Does One Kiss Change Everything?

MULTIPLE BODIES UNEARTHED AT SMALLVILLE CEMETERY

By Lois Lane

Following this reporter’s encounter with the mysterious assailant responsible for a rash of disappearances in the local cemetery in the rural Kansas town of Smallville, the sheriff’s office conducted a more thorough search of the grounds, using sophisticated underground detection equipment. The result was a grisly find of several bodies in hollowed out graves. The victims had gone undetected until now because there was no evidence of how the bodies were interred….

***********

Clark slammed the paper on the kitchen table, almost burning a hole through her name with his heat vision from sheer frustration.

“Lois is still not taking your calls?” Martha Kent asked, judging from the stormy expression on her son’s face as she stepped into the kitchen.

“No,” he muttered with darkly. “Every time I do manage to get her on the phone, she says she’s running out somewhere and can’t talk.”

Martha poured herself some coffee and looked at Clark. “Honey if you want to see her, then just go see her. It’s not like she can hide from you of all people, forever.”

His mother had a point but Clark didn’t just want to show up at Lois’ apartment at the Talon, giving her no choice but to see him. However, the arguments against doing it was becoming more and more trivial the longer he had to wait to see her.

“I don’t understand it,” Clark said folding the Inquisitor and shoving it away from him so he wouldn’t look at the article with Lois’ name glaring back at him. “I mean if this was Lana, we’d be talking about our feelings, about being honest with each other. We’d be spending hours with it but Lois on the hand, prefers to believe it never happened.”

Martha hid the smile that wanted to come, aware that this was a subject of real concern to her son even if age gave her a little bit of insight in understanding Lois’ behavior.

Since the day the two had wandered into each others orbit, they were opposites in every way. Clark, for all his powers, was almost painfully shy at times, prone to brooding and hiding how he felt, never saying what he meant almost until it was too late. On the other hand, Lois was sassy, fearless, not one to dwell and almost always blurted out what was on her mind, no matter how inappropriate it was. As different as they were, they were also very much alike and that created some interesting sparks between the two, although the suggestion to either prior to this had made both balk in denial.

How they had arrived at this place was not only surprising but damn near miraculous in Martha’s opinion.

“Clark,” Martha sighed. “Lois isn’t Lana,” she reminded gently. “You too have been at each others throats since you both met. The sudden change in your relationship has got to be a little overwhelming for Lois. Maybe she just needs time to sort out how she feels.”

“Time,” Clark snorted. “Why is it, it’s always me that has to be patient, who has to wait? She kissed me, I didn’t kiss her and now she’s just run off like it didn’t matter.”

“I’m sure the kissing was mutual Clark,” Martha looked at her son with a raised brow. “And if it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be taking such pains to stay away.”

Clark rose from his chair and went to the window, staring down the drive that led onto the Kent property, almost wishing that he could see that car of hers driving up. “I didn’t think I’d feel this way about anyone else, after Lana. It’s like some cruel joke that it’s Lois and now that I’m ready to deal with it, she runs off!”

“My,” Martha rolled her eyes, “how flattering.”

Clark turned to give Martha a look. “You know what I mean.”

“Honey,” she sighed, seeing that his disposition was going to resemble a bear with a thorn in its foot until he had his answers. “If you’re that determined to see her, go but just let her make the first move.”

“I know, I know,” he nodded, already walking towards the door and grabbing his coat from the rack. “You can lead the nag to water but you can’t make Lois drink.”

Martha winced and stared at her son with the same exasperation as he was feeling towards Miss Lane at this moment, before adding, “don’t open with that.”

*************

It took Clark less than five minutes to get to the Talon and he knew she was home because he had called just before Martha had come down to breakfast and she was still in her apartment. As he made his way up the stairs leading to her front door, Clark risked a peek with his x-ray vision and saw her skeletal frame moving about the room. Taking a deep breath, he thought on what his mom had said before he left home and told himself to let her do the talking and interject when she had a chance to catch her breath.

Which could be awhile where Lois was concerned.

Knocking on the door, he waited patiently, determined that she would not widen further this space she was putting between them. He heard her footsteps approaching the door, strangely devoid of the edge that shoes seemed to have and was about to look through the door, when it opened and Lois was standing there, clutching a towel wrapped around her wet form.

“Smallville?” She exclaimed, her eyes darting to her state of dress before hiding behind the door and peering at him through the crack. “What are you doing here? I told you I was busy.”

“Another hour and half shower?” He looked at her skeptically, trying not to notice how her skin seemed to glisten with that fine sheen of water over it. It seemed almost luminescent. “What do you do in there anyway?” He asked.

“None of your business,” Lois said haughtily. “Now if you don’t mind,” she started to shut the door.

Clark’s hand shot out and held it open.

“I do mind,” he said meeting her gaze with a determined expression on his face. “Lois, we need to talk.”

“About what?” She feigned ignorance, giving his hand a dark look before moving to his face.

“About what happened.”

Lois let out a deep breath and turned around, entering the apartment, “look, we were in a situation of life and death. I was scared, feeling a little vulnerable and you were there. Let’s not make it anything more than it was.”

Clark would have almost taken her on her word that the kiss meant so little, if he didn’t know better. He remembered how it felt to kiss her, how it felt to hold her and more importantly, how it felt when she kissed him. “I don’t believe that Lois.” He said following her into the room and shutting the door behind him.

“You can believe what you want Smallville,” she turned to him. “This thing between us, it’s just physical! A reaction, nothing more! You’re hard up after Lana and me because I’m missing Ollie, it’s that simple.”

Clark bristled disliking it intensely whenever she brought up Lana. “Gee you don’t take any prisoners either do you?” He stared at her. “Is it so impossible to believe that you and me….”

“YES!” Lois stared at him with exasperation. “I don’t fall for the nice guys Clark! I fall for the guys that are almost always evil! Have you not present for almost ALL my dates since I’ve arrived in Smallville? And when it is the nice guys, I almost always screw it up. When that happens, they leave, I cry a little and go through a quart of ice cream with Chloe and move on. No harm no foul. But if I screw it up with you, I don’t just lose a boyfriend, I lose a friend, I lose Mrs. Kent, I lose a lot of things I’m not prepared to risk. “

“You won’t screw it up Lois,” Clark said looking at her with an enigmatic smile as the last few seconds had allowed him to reach an epiphany of sorts.

“How do you know that?” Lois retorted, the question was almost an accusation.

“Because I won’t let you,” he started to smile.

Throughout his entire relationship with Lana, Clark Kent had never known what to say. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he had fallen love with the girl before he ever exchanged a word with her, that in his mind, Lana was the epitome of his romantic aspirations. He was in love with her long before he ever knew her and more and more, Clark was starting to realize that perhaps that was why it never seemed to work with them. How much of his love for Lana was that schoolboy crush as opposed to the feelings that developed later? In his mind, he could tell Lana everything. In reality, he could barely tell her the truth.

With Lois, it was a roller coaster ride alright. There were no illusions about Lois, no dreams or romantic idealism. He knew her flaws, her eccentricities. He knew she could drive him mad like no one else on the planet (including Zod) and he also knew she was brave, devoted to her friends and surprisingly compassionate when they needed her to be. Did he love her? Clark didn’t know but to his surprise, he realized it would so easy to.

“Clark this is a bad idea,” she insisted, wondering if he could have given her a more perfect answer. “I’ve been a pain in the ass since I met you. I’m nothing like Lana, I’ll never shut up or cut you any slack. You can’t seriously think this is going to work.”

Clark was smiling at her, listening to the woman rant. A roller coaster, but God what a ride it would be.

“It will work,” he closed the distance between them, ignoring the buffer she was trying her very hardest to keep between them. Clark was even starting to understand that she was using Lana’s name as a shield, a way to push him back when he got just a little too close.

No more.

A part of him would always care for Lana Lang. First loves were the hardest to forget but true loves, that was something else entirely and when he kissed her this time, when Clark Kent’s lips touched Lois Lane again, he knew with a certainty he had never felt with Lana, that this wouldwork.

Goddamn, Lois managed a scattered thought. The farm boy really knew how to kiss.

Their mouths molded to each other with the same sensual harmony and the plunder that began as he took from her all she was willing to give, was the sweetest that either had ever known. Clark’s hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her close but as always, Lois took it one step further. Her fingers were running through his hair, her body was pliant and fluid against his. Their tongues dueled in an intense contest of thrust and parry, with both struggling for dominance. She tasted so sweet and felt so perfect against his body that he wondered if he hadn’t been waiting for her all his life.

For Lois, the feeling that this was right washed over her like a warm tide and finally she began to believe to that maybe this time, this time, she wouldn’t screw it up after all.

“Well I hate to interrupt this but I’m afraid I’ve got plans of my own,” A decidedly masculine voice violated the moment abruptly.

Clark pulled away from Lois’ lips just long enough to see the same man he had seen in the cemetery moments before he had gone plunging into the ground, standing before them inside Lois’ apartment. Clark was about to react to the intrusion when suddenly, he was falling through the floor.

“CLARK!” He heard Lois scream before her voice grew distant.

Clark suddenly found himself passing through Lois’ floor boards and emerging on the other side, being the ceiling of the Talon. Beneath him, a couple of high school kids gathered around a table broke his fall as he landed on them hard. Screams of shock and pain followed as the table collapsed beneath him and the entire place where he had crashed became a tangle of limbs, broken wood and up ended chairs.

“LOIS!” Clark shouted as he broke free of the mess and ran upstairs, cursing his inability to use his super speed as he disappeared up the staircase and went to her door. It was still locked and wasting no time trying to open it, Clark burst through, shattering the lock and ripping up wood from the door frame.

However, when he stepped inside, there was no sign of the intruder or Lois.

Both were gone.