Investigations Into
Interoffice Relations

Chapter 4

Ben yanked Jenny back out of the elevator and dragged her back in the bullpen.

"Ow! I have to go to circulation," said Jenny.

"No, trust me, you want to stay for this," said Ben.

Jenny found herself in a corner pod occupied by inter-desk reporters. The slightly higher walls hid half a dozen people crowded around one of the computers.

"What's going on?"

"Shhh!" someone said.

Lois Lane's voice, slightly jaggy, came from the computer speakers. "-- made a deal and I'm going to protect my source."

Jenny pressed closer to the desk. The screen only showed an animated colour pattern typical of built-in music software but instead of songs, she definitely heard an extremely pissed of Lois.

"What are you guys doing?" Jenny hissed.

"Remember Inez's pen project?" asked Ben.

"The hidden recorder pen that Perry nixed because of possible lawsuits? Then he told her to get rid of all of them or he'd fire her?"

"Yeah, that one. Well, Inez couldn't figure out where one of them was so she got Yan Ping to set up one of her freaky programs to look for it. Except triangulating the signal makes the recorder turn on for some reason." Ben's grin was kind of freaky.

"Lane, your source flies around in a blue footie pyjamas and a cape. He's not exactly hiding." Perry White's voice came through deep and clear.

Jenny gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. She peered around the corner of the pod walls. From where she stood, she saw Perry White's closed doors and shut blinds. Lois' desk was empty. Out of habit, she checked Clark's. He wasn't there either.

"Guys, this is so wrong," said Jenny.

Ben nodded. "I know. And yet, we can't stop."

"He agreed to one interview," said Lois. "I got you two and the promise that I would respect his privacy from then on."

"He's not a private citizen anymore."

"Bullshit."

"He's got a point, Lois." The third voice in the argument was Clark's.

Principles or not, Jenny couldn't leave now.

"Don't start with me, Kent."

"This isn't just about exclusives, Lane," said Perry. "You've never made a secret of the fact that you have certain stances on issues and that's great. The readers respond to that. But you have a bias towards Superman and this paper is dedicated to nonpartisan, full-facet coverage--"

"That's even bigger bullshit!"

"Lane--"

"No! This piece is a hatchet job! You publish this and you'll shove his failures into his face as if he wasn't fully aware of--"

"The public doesn't know if he's aware of his failures or not," Clark said. "All they know is that Superman's supposed to save them and he dropped the ball--"

"Superman's supposed to help us help ourselves," Lois snapped. "He never set himself up to be a saviour."

"Nevertheless the expectation is--"

"He's not responsible for expectations of every stupid--"

"--can't understand why he stops one car crash but not another--"

"--think he's a genie they can conjure every time they screw up--"

"--use his power responsibly throughout the board and when he doesn't--"

"Both of you shut up," Perry barked.

"This article isn't fair, Perry," said Lois. Papers crackled as though she'd crumpled the article in question. "It doesn't even try to be."

"Which is why we're fact-checking it to hell and back," said Clark. "But it needs to be written."

"Why? So people will be afraid again? So they'll lose hope? So they'll remember how apathetic and helpless we all felt before Superman came and showed us every person can make a difference? Please, Kent, since you're obviously an expert in human psyche after spending years running around the world not even admitting you're a journalist, teach us how tearing apart the one happy beacon in the dusty fucking wreck that is Metropolis is supposed to be good for us all."

Everyone in the pod held their breath. Jenny had seen Lois on a rampage before but never this up close and personal. Lois Lane's passion was part of the reason she wrote so well but hearing instead of reading felt different. An unedited Lois Lane was a freaking mad dog.

Clark responded with one quiet word. "Lois."

There was so much in the way he said her name that Jenny's cheeks heated as if she was in Perry's office watching her parents shout at each other and, yeah, that's her own baggage but she can't stand to listen any more.

"Guys, shut it down." she said. When no one moved, she leaned over to turn the speakers off.

Ben pulled her back. "What the fuck, Olsen?"

"You needed to find the recorder. Congratulations, you did. Can we all go now?"

"They haven't finished," said Inez.

"But we have," said Jenny. "The longer you listen in, the higher the chance you'll get caught. I'm not risking this job for that."

"And who's gonna tell?" asked someone she didn't know.

"You're spying on Lois Lane," Jenny said. "You really think she won't find out?"

Ben cough-choked. Jenny turned on her heel and headed for the elevators again. With half a foot to spare before the elevator doors closed, Lois elbowed them back open. She pressed the ground floor button repeatedly and forcefully, like she wanted to punch it instead. Or wanted to punch someone else. And Jenny had a pretty good idea who. He was quick-marching to the elevator right now, frowning but determined.

He started to reach one hand out.

"Piss off, Kent." Lois crossed her arms.

Clark's entire demeanour fell. The doors slid closed to his bowed head on one side and Lois' stiff glare on the other. They were really mad. At each other. And suddenly, Jenny felt awful for treating them like life-sized dolls even in her imagination.

Lois came home from the night desk to a bare table and Clark sitting on a perfectly made bed, staring out the window. She hadn't expected him to have slept; he preferred to nap in the afternoon and work through the night when his heightened senses would be the most help. She dropped her purse by the dresser. Clark turned his head toward her and attempted a smile, but it was an effort. Sorrow radiated off his shoulders. His hands fisted and uncurled on the edge of the mattress. The bed dipped so low, she was afraid he'd break the frame.

Lois sat beside him. She took his hand. His fingers shook. Lois normally disliked excessive displays of romance but Clark just looked so devastated, she couldn't help but kiss the palm of his hand before resting it on her lap.

"I forgot to get brunch," Clark said.

"I don't care," Lois told him.

"I'll get some now." But he didn't move. He didn't seem to have the energy.

"I don't care, Clark." She turned to kiss his arm, then rested her head on his shoulder, settling more firmly against his side.

"I'm sorry. Last night was... The work wasn't difficult but..." He shook his head and stared at his empty left hand.

Lois held that one, too, and gave it a squeeze. She wished he'd return the gesture.

"Remember the Newsweek piece?" Clark asked. "The one published four days after the attack calculating the damages made to Metropolis with the infographic that went viral."

She couldn't believe he still dwelled on that fucking article. "You're helping off-set the cleaning and building costs. Without your help, it would've taken weeks instead of hours to find living victims and there would have been even more casualties. Hell, without you, there wouldn't be an Earth left."

"Without me, Zod would never have found Earth," Clark countered bitterly. "They followed the distress beacon I turned on in the scouting ship."

"You couldn't have known what they would do."

"We worked within half a mile of ground zero today, Lois. There's still so much rubble. Between cement and steel, I was picking up parts of--" His entire body shuddered, his breath wheezing out of his chest. "There aren't even entire bodies to... just a-a-a leg or h-half a skull. There was a... I thought it was rebar but it was a... "

"Clark." Lois swung around to face him. She planted her knees on either side of his hips and cupped his head, forcing him to meet her gaze. She never wanted to see this expression on his face ever again. If she could, she'd tear all that guilt and grief from him, and throw it into the sun. She wanted to resurrect Zod just so she could kill him all over again for making this man hurt. "Clark, honey, look at me. Look at me, Clark."

She grabbed his limp hands and pressed them against her cheeks then held his head in her own hands once more, this time gently, her thumbs caressing the lines bracketing his frown.

"Do you trust me?"

"With my mother's life," he whispered.

"Then believe what I'm going to say." She leaned in close, closer, until their noses practically touched and Lois could see the patches of brown bisecting the nebula-blue of his eyes. "This wasn't your fault."

"But I--"

She slid her fingers around to his curls and gave him a little shake. "With your mother's life, Clark."

He audibly swallowed, his breathing still broken.

"It's not your fault. I believe this with everything I am, from a completely unbiased and logical point of view, and since you trust me with your mother's life, you have to believe what I'm saying is true."

"Lois," he gasped, and Lois couldn't stand to hear the pain in his voice again so she lunged past the final two inches separating them to shut him up with a kiss.

Although she made her living with words, Lois always felt at a loss describing Clark's kisses. She had her first boyfriend at fifteen and many others in the years since along with one-night stands and fuck buddies. Some had more experience than her, some had less. She'd genuinely liked some of them, possibly loved one, and simply enjoyed the bodies of the rest. She'd had dry, sloppy, breath-taking, tongue-waggling, toothsome kisses. She'd had sweet busses on the cheek and wonderfully filthy kisses to her lady bits.

Clark's kisses made her want to cry. Not because they were in any way awful. Clark put everything he had on the table when he kissed her. He poured every ounce of his feelings in the way he tasted her lower lip and slid his tongue across the roof of her mouth; the way he invited her to taste him; in the breaths he sipped from the back of her throat, and the breaths he'd offer; how he melted-- this immovable force of nature melted into her-- until she felt the pounding of his heart against hers. She had never felt more cherished, more respected, more... goddammit, it was too soon to say that word but she felt it and it made her want to cry because she knew he meant it without expectation.

"Lois," he said again, his voice like muted thunder.

She pushed him-- he let her push him-- back onto the bed, still straddling his body. His hands slid to her waist. This was familiar, this prelude to sex. This was the part where she rocked against the bulge in his jeans or stripped off her shirt. She could still.

But first Lois took Clark's hand, pressed a kiss against his palm, and placed it over her heart. Then she held her hand against his lips. The darkness leeched out of his eyes. Clark kissed the centre of her palm. Lois placed it over his heart.

She stretched across his body, their hands trapped between their bodies. Lois held him for hours until the raggedness in his breath evened out. She swore she'd always be there to hold him.

The soundtrack continues.
The Hush Sound - You Are The Moon