Failure

   Two guards walked Floyd Lawton to his cell, keeping a violently tight grip on each of his bruised and beaten arms. As the door slowly slid open, Floyd gave each of the guards a smug grin. They shoved him in the cell, slightly harder than they actually needed to.  The prison had lost quite a bit of credibility with Lawton's unexplained escape last month, and all employees were under strict orders to treat him with unforgiving suspicion and as much brute force as state law would allow.  Of course, this only fed into Floyd's ego, as it proved just how important he truly was.
   The guards pushed Floyd down onto a lone chair in the center of the cell, chaining his handcuffs to the chair's back.  The feet of the chair were bolted to the floor.  Floyd was impressed.  Restrained like this, there was no way he could move in the slightest.
    It's kinda overkill, Floyd thought, considering I'm still stuck in a cell anyway.  Heh. Musta gotten on the warden's bad side, being the one-and-only prisoner to escape Stryker's.  Either that or he's still mad about the "incident" with his daughter.  One of the two.
   The guards left, leaving Floyd alone to contemplate his own greatness.  At the present moment, he was pleased with himself.  The girl was still alive and he'd been re-captured, but it wasn't over.  Luthor still had a way to break him out, and the girl apparently wasn't willing to kill him in the end.  If both those remained true, he cold simply break out again, and again, and again, until the princess had a bullet in her brain and there was no one left to take him down.  Except for maybe the other guy.  The bulletproof one he'd met in the school.  Floyd hadn't told Luthor about him; glossed over that part of the story.  He wanted the girl dead; he had no gripe with the other freak.  No reason to tell Luthor that there was possibly anyone else to be interested in.
   As perverse as it seemed, life was good for Floyd Lawton.  Even while chained up in prison, he had fame, recognition, respect, and—ultimately—freedom.
   A few of the lights in the hallway outside began to flicker.  Muffled sounds from down the hall told of minor commotion.  Floyd was intrigued.  He tried to lean a little closer to the bars, but his handcuffs held him back.  The lone overhead light in his cell flickered off.  A silent brush of wind told Floyd that something was moving inside the darkened room.  A few seconds later, the light came back on.
   A girl stood in front of Floyd.  She was young—no older than seventeen—but carried herself with a sharpness and a confidence beyond her age.  She wore all black—very form-fitting—and let her long, dark hair fall in front of the left side of her face.  Floyd wondered if she had some terrible deformity on that side of her face, or if it was just a stylistic choice.  He figured it was probably the latter.
   "You failed, Lawton."
   The girl had an accent.  Floyd couldn't place it.  Romanian, maybe?
   "Yeah, sue me."
   She ignored his joke.  "It's a shame, really.  Had you succeeded, you might have been on your way to one day joining us."
   "Joining? Who, Luthorcorp?  Yeah, I 'aint the businessman type.  Look, are you done?  Are you gonna get me out of here, or what?"
   "I speak not of Luthorcorp."
   "Wait, what...?"
   Suddenly, it made sense.  She wasn't from Luthorcorp; she was from his prior employer.  The one who hired him for the Excelsior job.
   "Aw, seriously?  You're upset over that job?  Come on; that was a stupid plan anyway!  I mean, why'd you need—"
   "My father's designs are not to be questioned, least of all by you.  Your assignment was merely a small part in his grand plan."
   Father? This girl was seriously starting to weird Floyd out.
   "Huh.  Okay.  Well, little girl, you go tell your daddy I'm sorry, and that I'll do better next time."
   She didn't blink.
   "The League of Assassins does not allow failure, Floyd Lawton."
   She reached behind her back, slowly pulling a short sword from its sheath.  With a single swift motion, she stepped forward and stabbed, slipping the blade gently into Floyd's heart.  She then stepped back, wiped her blade, and sheathed it.
   The light shut off once more.  When it switched on again, she was gone.  A few minutes later, the guards found Floyd's dead body sitting in a pool of his own blood.

Her True Nature

   Diana walked alone beneath the trees.  She didn't know how long she'd been walking, or exactly where she was.  A large park lay downhill on her right, with dozens of children playing in the sunshine.
   Children, Diana thought.  Until I moved to the United States, I'd never seen children before.  I was the last-born of my kind, and there wasn't anyone else my age. I was the lone little girl, with a thousand older sisters. I played for hours on the beach; I climbed every tree my mother would allow; I swam as far out from the island as I could.  I was innocent.  Why can't I go back?
   Diana felt a heaviness in her chest; a pain that she'd never known before.  It was guilt, she realized.  Guilt over what she'd done, and what she'd come very close to doing.
   It is an Amazon's way to slay her enemies.  Though the Amazons favor peace above all, when their lives are truly threatened, there are few more brutal.  The more intense the battle, the more feral an Amazon's blood-rage.
   Diana felt helpless.  The same rage against domination that fueled her sisters' warrior pride flowed within her veins.  Deadshot's attempt to beat her down triggered that rage, and Diana was not prepared to counter it.  In that moment, she wanted to end his life.  She wasn't sure exactly why, either.  Part of her felt that it was because of a righteous anger against him for endangering innocent lives, but another part of her worried that it was simply a selfish fury.  If Clark hadn't been there, she wouldn't have stopped.  That fact scared her.
   She sat down under the shade of a tree and looked herself over.  Her jacket was in tatters.  She took it off.  She looked at her arm.  The burn from before was gone.  Along that same arm, she looked at the places where she'd been cut and bleeding before.  To her shock and surprise, each and every cut was completely healed.  Strangely, though, a thin crust of sand covered each former wound, like a bandage.  She looked at her jacket again—not a single bloodstain was found, despite the fact that it had been nearly soaked in a few places before.  The entire interior of the jacket was sprinkled with sand, however.  Some of it was even embedded in the fabric itself.  She rubbed the sand between her fingertips; it was familiar.  Thin, pale, and smooth.  Exactly like the beaches of Paradise Island.
   A small sound broke into her thoughts.  A little boy, twenty feet away, sat by himself, crying.  Diana felt a surge of concern for him.  She stood up and walked over, tossing her jacket into a trashcan on the way.  She quietly sat down next to him.
   "What's wrong?"
   The boy turned his head and looked up at her, his eyes red and swollen from tears.  He bashfully ducked his head back down and covered it with his hands.
   "Hey, it's okay," Diana assured him.
   He slowly started to lower his hands, though he kept looking down.
   "My name's Diana. What's yours?"
   "Jamie," the boy said, peering up hesitantly at her.
   Diana gave him a big smile, and he blushed a little.
   "How old are you?" she asked.
   "Seven."
   "I remember being seven. It was fun."
   "You didn't have mean friends, then."
   Diana frowned.  She actually didn't have any real friends at all when she was that young.
   "Your friends are mean to you?"
   Jamie nodded.  "They told me I can't play football with them."
   Diana looked across the park and saw a group of boys about Jamie's age playing football.  Or trying to, at least.  They weren't really old enough to be very coordinated, and sort of tumbled into one another.  Diana sighed.  Football.  She'd never really understood the appeal of that sport.  Why did the players feel the need to ram into one another?  Didn't it make more sense just to maneuver around each other?  Clark had tried to explain it to her once, but she didn't quite follow.
   "Why won't they let you play?"
   "'Cause I'm smaller than they are, and I'll get knocked over."
   Diana thought for a moment.
   "Can you run?"
   Jamie nodded.
   "Okay, then.  Why don't you just try and run around them instead of running into them?"
   Jamie was confused.  "Why would I do that?"
   "Because," Diana explained, "you're trying to get the ball to one side of the field, right?  If you're the one with the ball, it doesn't matter if you hit anyone."
   "Oh yeah."
   Jamie sat thinking for a while.  "But... how can I get them to let me play?"
   Diana winked at him.  "Don't let them take no for an answer."
   Jamie almost blushed again, but he felt enough pride that he was able to keep it down.  He stood up with a big smile, then turned and ran to meet the other boys.
   "Thank you," a voice said from behind.
   Diana turned around and looked up to see a woman standing behind her.
   "Jamie's had trouble with the other boys for a while now.  This is the first time I've ever seen him try and stand up for himself before."
   Diana stood up.  This must be the boy's mother.
   "Um, well, you're welcome, ma'am," Diana said awkwardly.
   The woman smiled at her.  "Really, thank you."
   Jamie's mother walked downhill to follow her son, leaving Diana happy, yet puzzled.
   "Your true power is not in violence, Diana Prince."
   Diana turned quickly to see a man standing under the shadow of a tree.  He wore a dark blue cape over a navy business suit, and a matching navy hat that cast a black shadow over his eyes.  A golden amulet hung from his neck.
   "Your true gift is in gentle kindness."
   Diana was slightly alarmed.  "Who are you?!" she asked abruptly.
   "I am merely a guide," the man said.  "Nothing more."
   He stepped deeper into the shadow behind the tree, moving out of Diana's view.  When she tried to follow him, she found nothing.  He had simply vanished.

Guys, seriously.

There are zero comments on the last twenty-four posts.  The last one was four months ago.

:(

Contemplations

   Clark walked to the Princes' apartment.  He would have flown had it been nighttime, but he couldn't risk someone seeing him in the clear daylight.  That thought bothered him.  In Smallville, the wide-open fields and sparsely-populated farmland meant that he could do whatever he wanted, for the most part.  He normally kept to the ground, but he often got the chance to fly.  From the distance at which the next-nearest farm sat, he'd probably look like a bird or a plane.  Unless someone had a telescope and randomly decided to point it over his house, Clark was safe there.  But if Smallville was his playground, Metropolis was his cage.
   For a city so huge, Metropolis was rather open.  The skyscrapers were set farther apart than most cities, affording wide open views of the blue skies overhead.  It gave the city a sense of hope; of freedom.  Of course, this also meant that the five-million-or-so citizens on the streets below would have an easy view of a boy flying across the sky.
   What would they say if they saw him?  Would they be curious?  Afraid?  Clark wasn't ready to make his personal life into a public circus, so he wouldn't be able to explain who he was or why he was flying.  His presence would probably scare people, and he didn't want that.  If he was going to go into the business of publicly using his powers, he'd need to figure out a way to solve this.
   The population of Metropolis wasn't nearly as dense as New York, L.A., or Chicago.  Most of the housing in the city was notably spacious and rather inexpensive, allowing its citizens to live comfortably.  Lois had once explained the reason for this: Luthorcorp had built most of the city through its subsidiaries.  If there was one positive thing Lionel Luthor had to his credit, it was that he genuinely believed in scientific progress, economic prosperity, and the general advancement of civilization.  Of course, Luthorcorp offset their losses with the cheap housing by secretly monopolizing the local transportation, food, and electric economies, but it wasn't anything that actually hurt the average citizen.  If anything, it seemed that Lionel was actually crafting some sort of modern utopia.  Clark had read about similar men and their ideas throughout history:  Marx.  Stalin.  Hitler.  All dictators and madmen who sought to better the world by twisting it into their own vision.  The difference between Lionel and those men was that his plan actually seemed to be working.  Of course, Clark thought, that was probably only because his underground crime network was secretly forcing it to work.
   That had actually struck Clark as odd.  Despite the fact that he'd heard rumors and powerful whispers of Lionel's secret criminal mastery, he'd had yet to truly see it for himself.  True, he and the others had been attacked at Bruce's tower—an incident which Lionel later had practically admitted to orchestrating—but that was it.  The hostage situation at Excelsior was almost definitely not Lionel's doing, and there hadn't been anything linking Luthorcorp to the attempted bank bombing last month, and none of the other minor crimes Clark had seen (or stopped) had been linked to Luthor in the slightest.  Lois and Bruce insisted that Luthorcorp was merely laying low because of Lionel's arrogant slip-up at the Metropolis High.  Clark figured he could trust them to know what they were talking about.  But then there was today's attack on the jewelry store.  What possible purpose did that have?  Why would someone like Deadshot bother to mess with a jewelry store?  Was he trying to get caught?
   ...That was it.  Clark mentally slapped himself in the forehead.  Of course.  Diana had been the one to stop Deadshot the first time, and she nearly got sniped during the attack on the bank.  Clark had read that Floyd Lawton's ego was legendary; he must have wanted revenge on the girl who'd managed to beat him.
   But how could he have known that Diana would be the one to respond to the attack?  What about Clark or Bart?  Another obvious realization hit Clark: Deadshot might not have known much about Clark, and he probably didn't even know that Bart existed.
   Clark felt a pang of guilt.  If he'd not been at the farm doing chores—at super-speed, of course—he would have been there to help Diana.  He might have even gotten there first.  Bart didn't show up at all, but he was elsewhere as well.  He'd said something about "getting genuine burritos in Mexico," but Clark had a little bit of a hard time understanding him.  Whenever Bart got nervous or guilty, he tended to inadvertently speed up his words into an incomprehensible blur.
   No matter.  Whatever she'd done, Diana probably needed a friend right now.  Despite their recent issues, Clark wanted to make sure she wasn't alone, and that she was okay.

Reaction

   "I couldn't believe it," Clark said.  "I think she was actually going to kill him."
   "Did you expect any different from someone who claims to be an Amazon?" Bruce replied.
   Clark, Bruce, and Bart sat in the penthouse living room.  It was only a few hours after Diana's fight with Deadshot, and Clark had felt the need to let Bart and Bruce know what had happened.  Lois and Bruce were still on rocky terms, so she stayed home.
   "I don't get it..." Bart said.  "Diana's always been so... nice.  I mean, she's sorta been like my big sister.  I don't get why she'd go all crazy and almost kill a guy."
   "She was hurt," Clark said.  "Pretty badly, I think.  She was bleeding, and she looked like she'd been beaten up a bit.  I don't think she was thinking straight."
   "We need more information," Bruce said, his brow furrowed in thought.  "You said you only got there after the fight was over.  Maybe there's something we're missing."
   "I hope so," Clark said with a sigh.
   After a few seconds of silence, Bart spoke up.
   "Well... what if she did kill him? ...Isn't it better if he's dead?"
   "Maybe," Bruce replied, "but that's not her decision.  It's not any of ours.  It's up to the law to decide his fate."
   "It's not just that," Clark interjected.  "No one's beyond helping.  As long as they're alive, there's a chance they can turn around and become a better person.  If they're killed, that chance gets taken away."
   Bart nodded in understanding.
   "You know," Bruce said, "you three have never really set any ground rules as far as your... 'crimefighting' goes."
    Clark thought about that for a moment.
   "I never thought about it.  We've never needed to before.  We just knocked the bad guys out and left before anyone got a good look at us."
   "That's something I wanted to mention, actually," Bruce said.  "Are you sure no one saw you or Diana today?"
   "Pretty sure," Clark replied. "Why?"
   "You probably need to start thinking about ways to hide your identities.  Unless you and Diana can constantly move at super-speed like Bart, there's no way to keep yourselves from being recognized forever."
   Bruce had a point.  Clark wasn't really sure what to do about that.  But that also wasn't the immediate issue.
   "We should probably figure out these other 'ground rules' first."
   "Pssh. 'Ground rules,'" Bart said sarcastically.
   Bruce and Clark looked at him quizzically.
   "You and Diana don't even need to walk on the ground," Bart explained, turning to Clark.  "I don't even think 'ground rules' apply to you guys."
   "The same rules apply to everyone," Bruce said firmly.
   "No, he's right," Clark said quietly.  "Diana was raised as a princess on a 'paradise island'; I don't know if she thinks of herself like everyone else."
   "If I may be so bold," an elder voice said from the side of the room, "perhaps someone should actually speak to Miss Prince herself about these matters."
   The three boys turned to see Alfred standing several feet away.  He was so quiet and unassuming that they often forgot he was there, but when he chose to make his presence known, his advice was always welcome.
   "Yeah," Clark said, "I hadn't really thought much about it, but someone should really go and see if she's okay."
   "Cool," Bart said casually. "I nominate you. Bye!"
   Before any of them could blink, Bart sped into the elevator—sending a gust of wind through the living room—and hit the button inside, closing the doors in front of him as he smiled goofily.
   Clark and Bruce exchanged glances, then rolled their eyes.
   "He's probably right anyway," Clark said, standing up to leave as well.
   "Clark," Bruce said in a very serious tone, "...if Diana won't agree to calm down, you need to be prepared."
   Clark frowned. "Prepared for what?"
   "...For the chance that you might have to fight her.  We can't have her going around the city, killing off people she deems fit to die.  You might be the only person who can actually stop her."
   Clark took a moment to stop and seriously consider that.
   "...Let's not assume the worst.  She hasn't actually done anything yet.  Let's just talk to her."
   "Fine," Bruce said with a shrug, "but be careful."
   Clark nodded and left.

The Line

   The explosion was deafening.  Several dozen people on the street nearby scattered—like cockroaches in sunlight, Floyd thought.
   He'd brought the bomb—just a tiny one—merely to make some noise.  He wasn't really there to rob the jewelry store.  He probably could've made more money just doing one job for a high-paying client.  Heck, robbing a jewelry store in broad daylight on a Saturday morning was just flat-out stupid.  Too many cops in Metropolis—and not the type that could be bought off, like in Gotham.  But this time, he wanted to be caught.  But not by the cops.
   "On your knees, Deadshot."
   Floyd turned to see a female silhouette standing in the smoking hole he'd blown in the side of the store.  It could only be her, he thought. Finally.
   "Hey! Princess! Been waitin' for you. And you remembered my name! I'm touched."
   Diana wasn't amused.
   "I don't know how you got out of prison, but I know how you're getting back."
   She stepped into the room, lifting her right bracelet in front of her face.  Floyd took a second to analyze what she was doing.  He figured it was a kind of dual stance, designed both to defend the user against gunfire to the upper body and to allow for quick offensive strikes with the hands.  Apparently, whoever this girl was, she had an entire martial arts style that was completely unknown to the rest of the world.  He'd be ready for her this time.
   She moved forward, both hands in front.  Floyd, already with guns in hand, fired two shots—one at her face, one at her ankles.  She blocked the one at her face, and tried to dodge the one at her feet.  It worked, but at a cost.  Running as fast as she was, twisting like that meant nearly losing her balance.  Floyd took advantage.  He dodged to the right, swinging the back of his left wrist at her head.  His metal gauntlet slammed into the side of her face, sending her crashing into the wall behind him.
   She slumped to the floor a little.  Floyd drew his guns on her at lightning-speed, firing a flurry of execution shots.  She recovered in time to twist and deflect them.  Before Floyd could squeeze off another round, she grabbed the nearby broken seat of a chair and whirled it at him like a frisbee.  It pounded into his metal mask, sending flashes of red and white swirling through his vision.  Before he could snap out of his stunned state, he felt himself being lifted off the ground and thrown through the air.
   He hit the far wall with a crash.  He almost made a big enough hole to actually get stuck in it.  He sat on the floor, breathing heavily.  If he hadn't been wearing his armor, he would have probably had a few broken bones and crushed back muscle.  He sighed to himself.  This girl was a powerhouse.  But he'd made her bleed before.  And if she could bleed, she could die.
   Floyd quietly reached for his sides, still slumped against the wall.  Diana was standing twenty feet away, staring him down with her usual "piercing warrior stare." Floyd heard the click of metal clips unhooking, and felt the weight of a steel grenade in each hand.  He smirked under his mask, twisting his wrists ever so slightly in just the right position.  His thick gauntlets rotated around his wrists a few degrees, and a single metal barrel extended from the top of each.   He flicked his arms upward, tossing the grenades toward either side of Diana.  Before she could react, he leveled his wrists at the grenades and clicked a button in each glove, firing a hidden bullet out of both gauntlets.
   The bullets hit both grenades dead-center, transforming them into giant balls of fire and shrapnel.  Floyd had seen enough gunplay to be able to slow it down in his mind—to see the intricacies of weaponry in action.  From his perspective, everything seemed to be happening in slow-motion.  He saw the bits of razor-sharp shrapnel fly away from the grenade casing.  He saw the waves of heat crash over her.  He saw the panicked look in her eyes for a split-second before she brought her bracelets together.  When they touched, she shut her eyes and seemed to be concentrating on something.  But it was too late.  Whatever she was trying to do, she didn't have enough time.
   Diana fell to her knees, and struggled to fall no further.  Her ears were ringing.  She had a burn on her left arm.  Her gut felt like it'd been punched a thousand times over.  She had cuts all over her body, and silently prayed she wasn't bleeding too badly.
   Floyd slowly stood up.  He took a long look at Diana, both triumphant at his victory and curious as to how she was still alive.  No matter, he thought.  He lifted his gauntlet gun toward her head and fired.
   Diana desperately dove for a nearby overturned table.  She could barely believe that her legs still worked.
   Floyd almost chuckled to himself.  People always think that hiding behind a car door or a wooden table will protect them.  It doesn't.  Real bullets go straight through stuff like that.
   Floyd let loose a full-auto barrage into the table.  Three dozen bullets hit the table and stopped.
   "Dammit," Floyd said frustratedly.  The table was an antique, and made of super-dense wood.  One of the few household materials that would stop a bullet.
   He stepped forward, pulling a long knife out of a sheath on his shoulder.  He'd have to do this the hard way.
   Diana heard the sound of the bullets stop, and didn't waste any more time.  She immediately stood up and kicked the table, sending it flying through the air at her attacker.  He ducked under it, again surprised by her strength.  Diana winced as a jolt of pain shot through her leg; she was far too injured to be using her muscles like that.
   Floyd ran toward her with the knife.  Diana moved to block him, but found her movements slightly slowed.  She managed to hold him back, but couldn't find a way to counter him.  Suddenly, he reached his heel around the back of her knee and pulled.  She fell hard onto her back, Floyd straddling her with the knife mere inches from her throat.  Diana tried to push his hands away, but couldn't find the strength anymore.
   She looked around the room for anything she could use as a weapon.  When she looked to her right, she was shocked to see an elderly woman hiding in a tiny nook.  Apparently, she'd been there the whole time.
   Diana felt a surge of anger.  Anyone who would threaten innocent lives this way needed to be beaten to a bloody pulp.  She twisted and rolled to the side, flipping Deadshot onto his back.  She staggered to her feet, pulling him up by the shoulders, then slamming him headfirst into the metal frame of a nearby glass case.  She slapped the knife out of his hand, then punched him in the face.  Floyd's body went slightly limp.
   Diana didn't stop.  She punched him again, and again, and again.  Bits and pieces of the metallic covering began to fall away from his face, revealing bloodied and bruised flesh underneath.  She still didn't stop.  She kept beating him, over and over.
   "DIANA!"
   Diana turned to see Clark stepping through the hole in the wall.
   "What are you doing?!" he asked her, looking back and forth angrily between her raised fist and Deadshot's unconscious body.
   "What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked, with more than a little venom in her voice.  "He's a criminal, Clark!"
   "He's a human being! You can't just beat him to death!"
   Diana was exasperated.  Did Clark not see what Deadshot had done here?  Did he not see what he'd done to her?
   "And why not?!" she asked. "He doesn't deserve any better!!"
   "IT'S NOT OUR CHOICE TO MAKE!!"
   Clark's voice boomed with authority.  Diana nearly staggered backwards with surprise.
   She straightened up, still holding Deadshot by the collar.  She tossed his limp and bloody body at Clark.
   "Fine.  You go clean his wounds and set him free.  See what happens next."
   And with that, she walked out of the store—limping on her right leg—and flew away into the sky.

Caring Fake-Out

   Clark stepped into the Daily Star office and was quickly greeted by a stack of papers.
   "Sort these."
   Lois handed Clark a huge stack of papers about two feet high.  It nearly fell over.
   "Um... Lois?  What are these?"
   "They're hard-copies of every article we've published over the last year.  They're all out of order.  So sort them."
   Clark awkwardly tried to give her a raised eyebrow over the stack.
   "These don't actually need to be sorted right this second, do they?"
   She turned and gave him her ultra-serious "I own your job" look.
   "You got a problem with that, Smallville?  In case you forgot, I'm still your boss.  I say when our paper crap needs to be sorted.  Got that?"
   Clark figured that Lois was probably being abrasive either because she was hurting from being dumped or because she didn't want to deal with their "moment" the night before.  Probably both.  Then again, Lois being abrasive wasn't exactly unusual, so it was hard to tell.  If anything, she was back to "normal."
   Still, however, he figured he should at least try to get through to her a little bit.
   "Lois, um... about last night—"
   "Don't, Clark.  Just don't.  I know we had a bit of a... 'moment' there, but... I have to figure some things out.  By myself.  Talk can come later."
   Clark nodded understandingly.
   "Well, y'know, Lois, I've been thinking, and I should probably take a little bit of time off from the Star.  I mean, there hasn't been much news lately, and Luthorcorp's been really quiet."
   Lois was surprised.  "Really?" she said.  "No 'hey, Lois, you know I'm always here for you,' or 'are you sure you wanna be alone' speeches?"
   Clark smirked a little.  "Nope.  None of that.  You say you need to be alone, so you can be alone."
   Lois wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or impressed.  "Huh.  Okay then, Smallville.  Take a week off."
   "Thanks, boss," he said with a sarcastic grin.
   As he turned to leave, Lois's phone rang.  She looked at the call ID: Chloe Sullivan.
   "Hey Chloe.  What's up?"
   "Hey, Lois," Chloe said, "I just got a really weird call from Clark.  He said you probably needed someone to talk to?"
   Flustered, Lois turned to Clark, who was halfway out the door, a clever grin plastered over his face.  Apparently, he wasn't going to let her mope and brood, even if she wanted to.

Aren't Meant To Be

   Bruce gently sipped at his coffee, taking a short moment to mentally prepare for the day.  It was only seven in the morning, but he was wide awake.
   The elevator pinged.  A few seconds later, Clark stepped into the penthouse.
   "You're up early," Bruce said.
   "I was raised on a farm."
   Bruce caught the slight edge in Clark's voice.  "Something wrong?"
   Clark made sure to take a quick deep breath before speaking.  Even so, he had a hard time restraining the booming anger in his voice.  "You broke up with Lois! Why?!"
   Bruce sat in silence for a moment.
   "Clark, I don't exactly expect you to understand this, but Lois doesn't really fit into my life anymore."
   Clark wasn't satisfied with that answer.  "Could you possibly be any more vague?" he asked sarcastically.
   Bruce took a deep breath.  "Lois is... somewhat devoted to me.  Over the past couple of months, she's put herself in a lot of danger because of me—because she thinks she can protect me by getting Luthor put in prison."
   Clark was beginning to understand, though he still didn't like it. "So... you dumped her because you think she'll be safer if she's not worried about you all the time?"
   "It's not just that.  I... I don't think I'm that great for her to be with.  Between school, training, and everything else, I don't really have time for her anymore."
   Clark frowned.  "So make the time."
   Bruce halfway glared at him.  "She's not a priority.  She can't be.  I have more important things to worry about."
   "How can you say that?! She's not just a... a task or something you can—"
   "You left Chloe in Smallville, didn't you?"
   Clark was caught off-guard. "...What does that have to do anything?"
   "She was your best friend, and I think you know she's practically in love with you.  But you left and came to Metropolis because you knew your destiny was here.  Because being here was more important than being with one person."
   Clark thought about that quietly for a moment.  The more he thought about it, the more he realized Bruce was right.  But still, there was one hole in Bruce's reasoning.
   "Hold on a minute," Clark said firmly.  "Lois is still here, in Metropolis.  You don't need to choose between her and being somewhere else.  Even if you don't have a lot of time to spend together, at least you'll have something."
   "It's not just that," Bruce said reluctantly.  "I... I don't think I still feel the same way about her that I did before.  I... appreciate her, but I don't love her."
   They both stood in silence for a moment, thinking it all over.
   "Lois and I... probably aren't meant to be together," Bruce said. "She needs someone who can actually be there for her.  That someone isn't me."
   "Then who?" Clark asked.
   Bruce resisted the urge to give him a clever grin.  "I don't know, but I hope whoever he is, he figures it out sooner than later.  After all, now that I'm out of the way, he doesn't have an excuse any longer."
   Clark suddenly felt nervous, and conveniently remembered that he needed to be somewhere else.  Bruce had never seen Clark be nervous before—about anything.  He enjoyed watching the boy of steel squirm for a few moments. 
   "Well, I'd better get moving," Clark said.  "I've got three articles to write before nine."
   Clark stepped back into the elevator, waiting for the doors to close.
   "Clark," Bruce said, "...watch out for her, alright?"
   As the doors began to slide shut in front of him, Clark stumbled over his words.  "I...uh... what?"