the road only
slightly faster than a normal person in order to save a young girl
from being hit by a car; and physically diverting a train
traveling along the tracks at the back of his family's property
when the track switching mechanism had failed to work properly.

The times that he'd been able to help had filled him with a sense
of purpose.  He didn't know exactly why he was there on earth, but
he did know one thing.  His powers could help people.  And that,
he decided, was what he wanted to do with them.

How to do so without exposure, though, had been a completely
different dilemma.  He'd often talked about it with his parents,
but they had had little to offer in the way of suggestions.  His
father often worried about his son being discovered as the
superhuman being that he was, and the consequences that could come
from that.  But Clark didn't share his father's preference to keep
his powers secret from the world.  He wanted to help, and he was
tired of trying to come up with ways to do so without being
discovered.

It had all finally came to a head one evening in Metropolis a week
ago when he had rescued two men from a collapsing mine north of
Metropolis.  In the darkness of the mine, the men hadn't been able
to see who had held up the framework of the mine's collapsing
ceiling until they could scramble from the site.  Clark's clothes,
however, would easily have told the tale, had he hung around.  He
was filthy from the coal dust, and he knew his clothes were
ruined.

That night, as he scrubbed his clothes with every substance he
could think of, he'd found himself talking to his mom on the
phone.

"It's just not coming out, Mom.  I think they're ruined."

"They may be, honey," she agreed.  "You might just have to cut
them up and use them as rags."

Clark dropped the clothes onto his washing machine in resignation.
"I can't help thinking this wouldn't have happened if I'd had
something to change into before making that rescue; some kind of
outfit."

"What do you mean, Clark?  Like old jeans and a T-shirt?  You had
to get there fast.  You didn't exactly have time to go home and
change."

"I know, but what if I wore something under my clothes that I
could change into during rescues like that?"

His mom sounded skeptical.  "I don't know, honey.  Wearing clothes
under your work suit would be awfully bulky."

"Not if it were something clingy, like spandex or something."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.  Then, "Spandex?
Like a leotard or something?  Clark, you can't run around in
public in nothing but a leotard.  People would think you'd come
from ballet rehearsal or something."

Clark laughed.  "Not a leotard, mom, but you're not far off."  He
paused.  "Are you busy tonight?  I was thinking of picking your
brain some more about this."

She told him she'd love to have him come by, and Clark had gotten
there in moments.  Together they'd rummaged through his mother's
extensive supply of fabrics and costumes she used for Smallville's
small performing theater group.  Jonathan had looked on
skeptically as his wife and son put their heads together, trying
to come up with some kind of outfit Clark could wear.  The leotard
suggestion had quickly evolved into a unitard, then came the
question of colors, designs, and accessories such as a mask,
gloves, boots, and belts.

Nothing had been decided that night, but Clark had flown home
feeling more hopeful than he had felt in months.  His parents
still weren't sold on the idea of a costume being all he needed to
disguise himself for rescues, but at least they were supportive.

Over the next week, Clark had flown to Smallville in the evenings
to work out the details of his costume and try on several samples.
Some costumes were outlandish and off the wall; others became
possibilities.  Martha continued the painstaking process of
putting together the ideas they both liked, and finally they came
up with a costume they agreed was the best by far.  The blue and
red looked noble and vibrant, the cape classy, the matching red
boots sharp.

By the evening of the colonist vehicle's launch, the costume was
finished.  Clark had moved from side to side in front of the full-
length mirror, taking in his appearance from different angles.  He
liked what he saw.  It was a little daring, with the tight spandex
bodysuit and flamboyant cape, but he liked that about it.  The
more flamboyant, the better, in his opinion, since that narrowed
the odds of anyone thinking that mild-mannered Clark Kent was the
man under the suit.  After all, who would expect Clark Kent, the
genteel and somewhat awkward-looking reporter to be the city's new
mysterious flying hero dressed in a tight, flashy spandex costume?

"What do you think?" his mother had asked, looking anxiously over
his shoulder.

Clark smiled.  "I think it's great.  It seems to be missing
something, though."

Martha looked thoughtful for moment, then her eyes lit up.  "I
know just the thing."

Clark followed her as she retrieved a trunk from under her bed,
then opened it and pulled out a folded blanket.  She held it to
her face nostalgically for a moment, then opened it to show Clark.

"It's the baby blanket you were wrapped in when we found you."

Clark's jaw dropped open and an air of reverence filled the room.
Clark had never seen the blanket before.  It was perfectly
preserved, obviously unused.  For a moment, Clark felt a
connection with his unknown heritage in a way he never had before.

He took a step forward, reaching out to finger the soft blue
fabric of the blanket his mom held.  As he thought about the task
he was about to undertake, he wondered what his birth parents
would think.  Is this what they would have wanted for him?  Could
this possibly be what they had sent him to earth to do?  To use
his powers to help others?

For a moment, he was overcome by emotion.  Then he noticed the red
and yellow emblem sewn into the fabric.  It was a red shield
bordering a large yellow letter "S."  He found himself wondering
what it meant.

"Mom, why didn't you tell me you had this?" Clark asked, looking
up at his mom only to see that she had tears in her eyes.

She smiled and shrugged.  "To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten
about it until just now.  I always meant to show you, but I knew
it wouldn't mean as much to you when you were young, so I waited."
She touched the "S" shield lovingly.  "I think this would be
perfect on your costume.  A way of respecting your heritage, don't
you think?"

Clark nodded silently.  Then he cleared his throat, thick with
emotion.  "I do.  Let's use it."

So Martha went to work, carefully removing the emblem from the
blanket and sewing it onto the chest of his costume.  When it was
done, Clark once again tried on the suit.  It was perfect.  Clark
reached up to touch the "S," wondering again what it meant.  Maybe
it symbolized his name, or that of his parents.  Maybe it was
where he was from, or possibly even a line of lineage.  He didn't
know, but it made him feel closer to his heritage.  He felt proud
to wear it on his chest as a reminder that both sets of his
parents would want him to do great things for his fellow man.

It was not an hour later when the colonist's launch vehicle had
run into trouble.  It seemed like destiny.  His costume was done,
and there was nothing stopping him from being drawn out into the
public eye.  And this time, he felt ready to do so.

A sudden gust of wind drew Clark back to the present.  He turned
to see his loft's window shutters bang open, caught in the breeze.
He went up to the loft to close the window more tightly, then
turned to look out over his apartment from his high position.

Yes, strangely enough, this felt like home.  Maybe not as much as
Smallville did, but more so than anywhere else he'd lived.  He had
traveled the world over in search of something...something he'd
never seemed to find.  But there was just something about
Metropolis that felt right.  He wasn't exactly sure what that was,
but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something here he
was supposed to do.

He glanced back at the closet where he'd hung the suit.  Maybe
being the disguised hero was the reason.  'But why Metropolis?' he
couldn't help wondering.  'I could live anywhere and be a hero in
disguise.  Why do I feel so strongly that whatever I'm looking for
is here in Metropolis?'

But that was yet another question that seemed to go unanswered.
All he did know for sure was that he could sense there was
something there for him in Metropolis, something that was about to
change his life drastically.

'Of course your life is about to change drastically,' the voice in
the back of his head mocked him.  'You just revealed your
superhuman abilities to the world.  Did you think that wouldn't
change your life drastically, even if people don't realize it's
really Clark Kent behind those powers?'

Clark's more rational side supposed that was true.  But even as
the argument continued to weigh heavily on his mind, Clark didn't
think that was it.  There was more to it than that, something that
touched the very depths of his soul.  Something in the air spoke
to him that his life was about to change, and not just because of
his new identity.

Something was different.  Something huge was about to happen.

What that was, though, he had no idea.  The future would tell him
when the time was right, he guessed.

Resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to be getting any
answers tonight, he went back into his bedroom and slipped beneath
the sheets.  Maybe tomorrow those answers would come.


**********

Lois was tired and irritable as she stepped off the plane into the
Atlanta, Georgia airport terminal.  It had been a long morning
already, since her flight out of San Francisco had been delayed
due to mechanical difficulties.  The plane had arrived in Atlanta
with only minutes to spare before her connecting flight to
Metropolis International Airport was to depart.

She grasped her carry-on bag more tightly and pushed her way
through the busy terminal, grumbling at the people meandering
around her.  'Don't these people realize other people have planes
to catch?' she grumbled to herself as she skittered around a group
of people standing around, chatting with each other.  She glanced
at her watch.  Five minutes.

She shook her head.  At this rate, there was no way she was going
to make her connection.  Flinging the strap of her carry-on bag
onto her shoulder, she began to run.  She was out of breath and
winded by the time she arrived at her gate.  A last-call
announcement was being issued over the loudspeakers as she handed
her boarding pass to the gate attendant.

With a sigh of relief, Lois boarded her plane and maneuvered down
the narrow aisle to her seat.  She scanned the numbers along the
overhead bins for her seat number.  Finally she found it and
collapsed into her seat at the window.  "Airports," she grumbled
under her breath.

It was only a few minutes before the plane was taxiing down the
runway, then taking off and finally leveling out in the clear blue
sky.  Lois stared out her window at the sun glinting off the wing
of the airplane not far in front of her.  She loved flying.  She
could leave the airport hassle; what a pain that was.  But
flying...feeling the wings lift the plane over the expanse of
clouds, giving her glimpses of cities, then open fields and
mountain ranges below...it was something she'd always loved.

The flight attendants began working their way down the narrow
aisle with breakfast carts, and Lois eagerly accepted a cup of
coffee and a small plate of pancakes and toast.  She hadn't eaten
since the night before, and even airplane food looked appetizing
at that moment.  The flight attendant also offered her a
newspaper, which Lois took.  She knew Metropolis's new hero was
international news by now, and she was eager to see what was being
said about him.

Taking a sip of her coffee, Lois unfolded the newspaper.  When she
did, she nearly choked.  The headline leapt off the page:

An Exclusive Interview with Metropolis's Flying Hero!

Lois covered her mouth with her napkin as she coughed and
sputtered.  She waved off the flight attendant's inquiry as to
whether or not she was all right, then thumped herself on the
chest a couple of times.  When her coughing fit subsided, Lois
turned her attention back to the newspaper.

An exclusive!  Somebody had scooped her!  She glowered at the
article.  She'd expected to see a front-page article on the
mysterious flying man to be splashed across every newspaper in the
world, but she hadn't expected to see someone nail down an
exclusive interview with the man so soon.  How had somebody
managed to track him down so quickly?

Lois studied the picture of the mysterious flying man accompanying
the article.  He was good looking; that much she had to admit.
The shot wasn't a close up, but it was close enough to gather a
few details.  The picture showed the man interacting with mission
control officials after returning to earth from delivering the
colonist transport to Space Station Prometheus.  It wasn't the
best picture in the world, but it did nothing to detract from the
hero's rugged, masculine good looks, firm set jaw, and solidly
muscled body.  The tight costume he wore emphasized each well-
defined muscle in his body.

Lois cocked an eyebrow.  'Impressive' hardly began to describe
him.

Her eye traveled back to the headline, and her momentary
distraction with the picture was gone.  The anger she'd felt
moments before returned as she spent the next few minutes poring
over the article, her breakfast long since forgotten.

As she finished reading, her brow furrowed.  Yes, somebody else
had managed to get an exclusive interview, but the reporter
obviously hadn't done a very thorough job.  The question remained,
who was this guy?  The mysterious man explained that he was from
another planet, but not which one, or how--or when--he had arrived
on earth.  And there were the questions unanswered--or unasked.
Where did this alien live?  Did he have a job somewhere?  Surely
he needed money to live.  And did he even speak English?  Had the
reporter needed someone to translate for him?  She didn't suspect
that was the case, since there was a quote given by one of the
colonists at how nice the man had been when he'd talked with them.
That meant he had to speak fluent English, didn't it?

The bottom line was, yes, this was an exclusive, but there was
still room for a tell-all expose like the one she planned to do.

She breathed a sigh of relief.  Her story wasn't down the drain
after all.  Obviously, this reporter didn't know how to get the
nitty gritty on an interviewee.  Maybe he hadn't even asked the
questions everyone was dying to know.  Maybe he was just some hack
who had managed to get lucky in tracking down the hero.

She nodded.  Luck.  That had to be it.  This reporter obviously
didn't know one end of his pencil from the other.

She turned back to the front page and squinted at the byline.
Clark Kent.  There was no picture of him, so she assumed that
meant he was relatively new and inexperienced at the Daily Planet.
He had to be, if he couldn't conduct a proper interview, supplying
more questions than answers.  She was sure she wasn't alone in
wanting to know more.  Where was the story behind the story?

She didn't buy it that this flying man suddenly appeared out of
nowhere to become a superhero.  Nobody just appeared out of
nowhere.  Everybody had a back-story, had a background and a
history.  This Kent guy obviously overlooked that fact and settled
instead for a controversy-free, feel-good story about Metropolis's
new hero.

She, however, wasn't such a lacking reporter.  There was a story
to tell here, and while this Clark Kent managed to get the scoop,
he didn't get the entire scoop.  And that was now her new mission.
She would get to the bottom of this.  Of that, she was certain.
She'd show this hack how an expose was done.  And if it was the
last thing she did, she was going to expose this new hero, and
give the world a story they would never forget.

The Pulitzer was as good as hers.

**********

Lex walked out onto his balcony overlooking Metropolis.  It was a
sight that always put him in a good mood.  From his vantage point
he could see all of Metropolis, much of which he owned either
directly or indirectly.  In a sense, the city that lay below him
was his kingdom, and there was nothing better than waking up in
the morning and walking out on the balcony to look out over his
subjects.

This morning, however, something else held Lex's attention.  The
morning edition of the Daily Planet.

He read in fascination about the flying man who had made his
astonishing debut at the launch of Space Station Prometheus'
colonist vehicle only the evening before.  He shook his head.  A
man from another planet.  Unbelievable.

He strolled over to the table on the balcony set for breakfast and
sat down, picking up each of the five other papers set near his
plate.  They all reported on the new hero's debut, but only the
Daily Planet had an exclusive, telling him more of what he wanted
to know.

Lex's thoughts were pulled away from the articles when Nigel
approached to pour his coffee.  "The headlines are much the same,"
Nigel said.  "This flying man is international news."

Lex nodded and took a sip of his coffee before answering.  "Yes,
he is that."  Lex glanced at the headlines and photos adorning the
papers, then addressed Nigel again.  "What do we know about this
man?"

"Nothing more than the papers report.  Nobody seems to know how to
find him."

Lex smiled.  "Yes, I can see that it would be difficult to track
down a man who can fly."  He gave the Daily Planet in his hand one
more look, then tossed it onto the table and picked up his fork
instead.  "See what you can find out about him--his weaknesses,
his strengths.  Most importantly, find out about his moral ethics.
I want to know if this man can be bought or manipulated."

Nigel's eyebrows lifted.  "You think he might be a threat?"

"Any man who can fly and perform superhuman feats could be a
threat."  Lex took a bite of his crepe, then waved his fork
dismissively.  "At this point, I'm more intrigued than worried.  I
can't afford to have any more 'incidents,' however."  He paused to
take another sip of his coffee.  When he set the cup down, his jaw
tightened imperceptibly.  "That Lane reporter already shut down my
western seaboard importing and exporting business by sending many
of my connections to jail with that crime ring expose of hers.  I
don't need some superhuman Boy Scout making things worse."

"Agreed."  Nigel nodded.  "Speaking of Ms. Lane, I've just been
told she's on her way to Metropolis as we speak."  When Lex looked
up at Nigel questioningly, Nigel shrugged.  "You told me to have
our boys in California keep an eye on her when she started getting
close to your seaboard business.  This was just our latest report
on her whereabouts."

Lex smirked and leaned back in his chair.  "I assume she's coming
to investigate Metropolis's new hero."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I know her type.  She's young; she's hungry.  She's out
to prove herself to the world, and she loves nothing better than
to shake things up with a good expose."  Lex turned back to the
papers on the table beside his plate.  He rummaged through them
for a minute, then pulled one in particular from the stack.
There, beneath the large type "San Francisco Chronicle," was a
follow up on Lois Lane's crime ring expose; and beside that was
her picture.

Lex smiled.  She was young, all right.  And beautiful.

"Nigel," Lex spoke up.  "Find out where she's staying while she's
here in Metropolis and offer her a dinner invitation from me.
Then put someone on her.  I want to know who she talks to while
she's here and where she goes."

Nigel's eyebrows rose.  "You want to dine with her *and* have her
followed?"

"Have you ever heard the old saying, 'Keep your friends close and
your enemies closer'?"  When Nigel nodded, Lex dabbed at his mouth
with his napkin.  "That's exactly what I intend to do.  I'm
willing to bet she's here to see about our new hero, but I would
not have gotten where I am today if I didn't cover my bases.  I
want to make sure she's not here because she's following any leads
she may have dug up during her crime ring investigation."

He paused and looked at her picture one more time.  Then he pursed
his lips and smiled.  "Besides, Nigel, having a beautiful and
intelligent woman as a dinner companion could be
rather...enlightening."

And with that, Lex stood up from the table and walked back inside,
ready to begin his day.

**********

Lois walked out of the terminal, her eyes blinking at the sun's
mid-morning brightness.  She was finally here.  Metropolis.

She was surprised to see that it hadn't changed much in the dozen
or so years since she'd visited.  There were a few new buildings
where old ones used to be, and there was a new, more efficient
layout of the streets running past the airport.  All in all, it
seemed very much like the same bustling city she remembered.

As she approached the curb and put up her hand to hail a cab,
memories unexpectedly flooded through her.  She remembered seeing
her younger sister jumping up and down eagerly on the curb, waving
her arms frantically in an effort to hail one of the yellow
vehicles hurtling past.  Lois had lost the dollar she had bet that
day, that her sister couldn't hail a cab by herself.  She also
remembered her mother and father smiling, as surprised as she,
when one soon pulled over to pick them up.  They were good
memories, the ones she had of their family trip to Metropolis to
visit distant relatives there in the city so many years ago.

Lois blinked back unexpected tears.  Their trip to Metropolis was
something she hadn't thought of for a long time.  But those times
with her sister and parents were gone, she reminded herself in an
effort to pull herself back together.  This was her life now.  And
she had a story to write.

Forcing herself to turn back to the task at hand, she climbed into
the cab that stopped in front of her and gave the driver the name
of her hotel.

*~*~*~*~*

Lois found herself in yet another cab a short time later.  She had
checked into her hotel, showered, put on a fresh change of
clothes, and was now heading over to the Daily Planet where she
knew Perry White was expecting her.

She stared out the window as they drove, trying to re-familiarize
herself with the bustling city.  It would be helpful when she hit
the streets in search of the city's new hero later that day.

After what seemed like an eternity, the cab pulled over to the
curb in front of the Daily Planet.  She paid the cab fare, then
climbed out of the car.

An inexplicable feeling of deja vu swept over her as she stood on
the sidewalk and stared up at the Daily Planet globe.  She knew
she'd never seen it before--not in person, at least.   But for
whatever reason, the building seemed so familiar to her.
Something about it pulled at her, as if drawing her in.  There was
a soothing, almost comforting feeling about the Daily Planet, like
a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's day.

Shaking her head to force away the inexplicable feelings of deja
vu, she walked through the revolving doors into the lobby.  The
person at the reception desk told her she would find Perry White
in his office on the newsroom floor, then directed her to the
elevators.  Lois followed the directions and soon found herself
stepping off the elevator into the newsroom.

She was pleased with what she saw.  The newsroom was large, with a
long ramp leading down into the bullpen, and to the offices and
conference rooms surrounding it.  The place was modern and
efficient, and the normal hustle and bustle around her made her
feel right at home.

She had only been standing there a few moments when a young man in
jeans, a T-shirt, and cowboy boots appeared at her side.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, um, yes, I'm looking for Perry White.  Could you tell me
where to find him?"

"Sure could."  The young man nodded and smiled cordially as he
pointed across the newsroom to one of the offices.  "He's over
there in his office.  Come on, I'll walk you over."  He led the
way down the ramp and turned back to Lois as they walked.  "Is he
expecting you?"

Lois nodded.  "He is.  I'm Lois Lane, from--"

"The San Francisco Chronicle," he finished for her, his eyes
widening.  "Sure, I know who you are.  Well, I've read your
stories," he hurried to clarify.  "What are you doing way out
here?  I'm Jimmy Olsen, by the way."

Lois smiled.  She liked this young man.  He was friendly and
personable, and he made her feel welcome.  It was just what she
needed, knowing she was going to be spending the next few days in
an unfamiliar newsroom.  "Nice to meet you, Jimmy.  As for what
I'm doing here, I'm here to do a story on your resident
superhero."

"You and everybody else in this country," he joked as they reached
the bottom of the ramp and turned toward Perry White's office.
"And yeah, the guy's definitely super.  Our Clark Kent managed to
get an exclusive interview, you know."

She nodded, though she did her best to keep her opinion of "their"
Clark Kent's reporting job to herself.  "Yes, I saw that," she
managed diplomatically.

If Jimmy noticed her lack of praise, he didn't mention it.  They
arrived in front of Perry's office and Jimmy knocked on the open
door, then stepped in.  "Chief, Lois Lane is here to see you."

Lois followed Jimmy through the doorway, then stopped.  The
stocky, graying man sitting behind the desk was not at all how
Lois had pictured Perry White.  Knowing the Daily Planet was one
of the best newspapers in the world, she had pictured a man in his
early forties, someone stern, unforgiving and unrelenting, maybe
with a polished, corporate look.  What she hadn't pictured was a
slightly overweight, jovial, teddy-bear of a man with pictures of
Elvis hanging on his office wall and a jiggley-hipped Hawaiian
dancer figure on his desk.  When he spoke, though, his deep,
booming voice, full of confidence and authority, told her in no
uncertain terms that he demanded respect, yet gave it, as well.

"Ah, yes, Lois Lane."  Perry smiled broadly as he stood up from
his desk.  He reached out a large, gnarled hand to shake her
small, slim one firmly.  "It's a pleasure to meet you."

She smiled back, liking this man immediately.  "It's a pleasure to
meet you, too, Mr. White."

"Oh, please, call me Perry.  Your editor Jim Langley has told me a
lot about you."

"It was all good, I hope."

"From the way he went on and on about you, you'd think you were
his own kin."  He chuckled as he gestured to the chair across from
his desk.  "Go ahead and have a seat.  Jimmy, how about something
to drink for Ms. Lane?"

Jimmy nodded.  "Sure, Chief."  He turned to Lois.  "What would you
like, Ms. Lane?"

Lois looked up at Jimmy and smiled graciously.  "Oh, please, call
me Lois.  And actually, I'm fine, thanks.  I had enough coffee on
the flight over to last me for a week."

Perry's hearty, booming laughter filled the room.  "I know what
you mean," Perry agreed.  "Airplane coffee is bad enough to kill
your taste buds, but when you have a lot of it, that's even
worse."  He turned back to Jimmy.  "Jimmy, how about a diet Coke
for me?  I think I've already had my fill of coffee for the day,
too."

"You got it, Chief."  Jimmy hurried away to fill his boss's order.

When Jimmy was gone, Perry turned back to Lois.  "He's a good kid.
He's got quite an eye on him for photography, and I have high
hopes for him.  In the meantime, he's paying his dues."

"You mean he's being ordered around by everyone and used as an
errand boy?"  When Perry nodded and grinned, Lois smiled, as well.
"I've been there myself.  Not getting drinks and running errands,
mind you, but I've had my share of writing obituaries and auction
notices.  Don't tell anybody I said that, though.  I like people
to think I started at the top."

Perry laughed.  "We all do."

For the next few minutes, they chatted about Jim Langley, San
Francisco, and some of the places Perry had visited during a
recent trip to the city.  Then they turned to the topic at hand.

The stocky editor leaned forward and clasped his hands together on
his desk.  "So, your editor tells me you want to do a piece on
Metropolis's new hero."

"Yes, I do."  Lois nodded eagerly.  "I see one of your reporters
managed to get an exclusive for this morning's edition, but I feel
there were a lot of questions left unanswered.  I'd like to get
the whole story, find out where this guy has been all these years
and what makes him tick.  That's why I'm here."

"Like I told your boss, I'm happy to have you.  I should warn you,
though, my staff may not be entirely receptive to the idea of you
being here.  Everybody wants the next big exclusive on our new
hero.  It's a real dog-eat-dog world out there right now."

Lois lifted her chin, a renewed sense of determination etched
across her face.  "I can handle it."

Perry's eyes narrowed as he studied her closely for a moment.
Then a corner of his mouth turned upwards.  "Somehow I believe
you."

He paused, then slapped his hands down on his desk.  "Well, as
long as you know what you're up against, I might be able to help
you out a bit.  I could partner you with someone on this, someone
who knows the city, and in exchange, we could run it with a joint
by-line when you manage to get that story--"

Lois felt the world start to spin around her.  Partner her with
someone?  Joint by-line?

She swallowed past the bitter taste in her mouth.  The joint by-
line she could understand.  She didn't like it, but she
understood.  She was working out of his newspaper office, after
all; they would expect something in return. Her editor Jim Langley
had probably even used that as a bartering chip to position her in
the sister office.

But a partner?  Never.  She worked alone.  Always had.  Partners
just slowed her down and made her crazy.  The few partners she'd
had were completely incompetent, and it had been a complete waste
of her time.

"Oh, um...excuse me for a minute," Lois broke in, cutting the
editor off in mid-sentence.

Perry paused, waiting for her to continue.  Lois licked her lips
as she smoothed her hands along the silky skirt fabric covering
her thighs.  Finally, she cleared her throat uncomfortably.  "Did
you say partner?"

Perry's brows furrowed.  "Is that a problem?"

"Um, well...kind of."  Lois shifted in her seat.  "Mr. White, I'm
sorry if this comes off sounding ungrateful, because you really
are being very kind to let me work out of your newsroom for the
next few days, but...I want to do this alone.  I just don't think
I can do the kind of story I want to do if I have a partner
tagging along.  No offense."

Perry lifted his eyebrows in surprise.  Then a slow smile worked
its way across his face.  "Not the partnering type, huh?  I
remember when I was young and hungry, I didn't want a partner,
either.  I think you'll come to learn, though, a partner can be
helpful--someone to bounce ideas off of and brainstorm with.  You
often come up with angles the other person doesn't."

He watched her closely for a moment, as if waiting for a rebuttal.
When one didn't come, he sat back in his chair and finally nodded.
"Well, Ms. Lane, I've got work to do, and so do you, it sounds
like.  I was thinking of partnering you with a bright young man
who's relatively new but very talented, but I suppose that's your
decision to make.  Let me know if you change your mind."

Lois stood up and shook the hand he again offered her.  "I will,"
she said graciously.  "I appreciate your understanding."

Just then Jimmy reappeared with his editor's can of diet Coke.
"Here you go, Chief."

"Oh, thanks, Jimmy."  Perry took the can, then gestured at Lois.
"If this young lady needs anything while she's here, see to it she
gets it, would you?  In fact, why don't you show her to an empty
desk so she can get working."

A broad smile spread across Jimmy's face.  He was clearly happy to
be given the responsibility of looking after the well-known
visiting reporter.  "I'd be happy to."

~*~*~*~*~

As Jimmy led Lois out of the office and into the bustling
newsroom, Perry watched her go.  He had always prided himself on
gathering accurate first impressions of the people he met, and the
one he got of Lois Lane was undeniable.  That girl was something
special.

Her editor and his longtime friend, Jim Langley, had told him she
was an incredible reporter, the best when it came to breaking a
story wide open.  Perry was sure that was true, but what he hadn't
expected was for her to be as personable and charming as she was,
let alone drop-dead gorgeous.  If he were young and single, he
would probably be doing everything in his power to catch her
attention.  But what surprised him the most, he realized, was how
young she was to have achieved the level of success she had
attained in her profession.  She was obviously driven.  It was
also easy to see that she was fiercely independent.  He didn't
know why she was so set against having a partner, especially when
a partner who knew the city would only be an asset.

Jim Langley was right.  She was a handful, just as he'd warned him
she would be.

The bottom line, though, was...he liked her.  In a way, she
reminded him a bit of himself when he'd first started in the
business--vital, passionate, and hungry.  She knew what she wanted
and wasn't afraid to go after it.  That much was clear.  Otherwise
she would not be standing in his newsroom, three thousand miles
from home.

He found his gaze following her as Jimmy showed her to the empty
desk near the back of the newsroom.  He hadn't been kidding when
he'd warned her that his other reporters wouldn't be thrilled by
her presence when they learned what she was there to do.  The new
flying hero was a hot commodity.  Everybody wanted to land that
next exclusive.  But he had no doubt she could handle herself, as
she'd assured him in his office.

All in all, it was a win-win situation.  She could compete for the
story she wanted, the Planet would get a great by-line if she
managed to nail it down, and having a nationally acclaimed
investigative reporter to compete with for the next few days for
the exclusive of the century could only serve to light a fire
under his own reporters.

'Besides,' Perry thought with a smile, 'I like her.'

She was obviously an amazing and talented lady, and he was excited
at the idea of having her around the newsroom for the next few
days.  He had excellent reporters, but few showed her level of
fire and determination.  Having her around was sure to be a breath
of fresh air in his sometimes stale newsroom.

**********

Lois spent the next few minutes jotting down a list of questions
she planned to ask the city's new hero, then decided she was ready
to get started.  The big question, though, was where.

She leaned back in her chair and chewed on the tip of her pen.
How did she find this flying man?  In the morning's article, it
said nothing about where the man lived, other than the fact that
he considered Metropolis his home.  So where did she start?

Obviously, the hero planned to use his powers to help the citizens
of Metropolis.  It only made sense that he would be out today
doing just that.  Maybe she could borrow a scanner to listen to,
to hear what emergencies might be taking place that would require
the hero's help.  Then she could track him down and hopefully
catch up to him that way.

Deciding that was her best course of action, Lois stood up and
walked across the newsroom to Perry's office.  He was on the
phone, but the door was half open.  She knocked lightly.

Perry looked up from the stack of papers in front of him and
smiled a little as he waved her in.  He gestured toward the chair
she'd sat in earlier, and she sat down quietly, politely waiting
for him to finish.

**********

Clark stepped out of the Planet elevator and into the busy
newsroom.  It had been a long morning.  If he had thought being
two people would be easy, he was wrong.  He'd spent as much time--
if not more--performing heroic duties in the blue and red costume,
as he did tracking down his sources to get the much-needed
information for his latest story.  Having to dart away at every
distant cry for help was definitely putting a kink in his
investigating style.  It was hard to concentrate on sources and
information while continually keeping an ear out for cries for
help.

He sighed.  If he didn't have something solid to show Perry on his
story soon, Perry was going to kill it.  It wouldn't be the first
time such a thing had happened, but Clark was never happy when it
did.  It seemed like such a waste of time and legwork--time and
legwork he apparently wasn't going to have much time for now that
he was divided into two people.

Knowing he had better come up with some information soon, he
decided to jot down what little information he'd been able to
gather that morning, then go back over his previous notes.  Maybe
he had missed something.

He walked down the ramp to the bullpen, stepping out of the way
when an overeager copy boy barreled past him.  He was almost at
his desk when something out of the corner of his eye caught his
attention.  Turning, he looked toward Perry's office.  There,
sitting on the leather chair across from Perry's desk, was the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She was slender and shapely, with smooth, flawless skin and
luxurious brown, shoulder-length hair worn in a trendy yet
professional style.  Dressed all in red, the vibrant color brought
out the color in her cheeks and made a startling contrast against
the dark, silky hair hanging down around her shoulders.  Her
fitted suit jacket clung to her feminine curves, and the low,
scooping neckline gave a tantalizing view of ample cleavage.  A
hint of black lace peeked out above the neckline.

His heart pounding in his chest, his eyes traveled lower, taking
in the fitted skirt that reached only halfway down her thighs as
she sat, giving him generous glimpses of her long, shapely legs,
especially when she moved to cross one leg over the other.  For a
moment, she turned her face toward the newsroom.  Long, thick
eyelashes framed beautiful brown eyes that seemed to take in
everything around her.  Her full, red lips parted slightly as she
glanced around.

Clark felt infatuated, dizzy, and lightheaded, all at the same
time.  For some reason he couldn't even begin to explain, he felt
inexplicably drawn to this woman sitting in Perry's office.
Something about her seemed to touch his soul, leaving him wanting
for more.

He shook his head.  Ridiculous.  He didn't even know this woman.
He'd never fallen in love at first sight before, if that's indeed
what this was.  He was usually more sensible than that.  Finding
someone to care about...it was a tricky business.  He'd never
wanted to get too close to a woman before because romantic
entanglements could prove dangerous.  How did he explain to a
girlfriend about himself, about all the things he could do?  And
if he ever did find somebody to love, could he trust her to keep
his secret?  It seemed so unlikely.  And risky.  Because of that,
he had always been cautious involving matters of the heart.

All that had seemed to fly out the window the very moment he saw
her, however.  Without even realizing it, she had a hold on him; a
hold that left him feeling transfixed and spellbound.

Jimmy walked by in front of him, breaking him from his trance-like
stare.  Impulsively, Clark grabbed his friend by the arm.  "Jimmy,
who is that in Perry's office?"

Jimmy turned to look, then grinned broadly and turned back to
Clark.  "That, my friend, is Lois Lane."

Clark's eyes widened.  "THE Lois Lane?  From the San Francisco
Chronicle?"

Jimmy nodded, his smile reaching clear into his eyes.  "Sure is.
I had no idea she would be so hot!  I mean, I've read her stuff
before, but I always pictured her as some grouchy, middle-aged
woman.  Well, obviously she ain't."

Clark nodded in complete agreement.  "What is she doing all the
way out here?"

"She's here to do a story on Metropolis's new hero.  I overheard
her telling Perry that your exclusive interview with the hero left
a lot of questions unanswered, and she's planning on getting the
whole story.  And knowing how much she loves to expose things, I
wouldn't put it past her to leave Metropolis with a tell-all
expose on the guy.  If you ask me, that man had better look out.
I hope for his sake he doesn't have anything to hide."

Clark's mouth went dry and he had to remind himself to breathe.
Jimmy hurried away at the sound of someone calling his name, but
Clark remained frozen in place.  He turned his gaze once more
toward Perry's office.  His feelings of infatuation for the
stunning brunette begin to deflate with the rapidness of a spiked
tire.

A tell-all expose of Metropolis's new hero.  Of him.

This was not good.

He couldn't afford to have an investigative journalist of her
caliber on his tail.  From everything he'd heard about Lois Lane,
she was ruthless...would stop at nothing.  As Metropolis's new
hero in disguise, that wasn't what he needed.

Swallowing past the constricting tightness in his throat, Clark
resolved right then and there to stay as far away from her as
possible.  Even if his heart wasn't entirely in agreement.

Overruling his heart, he grabbed a stack of papers from his desk
and headed for an empty conference room.  If he couldn't be seen,
maybe he could avoid her completely.

**********

Lois ran from the Daily Planet building, hot on the trail of
Metropolis's new hero.  Perry had showed her where to tune into
the police scanner, and soon after she did, she heard a report on
a fire that had just broken out in an apartment building not far
away.  There were people trapped, and the fire-fighters were only
just beginning to arrive.

Lois knew this was her chance.  This was exactly the kind of
situation Metropolis's new hero would show up to help with, wasn't
it?  She was sure it was.  And if she hurried, she was likely to
catch the new hero in action.

She jumped in the first available cab.  "Lincoln and 9th," she
barked to the driver.  "There's an extra twenty in it for you if
you get me there fast."

That was all the incentive the cab driver needed.  He stomped on
the accelerator and screeched away from the curb.  She opened her
mouth to yell at him in protest, but quickly clamped it shut.  She
had, after all, bribed him to hurry.  And she did want to get to
the man in the blue and red spandex before anybody else did.  If
he got her there fast, she guessed it was worth a few bumps and
bruises.

When the cab pulled over at her destination, Lois glanced down at
her watch.  Seven minutes.  Not bad.  She quickly pulled out the
cab fare plus the extra twenty bucks and tossed it over the seat
at the driver in her haste to exit the car.  There was already a
crowd gathered there behind the police barricades, and she didn't
want to miss a thing.

Lois pushed her way through to the front of the crowd.  When she
reached the police barrier, she jerked to a halt.  About fifty
feet away, behind the wooden barriers and two parked police cars
with flashing lights, she saw him.  He was impossible to miss.
The blue of his costume and the red of his fluttering cape made
him stand out in the crowd; but even if he hadn't been wearing the
bright colors, his stance and poise commanded attention.

He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, listening intently
to the fire chief as he was apprised of the situation.  Behind
him, fire-fighters dashed around, barking out orders and unrolling
hoses.  Bright red and orange flames began to be visible behind
the thick, black smoke that poured from the building's windows and
rose into the sky.

Lois eyed the smoke warily and coughed into her hand.  It wasn't
the best of locations.  The smoke around the building was thick,
blowing into the crowd and causing the more sensitive gatherers to
abandon their spots along the police barrier.  But Lois held her
ground.  Her eyes teared up at the debris in the air around her,
but still she watched, intrigued by the still-mysterious hero
standing not far from her.

She knew he'd be good looking; she'd known as much after seeing
his picture in the paper that morning.  She'd already committed to
memory the broadness of his shoulders, his muscular build and
well-toned abs, and the thick brown hair that lay, unmoving, in
the slicked-back style.  But what she hadn't been prepared for was
how much more handsome he was in person.

The photo had been inadequate in showing his more intriguing
features:  his full, red lips; the muscle that twitched in his jaw
as he concentrated with intensity to the fire chief's
instructions; and the large, capable-looking hands he now had
placed on his hips.  But most of all, she found herself admiring
the intelligent brown eyes she saw darting away from the fire
chief every now and then to survey the flames coming from the
building with obvious concern, especially when a particularly
heavy cloud of smoke drifted over the gathering crowd.

He cared.  That's what those eyes told her.  And for some reason,
that touched her deeply.  It touched her to know a stranger could
care so much for the well-being of people he had never even met,
when with the powers he possessed, he could be doing anything else
he wanted.  Instead, he had chosen to be here, helping strangers
and making a difference.

He was definitely incredible, Lois decided, and not just because
of the showy display of powers she'd seen the day before on TV.

As she continued to watch, she saw him nod at something the fire
chief said, then glance up at the building where the chief was
gesturing.  His attitude was professional, his stern eyes and firm
jaw evidence that he was focused on the business at hand.

She watched along with him as the fire fighters moved their
ladders into place up against the building.  One fire fighter
tried to dampen the flames using a hose from his perch high up in
the bucket of the fire truck's extendable ladder arm, but it
appeared to be too little too late.  The flames continued to
increase in size and intensity.

Just then a fire fighter came running out of the building
coughing, causing his teammates, the fire chief, and the flying
hero to hurry over to him.

"The stairs are impassable!" the fire fighter choked out,
gesturing feebly at the engulfed building behind him.  "There are
people trapped on the top floor, but I can't get to them."

She saw the fire chief turn to the hero, a look of inquiry on his
face.  The hero nodded, then sped into the building in a blur of
vibrant colors, eliciting a cry of surprise and delight from the
crowd.  Moments later he returned, carrying two coughing residents
and setting them carefully on the ground before the gathered
paramedics.  Then he flew back into the building for two more
victims.  Soon the rest of the trapped victims were safely outside
with the paramedics, and the superhero looked no worse for the
wear.

A shout came from the fire fighters in the bucket of the fire
truck's ladder, and Lois looked up to see him gesturing for the
operator to move him back, away from the building.  "It's no use!"
he shouted down to the chief.  "We can't control it!"

With a quick nod and a word to the fire chief, the caped man
launched himself into the sky and hovered near the top of the
building, not far from where the fireman in the bucket lift had
been positioned.  He hovered there for a moment, then inhaled
deeply and blew an icy cloud of air into the building.  Lois's
eyes widened in surprise as the flames diminished.  A few more
clouds of icy breath, and the fire was out.

A roar went up from the crowd, and the cheering continued long and
loud as the costumed man smiled--a little sheepishly--at the
attention, then drifted back down to the ground to talk once again
to the fire chief.

Lois stood in stunned silence.  Wow.  This guy was impressive.  He
was even more impressive in person than he had been on TV.  She'd
been in the news business a long time, and not much impressed or
surprised her any more.  This, however, left her feeling more than
a little in awe at the scope of his powers.

When the hero was finally finished talking to the fire and police
chiefs, he walked over to the paramedics to check on the people
he'd rescued.  They all seemed to have come through the ordeal
relatively unscathed, with only some smoke inhalation and a few
cuts and bruises to show for it.  Lois knew how lucky they were.
The outcome would have been very different if it hadn't been for
the city's new caped hero.

As the superhero left the victims, his movements took him within a
few yards of the police barricade.  Lois quickly raised her hand
and called to him to get his attention, but her cries were quickly
droned out by the dozens of other reporters around her, all
clamoring for his attention.  His only acknowledgement to their
calls was a tight-lipped smile and a nod before he pushed off from
the ground and rose steadily into the sky.  A moment later, he was
gone.

Lois dropped her arm in disappointment.  He hadn't even seen
her...seen any of the reporters.  He had looked more *through*
them than *at* them, she realized, discouraged.  She looked down
at her short, curve-hugging red skirt and low cut, clingy, red
jacket and sighed.  Her carefully selected outfit wasn't going to
do any good if he wouldn't even look at her.  If she couldn't even
get his attention, how was she supposed to hold it long enough to
get him to agree to an interview?  As far as he was concerned, she
was just one of hundreds of reporters vying for his attention.

She shook her head.  She had a sinking suspicion this was going to
be even harder than she thought.

The crowd around her started to disperse, and Lois overhead the
two woman reporters next to her chatting about the superhero.

"Isn't he gorgeous?  Too bad he didn't even glance our way.  I
would have loved to ask him if he was single."

Her companion laughed.  "Yeah, I know what you mean.  I'd gladly
throw myself off a building if it meant I could get that man's
attention."

Lois rolled her eyes as she turned away.  Throw themselves off a
building?  Talk about desperate.  Some women would obviously do
anything these days for love.

Lois shook her head.  While she found him attractive--gorgeous,
even--she wasn't after him to date him.  She only wanted his
story.  And if it was the last thing she did, that's what she was
going to get.  With his cooperation or not.

With a new level of determination flooding through her, Lois set
her jaw and headed for an empty cab.  She'd show him.  Nobody
ignored Lois Lane.

**********

Lois spent the rest of the afternoon rushing around the city,
tracking down sightings and gathering eyewitness reports and
information on this mysterious new hero.  She managed to catch him
in action twice more that day, once at a multi-car pile up not far
from the Planet, and at a bomb scare at a local bank.  Each time
the results had been the same as that morning--he had ignored her,
as well as the rest of the press.

Lois was at her wits end by late afternoon.  She'd spent almost an
entire day trying to get the elusive superhero's attention, with
nothing to show for it.

She dropped onto a nearby bus bench on her way back to the Daily
Planet to regroup and reassess.  This was a challenge, she had to
admit, but she was not deterred.  There had to be a way to catch
up with this guy.  Somebody had to know him, or know how to get
hold of him.  If this had been her hometown, she would have had
sources to turn to, informants who were willing to talk for a
little cash.  Being new to the scene, she didn't have that luxury.

She took a deep breath to rally herself.  'Come on, Lois, you've
hit dead ends before.  Think.  What can you do to get this guy's
attention?'

Before she could answer her own question, the hairs on the back of
her neck stood up.  She stiffened.  Someone was watching her.  She
could feel it.

She'd been watched and followed before in her sometimes-dangerous
career, but this time it felt different.  The sensation was
menacing, washing over her and sending a chill down her spine.
She'd had enough strange things happen to her in her career to put
her subconscious on permanent alert, and she'd learned to trust
her instincts.

She'd made the mistake of mentioning this to Agnes once.  Her
neighbor had simply laughed, telling her she was paranoid; but
Lois was convinced she wasn't.  Her "paranoia," as Agnes called
it, was what kept Lois out of danger.  It had proven invaluable on
more than one occasion.  She didn't want to disregard it now.

As slowly and inconspicuously as possible, she turned her head to
the left and studied the people along the busy sidewalk, then did
the same in the other direction.  Nothing appeared to be out of
the ordinary.  The citizens of Metropolis seemed to be simply
going about their business.

When a quick scan of the nearby store windows and parked cars also
revealed nothing out of the ordinary, she reached slowly and
deliberately into her purse.  Her fingers closed over her compact
and she pulled it out.  With a casual flip of her fingers, she
released the catch and pretended to scrutinize herself in the
mirror.  The reflection of the area behind her proved to hold
nothing of interest as she tilted the mirror slightly to the left
and right.

She sighed with relief.  If there had been someone watching her,
they weren't anymore.  At least, she didn't feel like they were.
Feeling more at ease, Lois got up from the bench and decided to
head back to the Planet.  She had more research to do.  Maybe if
she learned some more about this man, she could figure out a way
to track him down.

"Taxi!"  Lois raised her arm at an approaching cab.  When it shot
past her, she signaled another one.  It drove past her, as well.

Lois groaned and dropped her arm.  The traffic was heavy, and she
was beginning to realize how difficult it was going to be to hail
a cab.  They were likely all going to be occupied by people
traveling home from work.

She glanced at the street sign on the closest corner and thought
for a minute.  If she remembered correctly, the Planet was only a
few blocks away.  If she hurried, she could walk and be back there
in no time.  She wanted to talk to Perry White before he went home
for the day and see if he might have heard anything that could
help her contact her subject.

Her mind made up, Lois started to walk briskly.  It didn't take
her long to cover the distance to the Planet, and as she turned
the last corner, she glanced at her watch.  Five o'clock.  Plenty
of time.  If Perry White was anything like her own editor-in-
chief, he would be there for an hour or so yet.

She had just lowered her wrist when suddenly a hand came out of
nowhere and grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip.  Too surprised to
scream, Lois found herself being dragged into the semi-darkness of
the alley to her right.  She caught a glimpse of the culprit--a
bald, burly man with a series of ear piercings and a rather
elaborate tattoo of a dagger on his right forearm.  When they
stopped a dozen yards in, he released her arm but held up a
jagged-bladed pocketknife in his hand.  He pointed it at her
threateningly.

"Give me your purse, lady," he growled.

Lois stared back at him, unblinking.  Her hand tightened
subconsciously on her purse.  "I don't think so."

The man raised his eyebrows.  He glanced down at his knife, then
back up at her.  "Don't you get it, lady?  If you *don't* give it
to me, I'm going to cut that pretty face of yours.  Is a credit
card and a lipstick really worth all that?"

Lois's jaw tightened.  "As a matter of fact, yes."  Then with a
swift, trained movement, she shifted her weight onto her back leg
and kicked the knife out of her attacker's hand, sending it
skittering down the dirty alley floor.  The man glanced at his
knife now laying several feet away, then looked back at her in
shock.  Lois didn't wait for him to draw any conclusions.  With
another skilled movement, she drew her leg back and then swung it
forward, connecting with the man's sensitive area.  He doubled
over in agony.  Lois quickly brought up a knee into his face, then
swept his legs out from under him with a well-placed kick at the
back of his legs.  He went down in a crumpled, unconscious heap.

"I'm rather fond of the lipstick in my purse, thank you," she
tossed out at his unconscious form.  Then, with a smug look of
satisfaction, she brushed off her hands, picked up her purse that
had fallen to the ground during her display of self-defense, and
stepped over the man on her way out of the alley.

She grinned to herself.  'That felt great,' she thought with
satisfaction.  It was definitely cheap therapy to take out her
day's frustration on some petty criminal by knocking him
senseless.

Two steps later, though, she stopped.  Her eyes widened in
disbelief as something occurred to her.  With the new thought, she
stomped her foot and let out a yell of aggravation.  "Lois, what
did you just do?!" she berated herself aloud, the sound of her
voice echoing off the alley walls.  "Someone just tried to mug
you, and what did you do?  You beat the crap out of him.  What
were you thinking?!"

She shook her head in disbelief.  That, clearly, was the problem.
She *hadn't* been thinking.  If she *had* been thinking, all she
would have had to do was emit a loud and frightened, "Help!  I'm
being mugged!" and the very man she'd been after all day could
have been standing right there in front of her.

She had blown it.  Blown it big time.

Lois turned back to her would-be assailant, who was still out
cold.  Maybe she could wake him up and ask him to try again?  She
could promise not to beat him up this time if he would let her
yell instead.

She sighed and rolled her eyes.  The mere suggestion was insane.
Wake up a criminal and ask him to try again?  She was definitely
losing it.  For a moment, she considered calling for the superhero
anyway, but quickly dismissed the idea.  Most likely he would fly
over, see that her assailant was out cold, and move on to other
cries for help.

A tickling sensation on her thigh caused her to look down.  To her
dismay, she saw that she had ripped the right side seam of her
skirt clear up to the top of her thigh.

"Great!" she exclaimed, her pretty features molding into a frown
as she flicked her hand at the dangling threads.  She turned to
her would-be assailant, still out cold.  "Thanks a lot!  You made
me ruin a perfectly good skirt, too!"

She shook her head.  This just wasn't her day.  With one last
growl of aggravation, she stomped back to the sidewalk.

Wasted opportunities.  She hated those more than anything.

***********

By the end of the day, that wasted opportunity proved to be more
monumental than she could have imagined.  She had struck out in
all her attempts to track down information on the whereabouts of
the city's hero.  She had talked to many of the city beat's
reporters, and not a single one of them knew anything.  They were
as clueless as she was.  Or maybe they just saw her as competition
and weren't about to help her beat them out of a scoop.  She
supposed if she were in their shoes, she would keep any
information she had to herself, too.

Lois leaned back in the chair at her temporary desk and pouted at
the useless notes in her hand.  There had to be something--some
piece of information she was overlooking.  Surely there were clues
to this man's whereabouts.  If there were, though, she certainly
hadn't found them.

She shook her head in frustration.  She'd come all the way across
the country to get the story, and what did she have to show for it
after an entire day?  Nothing.  She was used to being the best, at
having other reporters follow her lead.  Here she felt like one of
the pack, a faceless person in the crowd.

And she hated it.

She shifted her gaze from her notes to the afternoon edition of
the Daily Planet on her desk.  A picture of the hero rescuing the
people from the burning apartment building loomed larger than life
on the front page.  She leaned forward and picked up the paper.
The headline reported "Mysterious Hero Strikes Again!"

Lois read the article half-heartedly, noting that at the bottom of
the column, there was a brief report of the hero's other feats of
the day--the bomb scare at the bank and the multi-car pile up.

Suddenly the wheels in her head started to turn.  Nobody had been
able to find the hero, but he was clearly adept at finding people-
-people in trouble, that is.  She grumbled at herself once again
for wasting the perfect opportunity earlier for him to rescue her.
It was exactly the kind of thing he would respond to--a damsel in
distress.

That made her smile.  He wasn't exactly a knight in shining armor,
but he clearly was to some.  He was to those women she'd overheard
at the fire.

Lois's thoughts screeched to a halt.  Those women at the fire.
One had said she would gladly throw herself off a building to get
his attention.

Lois let that thought tumble around in her mind.  Would something
like that work?  Hadn't she thought just a short time ago about
waking up her would-be assailant to ask him to try to mug her
again?  The idea was ridiculous, but the fact remained--this hero
responded to cries for help.  What if she were to set herself up?
To put herself in peril and then call for help?

She rolled her eyes at herself.  She was as desperate as the women
at the fire.

She forced her mind back to the more conventional methods of
tracking the guy down, methods that people expected a respected
journalist like her to use.  But after several more minutes of
looking over her notes, she realized she'd exhausted her
conventional methods.  It was time for something different.  And
gathering information on unconventional story subjects called for
using unconventional means.

Lois stood up from her desk.  It was worth a try.  At this point,
anything was worth a try.  She started to walk away, but then
stopped.  Where was she going?  She hadn't given any thought to
what kind of peril she wanted to put herself in.  Tie herself to
train tracks?  Dangle herself over a cliff?  No, those seemed a
little dramatic.

That made Lois laugh out loud, but she quickly bit her lip to
stifle her laughter when several people nearby eyed her strangely.

'Dramatic?' she thought with a shake of her head.  'Putting
yourself in peril to get *anybody's* attention is dramatic, no
matter what it is you do.'

Accepting that, she decided to go for a simpler, less involved
means of peril.  The roof.  It was close, convenient, and equally
as dangerous.  It was several stories off the ground.  You would
be just as dead when you hit the ground as you would be if a train
ran over you.

Her mind made up, Lois located the back stairs.  She glanced
around as she reached for the doorknob, not wanting anyone to stop
her.  Nobody was looking, so she quietly slipped into the
stairwell and began to climb the stairs to the roof.

She was winded but determined when she reached her destination and
stepped out onto the roof.  The sounds of the city drifted up to
her on the early evening breeze, and dusk blurred the colors of
her surroundings into a more monochromatic color scheme.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to stay focused on the
matter at hand--her staged peril.  With determined footsteps, she
strode to the low brick wall indicating the edge of the roof.  The
sounds of the traffic below caught her attention and she glanced
over the edge.

"Whoa."  The word slipped from her mouth before she realized she
was saying it.  Looking down, she suddenly felt faint of heart.
The ground was a long way away.

'Of course it's a long way away,' the voice in the back of her
head goaded her on.  'It's what you needed, isn't it?  Where
there's danger, there's the city's new hero.  Did you think he
would rush to save you if you were jumping of a park bench?'

Somewhere below her a siren wailed.  She stared at the rush-hour
traffic several stories down, watching the stop and go motion as
the traffic lights turned from red to green.  Yes, if she were to
put herself in danger, this was a good way to do it.

'Step up onto the wall and jump.  It's as simple as that,' the
voice in her head instructed her boldly.  'Make sure to scream,
though.  You wouldn't want your efforts to be for nothing, would
you?'

Lois shuffled her feet forward until her toes were pressed against
the base of the wall.  She leaned forward out over the edge,
spotting dozens of dark spots moving around on the sidewalks far
below.  With a gulp, she realized they were people.

Suddenly this didn't seem like such a good idea.

'Lois Lane isn't afraid of anything,' the voice piped up once
again.  'Just do it.  Jump and scream.  That's all there is to
it.'

Lois contemplated the ground for one more excruciating minute,
then backed away.

'Chicken.'

"Yeah, well, I have an aversion to dying," she snapped aloud to
the mocking voice in her head.

Feeling torn between being disappointed with herself for not
having the nerve to throw herself off the roof, and relief that
she didn't have to put the new hero's hearing to the test, she
straightened her blouse and smoothed the front of her skirt before
walking back to the roof's stairwell door.  Taking risks in her
profession was second nature, but even for her, this one was too
risky.  Besides, this was her first day in Metropolis.  If she got
really desperate by her last day there, she would probably be
desperate enough to get up on that wall.

She emerged from the stairwell into the newsroom only a couple
minutes later and took a deep breath.  'Now what?' she asked
herself.  'You don't exactly have a lot of options.'

'Try no options.'  The pesky voice in her head was back, reminding
her of the dead end she was facing.

She frowned.  She had to admit, she was stuck.  The coffee machine
caught her eye, and she made a beeline for it, deep in thought.
She hadn't managed to catch the hero's attention at any of the
rescues she'd made it to that day, she'd wasted her opportunity by
knocking out her mugger, and she'd chickened out of jumping off
the roof.

'Lois Lane, you are losing your edge,' she told herself silently
as she poured herself a cup of coffee and added two sugars.

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes as she turned and leaned
up against the bar, stirring her coffee and thinking.  As
impossible as this seemed at the moment, there had to be a way to
track this man down.  She didn't come all the way across the
country to let the story slip away from her.  She was the best.
She was supposed to find ways to do the impossible.

The Planet's morning edition lying on the bar's counter caught her
eye.  She leaned forward, studying the article about the hero.
Her eyes traveled to the by-line.  'Clark Kent,' she read for the
second time that day.

"That's it!" she exclaimed, standing upright and causing some of
her newly poured coffee to slosh over the edge onto the floor.
"Why didn't I think of it before?"

With a burst of adrenaline, she scurried towards Perry White's
office.

**********

"You want me to set you up with Clark Kent?"  Perry cocked an
inquisitive eyebrow at her.  "I thought you didn't want a
partner."

Lois bit back a retort.  It had been a long day and she wasn't in
the mood for this. But before she could vent her frustration, she
reminded herself that she was in somebody else's newsroom.  She
took a long, deep breath before responding.  "I don't want to be
partnered with him; I just want to talk to him about how he
managed to get hold of this hero guy."

A look of amusement crossed Perry's features.  "Crapped out, huh?
I figured that somebody with your experience and resourcefulness
wouldn't have any trouble tracking him down."

Lois stiffened.  She couldn't decide if Perry was sympathizing
with her or poking a little fun at her.  Either way, after the day
she'd just had, she didn't need to be reminded that her
investigation had come up lacking.  "I'm not having trouble," she
told him, trying to keep her tone neutral, "it's just...taking a
little longer than I expected."

"I see."  Perry barely managed to contain the grin tugging at the
corners of his mouth.  As an attempt to disguise it, he leaned
forward and glanced down at the papers on his desk, the same ones
he'd been going over when she'd burst through his office door with
barely a knock.

He cleared his throat, then continued.  "Well, uh, Clark Kent was
the one I was going to have you talk with this morning.  I figured
that not only does he know the city well, but he's already managed
to track down our local hero once and just might be able to do it
again."  He looked up, this time not bothering to hide his smug,
amused smile.  "If you hadn't been in such a hurry to go off and
do your own investigating, you could have saved yourself a lot of
time."

Lois bristled at the I-told-you-so undertone to his voice.  It
reminded her of her father's, so many years ago.  "Look," she
said, quickly losing what little patience she had left.  "Can I
talk to him or not?  Maybe I can get something out of him that
would be useful."

"Sure, you could talk to him," Perry said with a shrug, restoring
his business-like demeanor when he sensed he'd pushed her too far.
"He may not be very forthcoming with information, though.  He
won't say how he managed to get the interview, or even if he can
reliably contact the man again."

"I think it's worth a shot.  Talking to him can't hurt, can it?"

Perry studied the determined look on her face for a moment, then
finally nodded.  "Last time I saw him he was at his desk.  Come
on, I'll introduce you."

They walked out of his office together, and Perry gestured to a
dark-haired man sitting a few desks away.  Lois was surprised to
see that Clark Kent was a good-looking, well-built man about
thirty years old, dressed in a nicely tailored gray suit.  The
crisp white shirt was a stark contrast to his olive complexion,
and a bold burgundy and yellow tie gave his otherwise sharp outfit
a touch of personality.  If she had allowed herself a moment to
think about something other than tracking down the city's elusive
superhero, she might have stopped to consider the fact that he
wasn't wearing a wedding ring.  As it was, she filed the tidbit
away in her mind for a later time.

Clark was focused on his computer screen as they approached,
engrossed in whatever it was he was working on.  He didn't pull
his eyes away from his monitor until Perry's booming voice sounded
beside him.

"Kent, I'd like you to meet somebody."

Clark looked up amiably, giving her a glimpse of beautiful,
intelligent brown eyes behind stylish tortoise-shell frame
glasses.  When their eyes met, however, Clark's body stiffened and
a guarded expression replaced his open, friendly one.  She was
both surprised and intrigued by his abrupt change of expression.

Perry continued on with his introduction.  "Clark Kent, this is
Lois Lane, from the San Francisco Chronicle.  She's here to try to
do a story on our new hero.  Lois Lane, Clark Kent--the one who
already nailed down an exclusive."  Perry said the last statement
proudly, and he clapped the rather anxious-looking young man on
the shoulder.  "Ms. Lane has had a bit of trouble tracking down
our local hero to get an interview with him, and she wondered if
you might be able to help her with that."

Lois watched as Clark's Adam's apple moved as he swallowed.  'Is
it just me, or does he seem nervous?' she couldn't help wondering.
He got slowly to his feet, then extended a hand.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Lane."  His voice was deep and strong, but
his hand barely grasped hers before he pulled it back.

Her eyes narrowed.  Was this one of those situations Perry had
warned her about, when his staff would not be very welcoming
because she would be considered competition for the new hero's
story?  He'd already gotten the exclusive, though.  He should be
feeling superior, if anything, shouldn't he?  Or maybe because of
his exclusive, he felt like he owned the hero?

Lois's jaw tightened.  'Well, he doesn't,' she thought irritably.
'Besides, he had his shot and blew it.  Now it's my turn, and if
he doesn't like it, he can just go to--'

"Ms. Lane, did you hear me?"

Lois pulled herself from her increasingly irritable thoughts and
turned to Perry, who was looking at her expectantly.  "I'm sorry?"
she asked.

"I was just saying that if Jimmy can be of any assistance, you
should give him a holler.  Okay?"

She nodded, then turned back to Clark, fixing him with a
determined stare.  He actually flinched.

Lois's brow furrowed.  What was with this guy?  He looked like a
deer caught in the headlights.  How had he managed such an
important exclusive when he was clearly afraid of his own shadow?
He was obviously a hack, who had fallen into the story with a
great deal of luck.  Not that she had anything against luck; luck
was often a journalist's greatest friend.  But this guy--it hardly
seemed fair that he had been able to nail the first big exclusive
on Metropolis's newest media sensation, when she, herself, had
worked long and hard for a chance like this.  It should have been
hers.

'It will be,' she told herself. 'And it will be the expose of the
century.  All you have to do is find out how this hack of a
reporter tracked down the hero.  And don't you dare let him tell
you no.'

~*~*~*~*~

Perry's brows furrowed in confusion as he watched the two
reporters standing before him, staring at each other.  The tension
between them was palpable.  'Is there something going on here that
I don't understood?' he wondered.

He watched as the two reporters stood, eyeing each other--Clark's
expression wary, Lois's determined.  Perry tried hard to hide the
smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  'Apparently so,' he
thought, answering his own question.

It was an interesting moment, watching the two size each other up.
His gaze went from one to the other, comparing them.  Clark hadn't
been at the Planet for very long; a few months was all.  But in
that amount of time, he'd come to like his new investigative
reporter.  He had a wonderful writing style that was honest and
likeable.  He was a hard worker, if somewhat mild-mannered by
nature.  He never did anything halfway, if his few short months
there had been any indication, and he was impressed by that.  He
had high hopes for him.

But when he turned to Lois Lane, it was easy to see the strong
contrast between the two reporters.  Kent was easy going,
determined yet polite, and thoughtful.  He loved to run a good
investigation, but he tried to never step on anyone's toes in the
process.  Lane, on the other hand, was independent, passionate,
and demanding.  He'd only known her a day, but from the moment
she'd stepped into his office that morning, he'd sensed she was a
reporter who wouldn't take no for an answer...no matter what.

She'd been polite enough to him, but he could tell there was an
underlying hunger that would push her to the brink.  He'd had a
little fun testing that breaking point in his office just a short
time before, and was not surprised to see an underlying temper
that could prove volatile under more familiar circumstances.  With
a smile, he wondered how many times his old friend Jim Langley had
been on the receiving end of that temper.

He shook his head and chuckled to himself.  He'd hate to be in the
shoes of the person who set her off, or wouldn't give her what she
wanted.

Perry decided to slip away to his office, and did so