When You Wish Upon a…

By LaraMoon <laramoon@mac.com>

Rated: G

Submitted: March 2009

Summary: Oh look, a shooting star! Or was that just Superman that Lois wished upon?

For Dandello. Request is at the end.

Set in S2. (i.e.: pre-revelation)

With thanks to Jessi and Jenn, for the support and everything else they graciously provide without so much as a complaint. <3

***

Lois served herself some punch and took a long sip from her glass. It tasted horrible. The hors-d’oeuvres were horrible, too. This entire shindig was just the worst thing ever.

For half a second, she contemplated pouring the contents of her glass right back into the bowl, but she had a funny feeling she’d get caught doing it, and she was in no mood to endure a lecture about etiquette or hygiene.

Whatever had possessed her to stick around for this poor excuse for a party was beyond her. It was one thing to work on New Year’s Day, but another one altogether to hang around after work for cocktails with everyone else who’d been working that day. It was a Daily Planet tradition — one that Lois had managed to escape every single year. Except this one…

Lois rolled her eyes at herself. Of course she was still here… There was no question she would be. Clark had asked her to stay, and Lois’s ability to say no to Clark Kent was very low. Especially since Christmas… Besides, Lois has a strong suspicion that he’d stayed in Metropolis — and around the office — on purpose, as he could easily have been in Smallville with his family. Especially since he hadn’t gone back home for Christmas the week before.

Sighing, Lois placed her glass of foul-tasting punch on the table and picked up a bottle of water instead — probably the only thing around that couldn’t possibly taste horrible. She turned and took a circular glance around the room, but found no one there she particularly wanted to strike up a conversation with.

Clark, of course, wasn’t there right now. He’d had to run off someplace, about a half hour ago. He was always running off somewhere, for no reason that ever really made any sense at all. Lois might have taken this opportunity to leave, but part of her just couldn’t abandon him; the fact that he wasn’t even around notwithstanding. He’d be back eventually — he always came back — and Lois knew that, if she went home now, Clark would be sad to see that she’d left before he returned.

Oh, but as soon as he came back, they were going to leave this sorry excuse for a party! In the meantime, Lois would just hang around and wait…

…and possibly plot her revenge.

Pretending not to have seen one of the assistant news editors — whose name she could barely remember — coming her way, Lois walked away from the buffet and headed toward one of the large windows overlooking Fifth Street. The usually busy thoroughfare was pretty much deserted tonight — most people were likely home, enjoying a relaxing New Year’s dinner with family. Which is exactly where Lois would be herself — minus the family part — were she not stuck here waiting for her partner to come back from wherever it was that he’d disappeared to this time.

He was in for quite an earful, the moment he returned. Oh, yeah. Lois would give him a good piece of her mind once and for all, and…

“Hey, look, a shooting star!” came Clark’s voice from right behind her.

Lois turned toward him, frowning. Unsure what to say, she just stared at him, her mouth hanging open slightly. She’d been so ready to chew him up for running off, but upon seeing him, looking all cheerful and happy, Lois had pretty much lost all desire to give him a hard time. At least for the time being.

Smiling warmly at her, Clark asked, “Did you make a wish?”

Lois rolled her eyes. “Nobody does that.”

“Of course they do!” Clark countered. “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true,” he offered as an argument.

“Mine never did,” Lois mumbled to herself.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing…” she lied. “But seriously, Clark! That’s a song from a Disney movie. Nobody in their right mind actually believes there’s any truth to it.”

“I do,” he answered, shrugging.

“Yeah, of course you do,” Lois replied, patting him on the arm affectionately. “I forget you believe in magic…”

“Well, yeah,” he said in a chuckle, as though it was perfectly natural that he’d believe in such things.

“You know… Sometimes I think you spend too much of your time around Superman. He’s rubbing off on—” Lois paused abruptly, frowned, then went on, “Or is it the other way around and you’re rubbing off on him? You guys are starting to sound more and more alike…”

A lopsided smile on his lips, Clark replied, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Lois grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him away. “Come on, I’ve had enough of this place for today, let’s go.”

“What— already? But I just got back,” he argued.

“Yes, and you’re lucky, too,” she replied, steering him toward her desk. “Otherwise, you’d know that the punch is awful, and the hors d’oeuvre are stale… Even I cook better than this caterer — and that’s saying something.”

“That bad, huh?”

“No. Worse!” Lois laughed as she put her coat on.

Just a moment later, they were standing in front of the elevator, hoping to make as quick a getaway as possible, when out of nowhere came Jimmy Olsen.

“Hey, guys,” he called out, waving at them with a hand, “I just found out something really big! You’ll never guess who the new anchor for the WGBS evening news is going to be!”

Just then, the elevator bell dinged and its doors opened. Lois abruptly pushed Clark inside.

“No, I suppose we won’t,” Lois replied shrugging, as the doors closed on a very confused Jimmy.

“Lois!” Clark said, appalled. “That was—”

“Awful, I know,” she cut in. “But we barely have enough time to make it to the Chinese place before they close for the evening. What would you rather have? An unimportant piece of information that can wait until morning, or food?”

“There was food up there, Lois,” he admonished.

“Yes, and unless you have a stomach of steel — which we both know isn’t the case — you really don’t want to eat any of that food, Clark. Trust me,” Lois insisted.

“Fine,” Clark grumbled. Besides, they had almost arrived at the ground floor; it was too late to turn back now.

***

Later that evening, after the Chinese food, the millionth viewing of Lethal Weapon — because Lois had insisted that it wouldn’t be New Year without Mel Gibson — and several calls for help that Clark had tried very hard to ignore, convincing himself every time that once in a while even Superman was allowed to take a night off, they headed out together, on their way to Lois’s apartment.

She’d argued of course that taking a cab home would be the sensible thing to do — it was late and she didn’t feel right having Clark walk her all the way there, only to walk all the way back again — but he’d insisted… Though considering that Lois’s ability to say no to him was quite possibly at an all-time low that evening, he hadn’t had to insist very much at all.

They walked in comfortable near-silences, occasionally commenting on inane topics, until they were just barely a block away from Lois’s home.

“Hey look,” Clark said all of a sudden, as he pointed to the sky, “There’s another shooting star.”

Lois looked up, squinting, before finally saying, “That’s not a star. It’s probably just Superman…”

Clark bit back a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure it’s a star, Lois.”

“Well, I have better eyesight than you do, and I’m telling you it wasn’t,” Lois argued, adamant that she was right. “Besides, it’s far more likely that something you see flying through the night sky is Superman. Trust me, Clark.”

For a short moment, Clark contemplated her answer. Obviously, it wasn’t Superman up there, since he was down here, wearing street clothes and walking Lois home, but…

“I wonder how many times people have mistaken Superman for a star and made a wish,” he said wistfully.

Lois snorted. “I suppose that would explain why none of my wishes ever came true.”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in that sort of thing,” Clark replied, looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

“I don’t,” she objected immediately. “Only, sometimes…well, I don’t know…sometimes people just do things, for no reason at all, just because everyone else does it.”

“Uh huh.”

Lois swatted him on the arm. “No, really! Old habits kind of…die hard. You know? I mean…every kid in America’s been doing that since Jiminy Cricket, back in the ‘40s. It’s the same thing as, say… leaving out cookies for Santa, or— or checking under the bed for monsters!”

“You check under your bed for monsters?” This time, Clark didn’t bother holding back his laughter.

Lois shrugged. “With my luck? You bet I check under the bed! Not that I expect to find anything… But monsters — the kind we help send to jail, anyway — tend to like stalking me, so I’m just being…careful.”

“What was it you wished for that never came true,” he asked after a moment.

“I’m not going to tell you!”

Lois stopped walking then, as they’d reached her building. “I guess we’re here,” she said.

She went up the first few stairs, then, seeing that he was right behind her, she walked all the way up to the front door. Slowly she opened it, looked back at Clark who nodded, and they both went inside. A few short minutes later, they were standing outside her apartment.

“Thanks for walking me back,” Lois told him, as she fumbled with one of the many locks on her door.

“Anytime,” Clark said softly. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and waited for her to be done, shaking his head slightly at the futility of having so many locks on a door, when Lois only very rarely locked them all at once.

She looked up, once she finally got her door opened. “Well, uh… goodnight,” she said, a little awkwardly.

“Goodnight, Lois,” he replied, extending a hand to brush a strand of hair back behind her ear. Gently, he traced the curve of her jaw with the tips of his fingers.

The stood silently for a moment, eyes locked on one another’s, each of them leaning in almost imperceptibly toward the other until they were but a breath away and their lips met. It was a shy, tentative kiss, which was over almost as soon as it had begun.

Pulling back, Clark smiled and said, “See, sometimes wishes come true…”

“This was— this was your wish?” Lois asked in a small voice, a clearly surprised expression in her eyes.

“Mine?” he replied, a hint of a teasing smile on his lips, “I thought it was yours.”

“No… Mine went a little more like this,” she told him, grabbing him by the collar and gently pulling him in for another kiss. Another, much less tentative kiss.

THE END

This was the request:

Three things I want in my fic:

1. Smoochies

2. A party

3. Jimmy finds out something

Three things I do not want in my fic:

1. Lex

2. Dan

3. Mayson