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Coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee.

Lois couldn’t remember the last time she had REAL coffee and it was driving her up the walls. A few hours before arriving here? Was that it? She’d been so busy freaking out and running around the city and looking for her missing cousin that coffee had taken a backseat that day, and she wished she had.

Everything in this place would be a lot better if she had caffiene in her system, and that’s why she was sitting in the Sensoriums, in a nice little Metropolis coffee shop, with a copy of the Daily Planet on the table in front of her, enjoying fake-coffee at her leisure. When life gave you fake coffee, the only thing to do was take it and privately grumble about nothing in particular.

She uncapped a conveniently provided permanent marker, and blackened out the header (“CITY TO EXPAND BUS ROUTES PAST SHUSTER AVENUE”) and marked in her own words in big block letters.

STAR REPORTER LOIS LANE KIDNAPED BY ALIEN SPACESHIP.

(Okay, so it was a bit cramped.)

Lois sat back in her seat, taking another sip of coffee, and contemplated opening lines. Probably something to do with “taking it in stride, once again punching life in the face”, but that seemed a bit unprofessional.

So she wrote:

Witnesses battle over a football, finds a death pen, scottish boys and ~~medeival~~ m Medivel nights and Smallville’s meteor freak cousin and lives to tell the tale

She chewed on the end of the marker for a sec, and then slammed it down in frustration.

“Who am I kidding? They won’t run this. I’m going to be shoved in Belle Reve the second I open my mouth.”

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Lois stares for a moment, thankful she didn't have anything in her mouth. Given her last experience with Luthorcorp clones, she's instantly wary, but that's nothing a few questions can't solve.

"So let me get this right. You're a superpowered clone of... Clark Kent?"

She narrows her eyes at Conner, curiously.

"Not necessarily. Maybe."

He needs to think of the best way to say this.

"I have enough DNA from him to look kinda like him, and the Kents took me in, hence the name. I also have DNA from other places, possibly the Red-Blue Blur, which lets me do a lot of handy things, and also DNA from...someone I'd rather not have DNA from. I have DNA from a couple sources, though."

It isn't just a fifty-fifty split down the middle, after all. He does have some DNA from people as 'buffers' of a sort. Filler.

And that should confuse Lois enough to not make the connection between Clark and Mr. Blur there, or give him room to deny it, at least.

She absorbs it.

"Wow. Okay. Thank god I've dealt with weirder, otherwise, my brain might have just committed suicide when faced with processing that," she says, finally. "Firstly, assuming you carry over to my world, too, it means some people know far more about the Blur than they're letting on. Secondly, why anyone would choose Smallville for a DNA sample is beyond me, but he loves kids so I can see why he'd take you in."

Lois picks up her marker and smirks.

"You're lucky you got the Kent looks instead of the geek gene."

"It's...weird. Just... it's all very weird and obsessive and creepy, and weird. I exist for a lot of weird reasons. I had multiple people creating me for different reasons. If any one of them had gotten their way, I'd be a brain-washed machine-person serving the whims of whoever had hijacked my brain. A tool, not a person."

He pushes a hand through his hair, and mutters,

Shaking his head, he says, "I wandered around for a while on my own, and I did okay, but even though I was mentally and physically aged up to be a teenager, and had a lot of information downloaded into my head, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, technically, I'm only five years old, right now. But I had a few people that looked out for me, and K-Clark always did. Eventually, he brought me to the Kents and they gave me a home."

He looks up at her, his expression warm. "Clark was pretty much the first one that took me aside and treated me like a person--he gave me a name. He's a lot older where I'm from--well, not old old, but married and everything, so the cousin act works. I get compared to him constantly, in, uh, a lot of ways, but it's not a big deal."

"Well, if it helps, so far you're not all that bad, and if you've got the Blur's heroics in there somewhere, I can tolerate you being around," Lois says. She's teasing.

"But, you know, for all the flack I give him, he really is a great guy," she says, her voice getting a bit softer. Even if she's definitely, totally and completely over his unreliable behind, Clark Kent really isn't all that bad. He's a good friend, a good shoulder to cry on, and he does what he's told. Usually, anyway.

She has to give a snort of laughter at the "married" comment.

"But married? Did Lana Lang finally come back to Smallville for good? I can just see her waddling around the farm, ready to pop out a few kids, Clark working the fields and bringing in the harvest, rounding up the cows."

Kon hides a grin behind his hand.

"Mmm, he's not a farmer. I'm the one that helps Ma and Pa with the farm and everything."

C'mon, stop grinning.

"He's a reporter for the Daily Planet."

"Really? He STUCK with it? That's pretty surprising; whenever Lana's around he goes right back to the farm with her. I'm pretty sure he missed half of his deadlines last time she came back," Lois replies. "I better have a boyfriend or something, though. No way is Kent getting back on the dating horse before me."

But there's a sobering thought. Pa? As in Jonathan Kent? Lois is so close to putting her foot in her mouth on that one and announce that he's dead, but she just hides that discomfort by taking a swig of coffee and moving on. No need to announce to the kid that a loved one is dead in another universe, no sir.

"You don't wear plaid, do you?"

He's having a lot of trouble not outright giggling here, but it's just kinda funny to him that this Lois is completely oblivious to the fact that Clark is/is gonna be/is in another universe completely bonkers over her.

"You're married, too, don't worry."

Don't snort, don't snort.

"And sure, sometimes, but definitely not by choice. Plaid's the latest in bumpkin fashion and I have to fit in, so..."

Edited 2009-09-25 03:49 (UTC)

"Good, because if I had to teach a SECOND Kent boy how to dress himself for the public..."

She gives him a pointed look, and then launches into the good stuff.

"So who am I married to?"

If he says he can't say or else it'll change the future, she's going to smack him upside the head, superpowers or not.

Kon just looks upward and twiddles his fingers together.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"No, come on, let's hear it."

"I don't knoooow. I mean, that could alter the timeline and everything," Kon still twiddles his fingers together. "But I guess since it's not technically your future and more just what could be your future, and it's not a big secret, it's okay to tell you."

Hmm.

"How to word this..."

Hmmmmmmmmm.

"Clark works at the Daily Planet with his wife. My version of Lois Lane--that'd be you--works at the Daily Planet with her husband." Here he snorts. "Do I need to drop a bigger hint or is that one brick-sized enough?"

Edited 2009-09-25 04:14 (UTC)

Her heart stops and starts about a dozen times while she stares

And then she laughs that laugh that says she is totally unsure about this.

"No. No way. Clark Kent and I are strictly on different wavelengths, and the girls he goes for are total damsels in distress and I am anything but. And you know, that one time we pretended to be married while snooping around? Was the furthest thing from marital bliss. If we can't pretend to be married for five minutes, I have no idea how that'll work out in reality."

This is like her stupid drunk fantasies mating with bizarro land where Clark isn't Mr. Emotionally Unavailable.

"No, seriously. Who's the lucky guy?"

"I'm not messing with you. Different dimension, remember? But give the guy a chance. Give him enough time and he'll open up. That's just how he is."

"Clark and I would not work out in any dimension," she announces, but really, she is very tempted to wish her coffeehouse into a coffeehouse-plus-bar. No way. She's now examining every memory she has of Clark, feeling like she's missed something vital.

And then:

"Oh thank god, because this fortune teller told me, once, that I was destined for a guy who flew a lot and wears tights, so assuming that's right, Clark Kent and Lois Lane aren't meant to be in MY world." She pauses. "Not that I really believe in that stuff."

Kon tries really hard, but he just makes this odd spittake snorting sound that he can't really hold in.

"What was the fortune-teller's name?"

"I honestly don't remember–– and jeez, kid, don't have a heart attack, there. Does this look like a comedy club to you? Who cares if he's a cross-dressing pilot? I can do weird."

"Listen, Ms. Lane, there's a lot I can't tell you. Not my place to say. But I will tell you this--if you keep digging for the truth, if you keep doing all that reporter voodoo that you do, if don't give up on Ka--Clark, even when he disappears constantly and seems unreliable as heck, then in the end, you're going to be one of the only normal human people in the world that has pretty much front row seats to an entire world that's kinda overtop the one that's already there, where amazing people do these amazing, impossible, world-changing things."

He smirks at her.

"Front row seats. Front page stories. Byline after byline. Just to give you a hint, when I first showed up, you were the top reporter I dropped in on to tell my story to the world. That's how well-known you are." He rubs his chin. "Of course, you thought I was making the whole clone thing up and I wound up taking it to a rival reporter and it made her career, but that really didn't slow my version of Lois Lane down any."

He taps his temple.

"The main thing you've gotta do though--with everything--is keep an open mind. It'll pay off."

"I always knew I had this big destiny," she says, flippantly, to hide how utterly flattered and small she feels suddenly. She was pretty sure her destiny was clawing her way to the top with no guarantees of making it, and going through more failed relationships than Elizabeth Taylor.

Apparently not. Star reporter of the Daily Planet and Mrs. Clark Kent.

She's pretty sure she'd never look Clark in the eyes again.

Lois takes a sip of coffee, looks back up at Conner, and picks up a pastry from the basket on the table.

"I'd never call it quits just because someone else got the story, but that is old hat for me. I've done a piece on a Luthorcorp clone before. Not that I got to publish it, but, you know, that didn't turn out so well," she says, additionally, waving the pastry at him. "And trust me, after visiting Smallville, it's hard to keep a closed mind."

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