The MJAs, Part 1

Clark was uncomfortable around all the flashing lights.

It reminded him a little of the school dances he went to in Smallville, but a lot bigger and more expensive, and without a dance floor.  The main ceremony took place in a big, dark auditorium, with flashing spotlights in the ceiling that bounced light all over the room.  Loud music played from the overhead speakers while the attendees talked amongst themselves.  If not for the elegant decoration and the formal dress of the attendees, it would have seemed more like a rock concert than a journalism award ceremony.

"Is it normally this loud?" Clark asked as he leaned over to Lois, who sat at his right.  She couldn't quite hear him over the music, but his confused, uncomfortable expression made it pretty obvious what he was asking. "NO," she said, yelling over the noise.  "IT'S DIFFERENT THIS YEAR."
Clark gave her a weird look and gestured to his ears, as if to say "um, I have super-hearing. Why are you yelling at me?"

She rolled her eyes and turned her head away, feigning annoyance.  Honestly, however, she didn't want him to see that she couldn't help but smile a little at him.  "Oh, god," she thought, realizing what she was doing.  "What the hell am I doing here?  With Clark?  I could have just grabbed someone else; I didn't need to take him.  I mean, look at me.  I'm wearing this ridiculous dress..."—she looked down at herself—"...this amazing dress, and he's all amazing-looking in his tux and... why am I doing this?"  She slowly drifted out of her mental dilemma when she noticed Clark standing up and moving to greet someone.

"Barry! Hey!"
"Hey!" Barry replied, stepping towards Clark and Lois's table and shaking Clark's hand.  "Nice seeing you again.  Hey, Lois, I read your articles about the hostage situation; are you okay?"
Lois was caught a little off-guard.  Most people just congratulated her for her award nomination for those articles; no one had actually asked her if she was alright.  Barry was giving her the genuinely caring look that Clark usually gave her; she was actually a little bothered by it.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," she replied.
Barry looked over his shoulder, then turned back to them.  "Alright, well, I'd better go.  My date's run off again, and I need to find her."
They all said their goodbyes, and Barry walked off into the crowd.
Clark smiled a little.  "He really does look like Bart, doesn't he?"
Lois smiled a little, too. "Yeah."
Lois's smile quickly morphed into a barely-contained scowl, however.  Clark quickly recognized it as the look that one woman gives to a rival: like an angry leopard about to bite someone's jugular.  It kind of scared him.
A young woman approached them—somewhere around sixteen years old, about 5'5'', with short, light brown hair and piercing green eyes.
"Hey, Lois," she said mockingly.

Clark looked back and forth between the two girls.  Their eyes were locked, and they seemed to be in a kind of staring duel.  He decided to break it.
"Hi, I'm Clark Kent," he said with a big smile, holding out his hand.  The girl turned to him, returning his smile and politely shaking his hand.  "Hi, I'm Iris West."  She turned back to Lois.  "He your new boyfriend?" she asked, jutting her thumb in Clark's direction.
"No!" Lois replied, almost blushing through her frustration.  "I'm still with Bruce.  Clark works with me at the Star..."
"Gotcha," Iris said, quickly looking Clark over.  "Well, good luck tonight.  I'll see you later."
She walked away, with Lois still staring knives at her back.

Clark was still confused.  "So... Lois, what was that about?"
Lois looked up sideways at him, as though to show her annoyance.  "That was Iris West, the most self-centered hypocritical annoying frustrating..." She stopped herself, realizing that she was rambling.  "She's from Central City's student paper... she's taken a lot of the big stories that I've been after."
Clark was piecing it together.  "So... she's like your... rival."
Lois had certainly thought of it in those terms before.  "Yeah. Something like that."

As Lois and Clark continued watching Iris walk away, they nearly jumped when they saw Barry walk up to her, take her arm, and walk her back to their table.  "Lois..." Clark said with sudden realization, "Bart said that his grandmother was named Iris."
Lois's eyes shot wide open, and she covered her mouth in shock.  "No way..."

Lois heard her phone ring.  Picking it up, she yelled into it over the music. "WHAT?  YES—WAIT, NO. WE'RE OVER BY THE MIDDLE, A LITTLE TOWARDS THE BACK."  She hung up and quickly started looking around the room.
"Who was that?" Clark asked.
"My cousin.  She runs the school paper in her town."
Clark smiled at the irony.  "It runs in the family, apparently."
Lois grinned.  "Yup. Oh, you'd like her, Clark.  She's from some little farm town, too.  Could never remember its name, though..."
Suddenly, a little blonde girl ran up to Lois.  The two girls hugged, exchanging the usual high-pitched girl-greetings.  Clark thought he recognized the girl's voice...
The two girls separated from each others' arms, and Clark got a good look at Lois's cousin.  She met his gaze, too, and they both felt a surge of shock as they recognized one another.
"Clark?!"
"Chloe!?"
They didn't smile or say another word. They simply moved towards one another, and held each other.  A tear ran down Chloe's cheek.  "I missed you," she said quietly.
"I missed you, too," Clark gently said back.

Lois was very confused. "Wait, what?"