trans_9 | (no subject)

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.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."