In Any Reality
        by Ann Douglas


The following is a work of erotic fiction and includes scenes of
sexual activity. It includes characters that are copyrighted by DC
Comics. This story is intended for the non-commercial enjoyment of
fans and should be considered a parody . No copyright infringement
is intended and no profit will be made from the distribution of this
story.








      The young dark haired scientist stood alone on the terrace, admiring the
beauty of the setting sun.  Having spent his life in pursuit of academic and
technological accomplishment, it was a tapestry that he'd too often ignored.


      "If only there had been more time,"  he thought to himself once more as
the crimson sun began to fade beneath the horizon. "If only I had been able
to make them listen."


      But they’d chosen not to listen, the learned men and women of the ruling
Science Council, preferring instead to attribute the recent increase in both
groundquakes and atmospheric storms to minor adjustments in the planet’s
orbital mechanics.  He was being an alarmist, they insisted.  Once he had
the benefit of years, they intoned; he would learn the value of patience.


      That had been a month ago, the day he had finally, reluctantly,  turned
his attention from saving his world to preserving that part of it which was
most precious to him.  And even in that task the clock had conspired against
him, until even he, who had been often described by others as the greatest
mind of his generation, had to admit defeat.


      "Jor-El?"  the equally dark haired woman said in surprise as she stepped
out onto the veranda and found her husband of two years standing there.  “I
thought you were still down in the laboratory.”


      His silence said what words could not and a shudder passed though her
slender form.


      “How long?”  she asked, trying to control the trebling in her voice.


      “Days, possibly less,”  he replied, his own voice reflecting a sense of
failure that she had never heard before.


      “Then at least we will be together until the end,”  Lara said as she placed
her hand on his arm, glancing down at the carefully wrapped bundle in her
arms.


      “I am sorry,”  Jor-El said, looking down at the red and blue blankets that
held their only child.


      “There is no need for you to be sorry, my love,” Lara said as she brought
her hand up to the side of his face.  “I fear nothing as long as you are by my
side.”


      "Lara…I…"  he started to say, only to be interrupted as the ground
beneath the city suddenly began to shake with frightening intensity.


      The walls of their home trembled, despite their reinforced construction,
knocking holographs and keepsakes to the floor.  At first, it seemed just
another of the groundquakes that now occurred with increasing regularity.
But, as the minutes passed, it became obvious that this time it was much
more.  Quickly they moved down the stairs into the research lab, the most
secure part of the house, yet even there the tables had been overturned and
the contents atop them smashed.


      "Jor, is it…?"  Lara asked, no longer trying to hide the fear in her voice.


      "I'm afraid it is,"  he replied after a momentary glance at the
instrumentation that monitored the sensors he had scattered across the
globe.  "The quake is world-wide, increasing in size and scope with each
passing minute.  The stress readings are already off the scale; it's only a
matter of time before the planetary core reaches critical mass.  An hour,
maybe less."


      The sound of the baby's cries pierced the chaos around them, causing
Lara to wrap the blankets more tightly, whispering lies that all would be well.
A sudden panic filled her as she looked up and saw that she and the child
were alone in the room.


      “Jor-El!”  she screamed when she saw he was no longer by the
monitors.


      "I'm over here,"  came his voice from an adjacent chamber on the far
side of the lab.  "Hurry!"


      Lara followed his voice, racing to the outer room to find her husband
frantically making entries on the computer system of his prototype starcraft.
The one he had hoped to build a full sized version of that would carry them
all to safety.


      "What are you doing?"  she asked,  wondering for the first time if the
realization of having been proved so horribly right had finally caused him to
crack under the strain.


      "There's still a chance,"  he said as his hands continued to enter
information into the databanks.  "The prototype is fully capable of making
the trip to that world I told you about, the one much like Krypton was
centuries ago."


      "We couldn't all fit in there,"  she stated the obvious as she looked at the
small passenger compartment that had previously housed test animals.


      "You and our child,"  Jor-El replied as he finally finished his hurried task.
"It will tax the life support systems, but it's still more of a chance than either
of you have now."


      "No,"  Lara said without hesitation, certain that he was now grasping at
straws.


      "Lara, my love, it's your only chance,"  Jor insisted.  "Please, there isn’t
any more time.  If you've ever believed in me, believe in me now.  I beg of
you."


      "If there is any chance at all, then it belongs to our child,"  Lara replied,
looking down at the embodiment of their love.  "With only one of us aboard,
the ship will have a better chance."


      With only a glance into her eyes, Jor knew she was right, making one
last adjustment as Lara strapped the baby into the travel pod.  A final touch
from each of them and together they sealed the hatch.


      "Our child, may Rao watch over you on your journey,"  Jor-El said as he
activated the launch sequence and the stardrive came alive.


      They held each other as the small craft lifted into the sky, tears in  their
eyes as it quickly vanished from sight.  Tears not for themselves but for the
hope of a new life that waited out there in the distant stars.


      A heartbeat later, Krypton was no more.


				-=-=-=-


      "Jonathan, do you hear something?"  Martha Kent asked her husband
as they drove down the dirt road that ran between the cornfields of their
farm to the larger county road that connected to the town of Smallville.


      The farmer was already looking out the truck’s window.  The noise his
wife had referred to had also caught his attention.  Slightly familiar, it
brought back memories of his Army days when he used to hang out by the
flight line and watch fighter jets land.  The only thing was, there weren't any
military bases in this part of Kansas and the closest civilian airport was fifty
miles to the south.


      A sudden explosion filled the air, one that he knew was unmistakably a
sonic boom, followed seconds later by a blinding streak of flame that cut
across the road in front of them.  A louder, ground shaking explosion
followed as whatever it was impacted in the middle of the cornfield.


      "Jumping Jehosophat!"  the middle-aged man cried out as he hit the
brakes and brought the truck to a screeching stop.


      They quickly made their way to the impact site, avoiding the numerous
small fires that dotted the field.  At first, Jonathan thought it might've been a
meteorite, having seen one that was pretty large in the natural history
museum in the state capitol when he was young.  Then, as they got close
enough to get a look at it through the smoke, he realized that it was
something man-made, possibly a satellite.


      "Be careful, Jonathan,"  Martha warned as he tried to get closer to the
object, knowing full well how easily her husband's curious nature could
overwhelm his sense of caution.


      "Listen,"  he said as he moved  to within a few yards,  "I think there's
something in there."


      They both knew they had to be hearing it wrong, the noise sounding for
all the world like a baby crying.  Ignoring the danger, the farmer tossed
enough dirt on the satellite to put out the worst of the flames and, using his
work gloves to protect his hands, tried to open what looked like to be a
hatch.


      As soon as he touched the metal, which was inexplicably cool despite
the fire around it, a beam of light unexpectedly shot out from the ship,
causing his entire body to tingle.  Having read about it enough times in the
sci-fi books he had enjoyed as a child, Jonathan had the impression that
he'd just been scanned.


      A scan that must've found him acceptable, it seemed, as the hatch
abruptly opened of its own accord.  With a quick glance back to his wife,
Jonathan cautiously moved closer to get a better look inside.


      "Dear God in heaven!"  he cried out when he saw the contents of the
strange ship.


      Ignoring any other possible dangers, he rushed forward and pulled the
baby out of the ship, cradling it in his arms.  Turning around to protect the
child with his body, he carried the colorfully wrapped bundle to his wife a few
yards behind him.


      Equally shocked, Martha took the baby and carefully looked to see if it
had been burned.  To her relief, not even the blankets had been scorched.


      Quickly putting as much distance between them and the still smoldering
craft as they could, they discussed what was happening but were unable to
come up with an explanation, at least one that was halfway believable.
When Jonathan actually suggested that the child might've been from
another world,  Martha brushed away any such suggestion by saying this
wasn't one of those science fiction magazines that he used to be so fond of.


      "This baby is as human as you or I,"  she insisted as she looked down at
the beautiful face now smiling up at her,  "and I don't care what anyone
says, whoever sent up that rocket is not getting it back."


      Glancing back in the direction of the spacecraft, for that was what he
now knew it to be,  Jonathan Kent allowed his gaze to lift upward into the
mid-morning sky.  From what he'd seen of the ship, it was decades if not
centuries ahead of anything NASA or the Russians could have build.  He
was as certain that this child had come from another world as he was of the
fact that his wife intended to keep it as her own.  They'd tried to have a child
for years, with no success and after two decades of praying, it was obvious
that Martha saw this all as a gift from God.


      "Maybe it is a gift,"  Jonathan thought as he looked down from the empty
sky.  Probably the greatest gift they ever could've gotten.  They'd always
wanted a daughter, and now it seemed like they had one.


				-=-=-=-


	“Look, up in the sky!” a well dressed, middle aged woman standing
at the Swan Street bus stop cried out as she caught a flash of red and blue
passing overhead.


	“It’s a bird,”  a second woman, half her age, exclaimed as she
tossed her head back to get a better view.


	“No, it’s a plane,”  an elderly man standing next to the two of them
insisted, joining in on what had become a familiar refrain all over Metropolis
these last two weeks.


	“It’s Supergirl!”  four children, also standing at the bus stop with their
mother, chorused as they pointed at the now fading figure that had been just
above them only moments before.


	Even though she was already more than a half mile away by the
time the children had cheerfully called out her name, the last daughter of
Krypton still managed a smile.  Technically, she thought, it really should be
Superwoman now; after all she was closing fast on her twentieth birthday, at
least by the Terran calendar.  Still, the name she had been known by since
going public soon after her sixteenth birthday did roll off the tongue a lot
easier than the more adult polysyllable.


	Such trivial concerns, however, were quickly brushed aside as she
left the city behind her and she focused her full attention on her destination,
still some miles in the distance.  No longer concerned with speed limits and
the window shattering sonic booms that exceeding them might cause, the
Girl of Steel doubled her velocity, gliding into a parabolic arc that would cut
her travel time in half.  As she descended down through the heavy cloud
cover, she reviewed the threat briefing she had been given by the FBI only
ten minutes before.


	Two days ago, a letter had been delivered to the office of the
President of National Rail, containing a threat to destroy the Gotham-
Metropolis Express unless a million dollars in bearer bonds were delivered
to a location on an enclosed map.  Lacking in details, the letter hadn’t been
taken that seriously but turned over to the FBI just in case.


	Then, a little over an hour ago, another package had been delivered
to the offices of  National Rail, this one containing a repeat of the original
threat and demand, along with a highly detailed schematic of an explosive
device that the FBI now took seriously.  More so since the package was
scheduled to have been delivered the previous day, but had been delayed
due to some error on the part of the shipping company.


	According to the train’s schedule, the Express should be in the
middle of its passage through the Shuster Mountain tunnels on the final leg
of its journey, but all attempts to communicate with it by radio or cell phone
had so far been unsuccessful.


	Coming down just over the eastern terminus of the tunnels,
Supergirl allowed herself a small sigh of relief as she saw the first car of the
ten train Express emerge from out of the darkness.  It had been the FBI
expert’s concern that the best place to detonate an explosive that would
totally destroy the train would be inside the tunnels, burying it under the tons
of rock that would’ve been dislodged.


	With no more information than when she had left the railroad
offices, except that the train was still intact, the Maid of Might set in motion
the plan of action she had formulated during her high-speed transit.  Circling
behind and then coming in low over the last car of the train, Supergirl began
to subject every square inch of it to a quick but intensive x-ray scan.  For
one brief moment, each section of the train became transparent to her eyes,
her mind processing and identifying each image faster than any computer
on Earth.  It took less than a dozen heartbeats to cover the length of the
train, and she found nothing out of the ordinary other than the young couple
in the bathroom of the third car, doing their best to join whatever the railroad
equivalent of the Mile High Club was.


	A smile on her lips, Supergirl increased her speed to leave the train
behind and subjected the rails below to the same scrutiny.  Recalling the
route map she had glanced out while in the National Rail office, the dark
haired heroine visualized the Simon’s Gorge Crossing, some three miles
ahead.  A two thousand foot span that joined the two states that Metropolis
and Gotham City called home, it seemed to her a much more likely target
that the tunnels behind her.


	From her experience, madmen like their mystery bomber wanted
attention as much as they want the ransom they demand.  Bringing down
the  Shuster tunnels would indeed have caused a disastrous loss of life, in
addition to the financial cost to reopen them, but it wouldn’t have been
spectacular – at least not visually.  As she glanced right and left across the
tree topped hills around her, she was sure that if she’d had the time to
search them, there would be at least one camera out there focused on the
Simon’s Gorge Crossing.  The images it might record would undoubtedly be
sent to every major news outlet in the country, where they would be
endlessly repeated, much to the bomber’s delight.


	Flying across the center of the concrete and steel span,  Supergirl
found the object of her search.  Hidden on opposite sides of the single track,
covered by metal boxes that had been camouflaged to appear as part of the
structure itself, rested two full sized versions of the device that had
appeared on the diagram sent with the ransom demand. They were for all
purposes indistinguishable from a dozen other similar boxes that lined the
route, except of course to someone with x-ray vision.


	A few seconds’ analysis of the triggering mechanism told her that
while it was possible to deactivate both devices, it might take more time
than she had.  To simply try and physically remove them without first doing
so would initiate the detonation she was trying to prevent.  The only
remaining solution, then, was to stop the train.


	In the days following her public debut, as new stories about the
Supergirl from Smallville began to appear on the national news, one well
know commentator had coined a description of her abilities that included the
phrase “more powerful than a locomotive.”  Subsequent events had proven
that comparison woefully inadequate, but it came to mind as she reversed
direction and considered just how difficult it actually was to stop a speeding
train on not much more than a dime.  At least not without tearing it to shreds
in the process.


      While still several hundred feet in front of the train, Supergirl focused a
carefully aimed blast of heat vision at the exact spot on the locomotive’s
undercarriage that would trip the braking system.  Unfortunately, when you
took into consideration the multi-thousand ton weight of the assemblage
racing at her, coupled with the fact that it had been traveling at top speed to
make its way up an incline, it was obvious the behemoth wasn’t going to
come to a stop in time on its own.


      Landing on the front edge of the diesel engine, the Girl of Steel placed
her hands against the heavy superstructure, taking a grip so tight that her
slender fingers actually pressed into the metal.  Then, lifting the rest of her
body back into the air, she began to apply an ever increasing reverse thrust,
much in the way an airline pilot would throw his engines in reverse once on
the ground.  The combination of braking and reverse thrust rapidly reduced
the train’s forward motion, until it reached a point where Supergirl felt it safe
to apply one hard push and bring it all to an abrupt but still controlled stop.
The sudden halt would still be hard enough to cause a few bumps and
bruises, but they were much more preferable than the inevitable  fatalities
that waited just a hundred yards down the line.


      Letting out another sigh of relief as she released her hold on the engine,
Supergirl realized that it had been less than five minutes since she’d let out
her first.  The entire incident had taken place in that short a time.


      Within another minute, the Chief Engineer and some of his associates
were climbing down out of the engine’s cabin, eager to learn what was
going on.  Softly gliding over to them, Supergirl set down on a small clearing
and waited for them.  As she explained what had, or rather what had not just
happened, the Maid of Might recognized the expression on some of their
faces.  It was one that she’d become accustomed to over the years, usually
after she’d performed some unbelievable demonstration of strength.


      Standing five foot nine and only a bit over a hundred and thirty pounds,
the black haired, athletically built young woman hardly looked like someone
who could’ve done what she just had.  Yet, if she really had wanted to,
Supergirl could just as easily have lifted the entire ten-car train up and over
the threatened span.  That course of action, however, would’ve brought with
it a whole different set of problems, such as how to prevent one or more of
the cars from decoupling under the stress and falling back to Earth with
disastrous consequences.


      As the Girl of Tomorrow finished explaining the situation to the train
crew, she noticed that a large number of passengers had likewise
disembarked and were gathering around her.  It wasn’t that they didn’t
recognize her; actually it was quite the contrary.  The long sleeved blue
blouse with the stylized red and yellow pentagon, along with the bright red
skirt, boots and cape that made up the rest of her uniform had become quite
familiar over the last few years, having been exhibited on every imaginable
form of mass media there was.  Yet people were still taken aback when they
actually saw her in person.  It was as if they wanted to assure themselves
that despite all the evidence to the contrary, she was indeed real and not
just some urban legend.  Much like the rumored Bat-Man that was said to
prowl the nighttime streets of Gotham City.


      Still, even with the evidence of their own eyes, there would always be
those who refused to believe at least some of the story that had been
repeated so often as to have become part of the popular lore.  Foremost
among those was the claim that she was the last survivor of a lost alien
world.


      Visitors from other worlds, the general public had been conditioned to
believe by almost a half century of science fiction novels and films, were
supposed to be equally alien in appearance.  Depending on which author or
screenwriter you favored, they could range from totally monstrous to almost
cute and cuddly.  But only in the most unimaginative of those forums would
they have been depicted as looking like the all-American girl next door.


      When she considered the continued disbelief in her abilities and her
origins, Supergirl sometimes wondered if they still would’ve been the same
had she been born a man, or at least had some distinguishable difference
like pointed ears.  Think what they might, however, the young woman in
question had no doubt as to who she was and where she had come from.
Thanks to the foresight of her natural father, she knew a great deal more
about the world of her birth than might have been imagined, especially given
the circumstances under which she had left it.


      The telepathic scan that had judged Jonathan Kent as a suitable
guardian for the last child of Krypton had, at the same time, implanted an
incredible storehouse of knowledge in his mind.  At first, he was hardly
aware of it, but in the days and weeks that followed he began to realize that
he possessed memories not his own.  One of the first that became clear to
him was that the babe in his wife’s arms was the daughter of Jor-El and
Lara, who had perished along with their world light years away.  It was that
first realization that had led them to christen the child Laura Kent.


      Also as those transplanted memories came into focus came the
awareness that eventually they would fade over time, given certain
differences between Kryptonian and human minds.  To preserve them as
best he could, Jonathan resurrected a long abandoned hobby of science
fiction writing, putting down on paper what eventually amounted to a rather
concise history.  By the time Laura could herself read and understand the
stories he’d filled several notebooks with for herself, they formed what
could’ve been a manuscript for a national bestseller, had it not been
intended for a readership of one.


      Finally excusing herself from the crowd,  Supergirl returned to the center
of the rail bridge and, now that she had the luxury of time, easily deactivated
the deadly devices.  It was just a matter of her using her super-breath to
freeze the sensitive triggers long enough to physically disable them.  While
doing so, she also spotted a number of quite readable fingerprints on both
units that would be of great interest to the FBI.  Evidently, their creators
hadn’t been as intelligent as they fancied themselves, or they simply
assumed there would be little left of the explosives to prove incriminating.


      A glance sunward told her the time far more accurately than any
timepiece she might have worn.  The appointment she had come to
Metropolis for some two weeks before was now only a half hour away.
Plenty of time for her to stop along the way and deliver the now harmless
explosives at the local FBI office.




				-=-=-=-
	
	With a good fifteen minutes to spare before her appointment,
Supergirl silently landed in the alley behind the Daily Planet building that led
to the loading dock.  A few hours from now, when the first evening edition hit
the streets, this area would be a beehive of activity, but at the moment it
was deserted as a ghost town.  Still, it didn’t hurt for her to do a quick three
hundred and sixty degree x-ray scan just to be sure.


	Satisfied that she was indeed alone, Supergirl opened a small
bundle she had retrieved from where she had left it atop one of the taller
buildings in the area.  In a blur of motion, the familiar blue and red costume
vanished, to be replaced by a simple, nondescript tan and white business
suit.  Laura often wondered what other costumed adventurers did with their
civilian clothes when they changed but had been too shy to ask the few that
she’d actually met.  If she were a man, she also sometimes thought, she
could probably get away with wearing practically the same suit every day,
copies of which she could leave in different places.  Unfortunately, women’s
style, even in the business world, called for more variety.  Since coming to
Metropolis, she had taken to carefully folding up her outfits into a special
protective bag and leaving it in places only she could easily retrieve it.  What
else could she do, hide them in some secret pocket in her cape?


	In addition to the change of clothing, her short, pixie hairstyle was
now covered by a longer haired wig of similar hue.  The change was
completed with the donning of a pair of rectangular, gold framed glasses
which, along with the wig, changed the shape of her face.  Eyeglasses
seemed out of place on someone who could read newsprint from a quarter
mile away, but it was all necessary to achieve the desired effect.


	From the time she’d first appeared in public, at least since she’d first
appeared in costume, the Girl of Steel had never given any indication that
she was anyone other than Supergirl.  Since she made no attempt to hide
her face, people seemed more willing to go along with that small piece of
fiction.


	The truth was, long before that first costumed appearance, a great
deal of thought had gone into the decision of what to do about preserving
her privacy.  Adding a mask or even an all-covering cowl had been
considered and then rejected.  It had been Martha Kent’s suggestion that
the best place to hide would be in plain sight.  People see what they want to
see, she’d said, and they definitely would see what they weren’t looking for
in the first place.


	So with a few simple changes, a longer hair style, a pair of glasses,
and a small change in her voice so that when she spoke as Laura her mid-
western accent was always noticeable, the illusion was complete.  If anyone
did happen to notice any resemblance, it was superficial enough to be easily
dismissed.  Especially since, as Laura, she always let her natural
exuberance shine through, hardly the act of someone trying not to attract
attention to herself, and it was in the Supergirl guise that she presented a
much quieter persona.  After all, Laura was who she was; Supergirl was just
the name of the person wearing the costume.


	An elevator ride to the twenty-second floor brought her to the
editorial offices of the Daily Planet and her appointment with the managing
editor, Perry White.  A year before, Mr. White had delivered a lecture at
Metropolis University where Laura had been taking journalism classes.
Afterwards, he had been gracious enough to read some samples of a few of
the top students’ writing, which included the girl who was always careful to
make sure she placed in the top percentile of her class, but not too close to
the top.  White had given her some encouraging words and suggested that
she give him a call when she graduated.


	Laura was smart enough to realize that he probably said that to a
number of students in a year, but confident enough in her writing talents to
try and hold him to it.  So, two weeks ago, after having completed the
requirement for her degree a year early, she gave him a call.  The Editor
had truthfully told her that he didn’t remember the invitation but had no
doubt in his mind that he had made it, confirming Laura’s initial conclusion
that he made those offers as a matter of form.  Unwilling to go back on a
promise, even if he didn’t remember it, he had his secretary set up an
appointment with her.


	The bulk of the twenty-second floor was a large open bullpen, filled
with desks occupied by various reporters, columnists and associate editors.
At the forefront of it all sat a receptionist’s desk which Laura approached, to
state the nature of her business.  She fully expected to be waiting out here
in the reception area for some time, until Mr. White was free, which based
on the level of activity she could observe wasn’t going to be any time soon.


	“Oh yes, Mr. White is expecting you,”  the middle aged receptionist
said as she consulted a clipboarded notepad on her desk.  “If you just follow
Jimmy here,”  she added, indicating the redheaded teenage boy sitting in
one of the chairs against the wall, “he’ll show you the way to his office.”


	Thanking the woman, Laura followed the young man, who she
concluded was a high school intern, based on his age.  Thinking about it as
she passed the long rows of computer topped desks; she decided that it
made more sense for the managing editor to get her interview out of the way
as quickly as possible so he could get on with the business of getting the
first edition out.  At best, she thought, she had about ten or fifteen minutes to
make an impression on him.


	True to his reputation, Perry White wasted no time in getting to the
point once the interview started, and the substance of his words was pretty
much what Laura had expected.  While not discouraging her ambitions or
what he assumed was obvious talent, since he must’ve seen something in
her work to have made the offer in the first place, good reporters, he said,
needed more than talent; they needed real life experience, and that just
wasn’t something a person just coming out of college had a great deal of.


	Oh, there were sometimes exceptions, he added, there was an
excellent young woman he’d hired right out of college two years before. But
Lois Lane was an exception rather than the rule.  Like Olsen, the young man
who had guided her to his office, Lois had been both a high school and
college intern at the paper.


	Laura nodded her head in understanding.  Lois Lane had been a
byline she’d seen in the paper many times, and she had been greatly
impressed by both the writing style and personal fire that the woman
brought to her stories.


	White began to conclude his speech, which by Laura’s reckoning
had run exactly fourteen minutes, with the suggestion that she might be
better off trying her luck at one of the smaller papers, which might be more
able to give her the time to develop the kind of instincts and contacts a good
reporter needed.


	“Thank you very much for your time and advice, Mister White,”
Laura said as she got began to rise from the chair in front of his desk.


	“You’re very welcome,”  Perry said as he offered his hand.  “You just
spend some time developing those skills I mentioned and I’m sure you’ll…”


	“Would it be too imposing of me to ask you to read something for
me?”  Laura interrupted, taking a few pages of type out of her attaché case
before he could say otherwise.  “I wrote this up before coming over here to
show how my work had improved since the last time you read any of it, and
I’d really like your opinion.”


	It was obvious from the look on Perry’s face and the glance at his
watch that he had other things waiting for him, but good manners won out
and he reached out for the papers planning to only give it a minute or two’s
attention.


	“Great Caesar’s Ghost!”  he exclaimed after reading the opening
paragraphs.  “Where did you get this?  It only came over the wire a couple
of minutes before you got here, and then only the bare facts.”


	The pages contained the complete details of Supergirl’s rescue of
the Gotham – Metropolis Express, written up on a typewriter she had
borrowed for a few minutes at the FBI office.


	“A friend of mine happened to be on location,”  Laura smiled, sure
that Perry would assume she was talking about a passenger.  “She thought I
might be interested in the details.”


	She waited a few moments to let him finish reading the story, then
asked if he thought it was good enough for her to submit to one of  those
local papers he was talking about.


	Perry looked up at her for a second, then opened the door to his
office and called for a copy boy.  Olsen, who had been waiting not far away
to walk Laura back out of the office, jumped up at the summons.


	“Olsen, take this right over to Johnson at the city desk,”  he said in a
tone that conveyed an order, not a request.  “Tell him I want it on page one
of the early edition; I’ll leave it up to him what story to push back to page
two.  Once it’s in the system tell him to shoot it over to Ryan to update the
Planet’s online edition.”


	Jimmy stood there for a second, looking at the papers the Editor
had thrust into his hand.  In all the time he’d worked here, he couldn’t
remember anyone actually submitting a story on paper.


	“I meant now, not five minutes from now,”  White said, his tone
causing the teenager to practically jump.


	“Does that mean that I don’t have to worry about applying to one of
those smaller papers you were talking about?”  Laura asked, hoping she
wasn’t sounding too presumptuous.


	“What that means is that you have two weeks to dazzle me,”  the
older man said. “In this business you’re only as good as your last byline.”


	Before Laura could make a comment, the door to White’s office
opened and an attractive long haired brunette in a white blouse and brown
skirt walked in unannounced.  She started talking almost as soon as the
door opened, stopping only when she realized that the editor wasn’t alone.


	“Oh sorry, Perry, I didn’t realize you…”  she started to say.


	“Lois Lane, meet Laura Kent,”  Perry said in way of introduction as
he cut the brunette short.  “She’s starting at the Planet as of today.”


	The announcement caught Lois by surprise; usually she knew
everything that happened in the office before it happened.  She took in the
younger girl before her, amazed by the deer in the headlights look on her
face.  Perry was always hiring college interns to give them a taste of the real
world.  From the look of this one, she didn’t give her two weeks.


	“Nice to meet you, Laura,”  Lois said as she extended her own
hand.  “If you need help with anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”


	Laura seemed to hesitate, then took Lois’s hand in her own, holding
it tightly for a few seconds as she thanked Lois and said she was happy to
meet her as well, having read many of her stories while she was in school,
and that she hoped she did as well at the Planet as Lois had done.


	Lois immediately picked up on the accent in the younger woman’s
voice and tagged her with the nickname “farm girl.”


	“You bring me a few more Supergirl exclusives like the one you just
did and you’ll do just fine,”  Perry remarked, his tone more supportive than
before.  He’d been the grizzly bear already, so now he could be the teddy, if
only for the moment.


	“Supergirl exclusive?”  Lois asked, her own tone abruptly changing
in the opposite direction as she realized that Laura was being hired as a
reporter, and not part of the support staff as she had assumed.  She took a
longer, more intense look at the other woman, wondering how much
competition she might turn out to be.


	“Yeah, farm girl,”  Lois thought again as she decided that she wasn’t
going to be any competition at all.  Especially not with that silly grin on her
face.


				-=-=-=-


	In the weeks that followed, Laura Kent did indeed manage to dazzle
Perry.  So much so, that even Lois had to admit, if only to herself, that she
had been wrong in her initial assessment of the farm girl from Kansas.  And
if there was one thing Lois hated above all else, it was to be proven wrong.


	With an almost frustrating regularity, Laura managed to bring in
more page one stories than anyone else on staff, with the exception of Lois.
The difference between them both, however, was too slim for the senior
reporter to be happy about it.


	At first, it seemed like the neophyte newswoman intended to make a
career out of reporting on the Girl of Steel.  Her first three headliners had
been all about the super-heroine, causing Lois to remark that people were
beginning to wonder if perhaps Laura had Supergirl’s private cell phone
number on speed dial, or that perhaps she’d worked out some sort of
personal arrangement with the Kryptonian to be some sort of press agent for
her.


	The regularity of Supergirl stories seemed to subside after that, with
Laura branching out into other areas, some of which had previously been
Lois’s preserve.  Such an encroachment once would’ve brought all of the
veteran reporter’s fury down on the poacher, but it had come at the same
time as Lois Lane began to emerge as the one who might just have some
sort of special connection with Metropolis’s newest marvel.


      More and more stories about the Maid of Steel began to appear under
the Lane byline, including a personal interview that had won the Metropolis
Journalism Award for that year.  Now it seemed it was Lois who had that
personal number, or at least it was the other way around.  People would
spot her headed up to the roof of the Planet building at odd hours, knowing
that she’d come back down with another exclusive.


      Her position again secure, Lois even began to get along better with
Laura who eventually graduated from “farm girl” to simply “Kent”; in Lois’s
book this was a remarkable concession.  She didn’t even mind it too much
when, after Laura had been with the Planet a few months,  Perry suggested
they team up on a few stories, just to see how it worked out.


      “As long as she remembers it’s Lane and Kent,”  turned out to be Lois’s
only comment on the collaboration, which tuned out to be all that Perry
could’ve hoped for.  Somehow, each of them brought out the best in the
other.  Over the following six months, there had been almost as many
shared bylines as there had been singular.


      In addition to her improved relations with Lois, Laura also made some
good friendships among the other Planet staffers.  One exception, however,
had to be Steve Lombard, the former star quarterback of the Metropolis
Meteors who wrote a weekly column for the paper.  Or more accurately, had
the column ghost written for him.  Never had Laura met a more arrogant,
self-centered neanderthal, one that made the football jocks back in
Smallville seem like Rhodes Scholars.  They hadn’t been introduced two
minutes when he’d started hitting on her.


      “Laura, I don’t think you’ve had the chance to meet Steve Lombard,”
Jerry Walsh, the senior sports editor said as he introduced the six foot two
former athlete.


      “No, I don’t think I have,”  Laura said,  “are you part of the sports writing
staff?”


      “You’re kidding, right?”  the broad shouldered, brown haired man said as
he stepped past Jerry and towered over Laura.  “You’re actually going to tell
me that you’ve never heard of Steve ‘the slinger’ Lombard?”


      “Should I have?”  Laura asked, as she saw out of the corner of her eye
that Jerry was actually enjoying this.


      The “sports columnist” was stunned for a moment.  The last time he’d
met any girl that didn’t automatically know who he was had been his
freshman year of college.  And that had only been in the few days before the
start of football season.


      “Oh, I remember now,”  Laura said with a smile,  “you were some kind of
ball player, right?”


      “Yes, football,”  Steve said, reminding himself that losing his temper
would ruin any chance at the objective he had in mind when he asked Jerry
to introduce him to the cute reporter.  “If you don’t have any plans, I’d love to
take you out to dinner and tell you all about my days with the Metropolis
Meteors.”


      As tempting as that sounds, I think I’ll have to pass,”  Laura replied,
putting as much disinterest in her voice as possible.


      “Are you sure,”  Steve said, a measure of disbelief in his own voice.  He
wasn’t used to being turned down.


      Laura nodded her head that she was, now finding the former athlete
more of an annoyance than anything else.


      “Babe, you don’t know what you’re passing up,”  Lombard insisted, his
disappointment bringing forth his natural crudity.  “You’re giving up the
chance to find out why all the ladies call me Big Steve.”


      “They do?”  Laura said, curiosity getting the best of her for a second as
she shifted her gaze from Steve’s face to an area much lower.  “I can’t ever
imagine why.”  She grinned just before she turned and walked away.


      On the other end of the spectrum, Laura found herself becoming very
good friends with Jimmy Olsen, the intern who she had met on her first day
on the job.  Unlike Lombard, the teenager had never even made so much as
a pass at her, despite the closeness of their ages.  Asking around, Laura
discovered that none of the other women in the office had ever been asked
out by him either, not even those who had expressed an interest in such a
development.  That, combined with his lack of mention of any woman in his
life other than his mother, caused many of the women to conclude that
young Mr. Olsen was gay.  A shame to be sure, at least from their
perspective.


      That conclusion, Laura discovered while working late one night, turned
out to be as far off the mark as could be.  Heading for the storeroom where
she often locked up her clothes before going on a late night patrol, Laura
stopped just short of entering when she heard a muffled noise from within.
One curious enough to prompt an x-ray scan of what was beyond the door.


      “Oh my,”  Laura said silently as she discovered that not only was the
room already occupied, but that young Mr. Olsen was most definitely not
gay.


      Nor was Jimmy alone, as she identified the source of that barely audible
moan.  If she had to pick that last woman on Earth, or at least the Planet,
that the intern might’ve been involved with, Cat Grant would’ve been at the
top, or quite near it, of the list.  Yet, there was the forty-something year old
gossip columnist doing the nasty with young Mr. Olsen.  Grant, it appeared,
had been out at one of those parties where she got most of her scoops from
at least that was the assumption based on her dress.  Or rather her state of
undress as the expensive gown was crumpled on the storeroom floor,
leaving her with only a garter belt and a pair of sheer stockings.


      At the moment, she was quite energetically riding the teenager’s cock,
seemingly held in place only by the tight grip his hands had on her rounded
breasts.  Breasts which Laura had long ago noted had been surgically
enhanced, but some people didn’t seem to care about things like that.  What
attracted Cat to the intern rather than one of the more famous people she
normally associated with was rather obvious.  Unlike the boastful Mr.
Lombard, Mr. Olsen would’ve been quite justified in calling himself “Big Jim”
if he’d wanted to.


				-=-=-=-


      “Kent, do you have those notes on kickbacks and the City Council
Speaker?”  Lois asked from across the small aisle that separated their two
desks.


      Without looking up from the open folder she was reading from,  Laura
reached into a seemingly disorganized pile on the edge of her desk and
produced a paper clipped stack containing the notes Lois had asked for.
The brunette reporter could never understand how her junior partner could
keep track of anything on that mess she called a desk, much less be able to
seemingly pick anything she was searching for out of it without looking.


      Another hour passed as the two of them worked on their respective
stories, during which time the city room grew emptier as people ended their
workday.


      “What do you say we grab a bite to eat once we finish up here?”  Laura
asked across the aisle as she sent her story off to the appropriate editor’s
desk, after saving a back up copy to her hard drive.


      “Eat?”  Lois said, as if the word had no meaning.


      “Yes, as in putting cooked things which taste good in your mouth and
consuming them so as to have the energy to go on another day,”  Laura
said with a grin.  “I’m told there are places called restaurants where people
can go and sit down and actually enjoy a meal without interruption.”


      On most nights, dinner to Lois usually meant whatever came in little
white cartons or Styrofoam boxes.  Cooking, even the most simple dishes,
was not one of her many talents.


      “I have a lot of work to finish up here,” came her reply.


      “On a story for which we won’t have all the confirmations we need until
sometime next week,”  Laura pointed out.


      As expected, Lois had yet another excuse, one that Laura again had an
answer for.  Finally, after a little more cajoling, Lois finally gave in.




				-=-=-=-




	“Now, isn’t this better than eating at our desks, trying not to spill
marinara sauce on our notes?”  Laura said as the waiter walked away from
their table after delivering their entrees.


	“Okay, I’ll give you that,”  Lois said after sampling the chicken
marsala she had ordered,  “but don’t think that this little culinary field trip
isn’t going to cost you.”


	“Oh I don’t mind picking up the tab,”  Laura replied as she took a
taste of her own linguini with clam sauce,  “it was after all my invitation.”


	“No, I can pay for my own dinner, thank you,”  Lois said as she took
a long sip of the wine they had also ordered.  “What I mean is that as long
as I let you drag me here,  you’re going to have to make it worth my time.”


	“In what way?”  Laura asked.


	“What I’m thinking of is my favorite pastime, a nice little game of
questions and answers,”  Lois said with a anticipatory grin.  “I ask the
questions, and you get to provide the answers.”


	Laura didn’t immediately reply, instead taking a long drink from her
own glass as she told herself that she should’ve realized that Lois had given
in too easily.


	“And don’t give me that ‘questions about little old me’ look,”  Lois
said with an even wider grin.  “You’ve turned out to be far from the innocent
farm girl I first took you to be, and as I’m sure more than a few people have
told you, I hate being proven wrong.”


	“Well, if that’s the price I have to pay, fire away,”  Laura smiled,
confident she could handle any question Lois might ask.


	Laura had learned enough about Lois’s interview techniques to
know that she would begin with a number of softball questions.  Sure
enough, most of the first dozen were about things that she had already told
Lois, or at least didn’t keep secret from anyone.  It was only when they were
halfway through the meal and and half a bottle of wine was gone, that the
questions began to become more personal.


	“Anyone special in your life?”  Lois asked, refilling Laura’s now
empty glass from the bottle.


	“Well, my parents, of course,”  Laura replied, thanking Lois for the
refill as she took another healthy mouthful, thinking that she could empty the
wine cellar down in the basement and not be affected in the least, unlike
Lois who was obviously beginning to feel the effects a little.


	“You know that’s not what I meant,”  Lois said, refilling and raising
her own glass.


	“Who has time for a relationship in this line of work?”  Laura said,
giving an answer she was sure Lois would relate to.


	“True enough,” she agreed,  “but as someone once said, if
something is important enough you make the time,”


	“Then I guess I haven’t found anyone important enough,”  Laura
said.  “How about you?”


	“No one, or should I say nothing that doesn’t run on batteries,”  Lois
softly laughed.  “There are times I feel like I should be sending thank you
notes to Duracell.”


	If Lois was looking to provoke a reaction from Laura with that
remark, she was disappointed, as the younger woman didn’t even flinch.


	“What about back home, what was that town called again, oh yeah,
Smallville,”  Lois continued.  “Any special guy back there?”


	“I was somewhat of a tomboy growing up,”  Laura answered.  “I
think I scared away most guys because I was better at the games they
played than they were.  There was one guy, Pete Ross was his name, but
we were more buddies than anything else.”


	“Any girlfriends?”  Lois said without missing a beat,  “and I don’t
mean the kind you listened to CD’s with and did each other’s hair.”


	Laura hesitated, waiting too long to lie and just say no.  The wine
hadn’t affected Lois as much as she was pretending it did, she was still
focused enough to have classically set her up.  The Duracell comment had
been to throw her off her guard and unprepared for the next question. Laura
had watched enough tapes of Lois’s interviews to recognize the tactic, but
hadn’t done so.  With nowhere else to go with it, being honest seemed to be
the safest course of action, or as close to honest as she dared to be.


	“Her name was Lana,”  Laura finally said, then added with not a
small amount of pride,  “she was head cheerleader, class president and the
best friend I ever had.”


	There was much more she wished she could say about the beautiful
redhead that had captivated her heart.  As alien as she had sometimes felt
due to her extraterrestrial origin, there had been many times that aloneness
paled against the realization that she was also different from other girls in a
much more human way.  It wasn’t until that night in high school when, during
a snowstorm, Lana’s car had broken down halfway between Smallville and
the Kent farm that Laura learned that even in a small town in the middle of
the heartland, she wasn’t as unique as she thought.  At least in that aspect.


	“I’ve done the girl thing,”  Lois said without hesitation.  “No biggie,”
she added, her speech just a little slurred.


	“Did you like it?”  Laura asked, her question full of the hesitancy that
Lois’s had lacked.


	“It was fun,”  Lois replied with equal ease.  “In fact, I think I
sometimes get along better with other women than I do men.  Like you, I
probably intimidate them too much.”


	There was a pause as Lois again sipped her wine, then she
returned to the questions.


	“What happened to Lana?”  Lois asked.


	“Life changes,”  Laura said.  “We just wanted different things.  She
wanted to stay in Smallville and I wanted the world.”


	“But you settled for the Planet, right?”  Lois said, laughing at her
own small joke.


	“Anyone since?”  she continued.


	“Well, I met a few girls in college,”  Laura said, “but nothing very
serious.  One of them even told me that nothing that happens in college
counts.”


	“Gay until graduation, huh,”  Lois laughed.  “Been there, done that,
got the t-shirt.”


	“There’s a t-shirt?”  Laura asked, thinking that she might like to have
had one as a souvenir.


	“No, not really, but there should’ve been.”  Lois said, her mind
obviously on a far off memory for a moment.  The moment passed and then
Lois asked, since there was no one else in her life, what it was that Laura
did with her spare time.


	“Oh fight crime, stop natural disasters, the usual sort of thing,”
Laura  grinned.


	“Funny,”  Lois said, thinking as Laura had expected that the wine
had prompted that particular answer.


	They were interrupted by the waiter who cleared the dishes and
asked if they wanted anything else.  They settled on after dinner coffee but
would skip the suggested desserts.


	“Ever wonder what she does for sex?”  Lois asked once the waiter
had delivered their coffee.


	“Who?”  Laura replied.


	“Who else, the girl in red and blue,”  Lois expanded.  “I mean, talk
about a woman being intimidating to a man.  To say nothing of the rather
unique physical problems that must go along with it.”


	“Physical problems?”  Lana asked curiously.


	“Well, just imagine how hard a man would have to work to just get
her off,”  Lois replied.  “In fact, a normal guy might not even be able to do it
at all.”


	“You were the one who finally got the in-depth interview with her,”
Laura pointed out,  “maybe you should’ve asked her when you had the
chance?”


	“Because I promised Perry that I’d be on my best behavior when I
did it,”  Lois explained.  “He’s never let me forget the time I asked the junior
Senator from New York during her Presidential run if it was true she had
slept with her husband’s former attorney general.”


	“I never heard about that,”  Laura laughed.


	“Neither did anyone else, “  Lois grinned.  “At the Senator’s
insistence, the question was later edited out.”  Lois grinned.


	“Did she actually answer it?”  Laura asked curiously as she
visualized the two women in question.


	“Sometimes lack of an answer is answer enough,”  Lois pointed out.


	“Maybe Supergirl is a fan of Duracell too,”  Laura abruptly offered,
returning to the previous subject.


	“I think in her case, Black and Decker might be more appropriate,”
Lois laughed.  “More power and the right tool for the job.”


	Laura laughed as expected, even though she knew the truth was
quite the opposite.  Just because bullets and the like bounced off her skin,
there was no reason to assume that her sexual responses were anything
other than those of a normal woman.  In fact, in her experience she had
found quite the opposite to be true.  Kryptonian women, she’d discovered,
were quite sensitive in that regard.


	The conversation drifted on to a few more mundane topics and soon
enough their coffee cups were empty.  Declining a refill and the again
offered dessert, they paid the bill, and exited the below ground restaurant
out onto the street.


	“You heading back to the office?”  Lois asked as they stood outside
the  restaurant.


	“No, I don’t think so.  I’ve got a few things I need to check out before
I head home,”  Laura said, glancing off in the distance for a moment.


	“Anything I might be interested in?”  Lois asked, her reporter’s
instincts aroused.


	“No, I don’t think so,”  Laura smiled,  “they’re more of a personal
than professional nature.”


	“Ah, so I didn’t learn everything tonight,”  Lois smiled.


	“Well  a girl’s entitled to some secrets,”  Laura laughed softly.


	“Only if she can manage to hold on to them,”  Lois grinned.


	“Then I guess I’d better get going while I still can,”  Laura said with a
matching grin as she started to turn away.


	She stopped in motion when she hard Lois call her name.  It was
only later on that she realized that Lois had called her by her first name
rather than simply Kent, as had become her practice.


	“I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed this,”  Lois said.  “It’s
been a long time since I’ve been able to just relax for an hour or so with a
friend.”


	“Are we friends now?”  Laura asked, hoping for an answer in the
affirmative.


	“I’d like us to be,”  Lois said, her tone full of the suggestion that she
was looking for one as well.


	“Me too,”  Laura agreed.


	They stood silent for a few long seconds, each just looking into the
eyes of the other.  Then, before Laura could react, Lois leaned in and kissed
her right on the mouth.  The press of her lips against Laura’s only lasted a
moment, but it was enough to leave an aftertaste sweeter than any dessert
they might have ordered.  Not quite enough to have been categorized as
intimate, it had also been more than could be counted as just a casual
exchange between friends.


	“Good night,”  Lois simply said as she stepped back, just before she
turned and walked away from a still stunned Laura.


				-=-=-=-	


	When she really needed to clear her head, there was only one place
for Laura Kent, and that was high above the lights of the city, wrapped in the
comfort of the star filled night.  Five minutes after Lois had turned the corner
and vanished from sight, Laura was once more clad in blue and red and
soaring through the man-made canyons of Metropolis.


	What she needed right now was action, something to take her mind
off what Lois had done.  It wasn’t that she had minded it, quite the contrary
in fact.  It had been one of the most enjoyable moments she’d shared with
anyone in a long time.  It was just that she didn’t want to read too much into
it; after all, it could’ve just been a spur of the moment thing, brought on by
the wine.


	Frustratingly, the city seemed unusually quiet tonight, as she
crossed the length of the oval shaped municipality a second time.  She
couldn’t find so much as the proverbial cat stuck in the tree to draw her
attention.


	After an hour and a half of a much too quiet patrol, the Guardian of
the City decided to make sure that one special citizen had gotten home all
right.  Changing her direction, Supergirl soon found herself back over the
island of New Troy, specifically that section containing the condominium
apartment belonging to one Lois Lane.  Normally, she would never think of
spying on one of her friends with her x-ray and telescopic vision, but, as she
reminded herself, Lois did have a bit to drink at dinner.  She would only take
a quick peek, just be make sure she was okay.


	  Standing in the middle of a passing cloud, Supergirl quickly located
the right building and, counting the floors down from the top of the high-rise,
Lois’ apartment as well.  Narrowing her focus down to the bedroom in the
rear of the condo, Supergirl found Lois where she expected her to be, but
certainly not in that condition.


	Rather than fast asleep, the dark haired beauty was quite awake
and also quite naked, laying atop the comforter that covered her bed.  One
hand rested on her left breast, her fingers playing with the erect nipple in the
middle of it.  The other hand was buried deep between her legs, with those
fingers a blur of motion as they slipped in and out of her pussy.


	Supergirl knew she should have instantly turned away, leaving Lois
to her privacy.  Yet she felt herself unable to do so, the sight was just too
compelling.  Despite being physically a half mile distant, her enhanced
vision produced an image as clear as if she was standing at the foot of the
bed.  She didn’t need any further abilities to tell that Lois was on the verge
of an orgasm.


	Unable to tear herself away, Supergirl watched as Lois’ body rocked
with the force of that climax, her upper hand moving from breast to breast
as the lower continuing to massage her clit.  It was only after the last
tremors had faded from the star reporter’s body and she let the pleasing
weariness lure her to sleep that the Girl of Steel finally turned away.


	Despite the temptation to do so, Supergirl had always resisted using
her x-ray vision to sneak a peek at Lois, even though she sometimes gave
in when other women were concerned.  In fact, she had even avoided doing
so in the locker room or sauna on those few occasions they gone to the gym
together.  Now, she knew exactly what she had been missing.


	As she began to move off in the other direction, the Maid of Might
tried to push the image out of her mind, but was unable to do so.  Lois had,
at least in her opinion, the most perfect breasts she had ever seen.  She
found herself remembering a line from a sitcom she once watched, given by
an actress in reference to her own not unimpressive bust – ‘Not only are
they real, but they’re spectacular.’  In fact, recalling the actress in question,
Supergirl realized that in other areas as well, she had borne a striking
resemblance to Lois.


	Thought of Lois, and what she might have felt for her were now
impossible to dismiss from Supergirl’s mind.  Worse, those thoughts allowed
certain other memories to come to the forefront of her mind as well.
Memories that might have been relevant but no less uncomfortable.  Images
of a time years before and hundreds of miles distant came back, of a life
centered around, and a future once imagined with the girl of her dreams.


	Lana Lang had indeed been all of the things Laura had mentioned
to Lois over dinner earlier in the evening, and, as she had kept to herself,
she had been so much more.  In Lana’s arms, Laura had found love in ways
that had previously been beyond her imagination.  All she had to do was
close her eyes, even now, and she could feel the softness of the redhead’s
lips, and the warmth of her smooth, naked flesh.


	Lana hadn’t been afraid of anything, least of all what people in their
small town might say if it came out that she loved girls.  Nor was she one of
those girls who ran away to Los Angeles, Gotham or one of the other big
cities searching for acceptance.  No, Smallville was her home and people
would accept her for who she was or they could go to hell.


	To anyone who hadn’t actually grown up in Smallville, that attitude
might have seemed a recipe for disaster, but that hadn’t proved the case.
Most people in Smallville were only a few generations removed from the
pioneers who settled the town, and they had been an eclectic lot to say the
least.  The town and its citizens had always had a strong tradition of leaving
people to live their lives as they chose, much more so than their big city
counterparts did.  So if Lana, who was quite well liked, and that nice Kent
girl, who was also well liked, if thought of as a little strange at times, wanted
to be together, well that was no one’s business but their own.


	There would always be a few sour apples in a bushel, but those
were usually few and far between.  Moreover, to those who felt they had
something to say about it, the often told story of the incident at Smallville
High during the girls’ junior year usually kept a tongue in check.


      It had occurred one quiet afternoon just as cheerleading practice was
breaking up.  Lana, along with the rest of the squad, was just leaving the
field when she found herself confronted by “Bash” Bradford, the quarterback
of the football team.  Bradford had been publicly dumped by his girlfriend,
Sally Young, a few days before and had been since told by a few of his
buddies that it had been on the advice of Sally’s lab partner, Lana, that she
had done so.


      When Lana said that she had indeed told Sally that she could do a lot
better than “Bash”, the burly athlete totally lost it, accusing her of trying to
steal his girl and than loudly calling both her and Laura a couple of  “fucking
desperate dykes”.  As he said it, the two hundred and thirty pound football
player made what every onlooker interpreted as a threatening move toward
Lana.


      Of the two dozen or so spectators who had been there that day, there
had always been some confusion about what happened next.  No one
disputed that just before the confrontation had started, Laura Kent had been
sitting in her usual place up in the last row of the bleachers, reading a book.
The next thing anyone knew, she was standing between Lana and “Bash”,
delivering a right cross that floored the twice her size athlete.  What no one
could remember was seeing her come down the bench or cross the field.


	“We are not desperate,”  most of the onlookers remembered Laura
having said as she stood over the unconscious jock.


	Nothing it seemed would ever come between Lana and Laura,
nothing, it turned out, but the girl in red and blue.  Although it would be
almost another year before either of them discovered that.


	An Indian summer had extended late into October their senior year
and the girls decided to take advantage of the still warm nights with a
moonlight picnic.  The spot they chose was not far from where they had
been trapped that night of the snowstorm, just a tenth of a mile from the
marker that signified the edge of the Kent farm.  The night couldn’t have
been more perfect as they shared the late supper that Martha Kent had
prepared for Laura and the girl she now viewed as a second daughter.  The
sky was clear and filled with stars, the light of which was only surpassed by
that of the full moon.


	With no one else around for miles, emotions took hold and the two
young women spent the better part of an hour making love, enjoying the
rapturous release that each had learned to give the other, time and again.  It
was only after the third, or had it been the fourth, they lost count somewhere
along the way, that they settled naked into each other’s arms, just laying on
the oversized blanket and staring up into the comforting sky.


	“Are you cold?”  Laura asked of the girl whose head was resting
against her soft breast.


	“I probably should be,”  Lana replied as she nudged her head into
the valley between Laura’s mounds and softly kissed the flesh within,  “but,
I’m not.  Your body is almost like an electric blanket,” she added.  “It keeps
me warm.”


	Laura wrapped her arms tighter around Lana, sharing more of the
warmth she was enjoying.  They just lay silent for a while, until the dark
haired girl again broke the silence.


	“Lana, we need to talk,”  she softly said, gently stoking Lana’s long
red strands as she did.


	“Do we really have to?”  Lana asked, her eyes still closed.  “Can’t
we just stay like this forever?”


	“As much as I’d like to, no,”  Laura replied, a bit of regret evident in
her voice.


	“You know I can never say no to you, my love,”  Lana said as she
lifted herself up just high enough so that she could bring her lips to Laura’s.
“Even though I know this is going to be about something I really don’t want
to talk about.”


	“What makes you think it’s about that?”  Laura asked.


	Before Lana replied, she lifted herself all the way up into a sitting
position and swung around to face Laura.  Sitting there, with moonlight
washing across her breasts, the beauty of the seventeen year old was
almost enough for the slightly younger woman sitting across from her to
abandon her plans.  It was only when she reminded herself that this wasn’t
something that could be put off much longer that she found the strength to
succeed.


	“While we were in the kitchen and you and your mom were packing
the basket,”  Lana began,  “I saw the letter on the countertop, the one with
the hard to miss return address.”


	“It is a great opportunity,”  Laura said.


	“But why even go to college, especially one so far away?”  Lana
said, repeating a familiar refrain.  “Especially when we have everything we
could ever want right here in Smallville.  How many times have I told you
that I’d be perfectly content being a farmer’s wife, as long as you were the
farmer’s daughter I shared that life with?”


	“You’d really be happy, never leaving here?”  Laura said, taking
Lana’s hands in her own.


	“This little town is all the world I ever needed,”  Lana replied.  “Just
as it was for my mother and father, my grandparents, and even their
grandparents.  Not everyone has to go out and make their mark on the
world, sometimes it’s just enough to be happy.”


	“And what if I couldn’t be happy here?”  Laura asked.


	“Why couldn’t you be?”  Lana asked in turn. “I would hope that my
love for you would be enough to make you happy.”  Lana paused for a long
moment, then asked a question she feared asking.  “Is it that you don’t love
me anymore?”


	“Lana,”  Laura said, her voice drawing as much emotion as she
could put into it.  “I’ve loved you since that night in the snowstorm, and I love
you today, tomorrow, and until the day I take my last breath.  It’s just that
there’s something that I need to do…”


	“What is it that you need to do that you can’t do it here in Smallville
with me?”  Lana asked, cutting Laura off in mid-sentence.  “You want to
write, that’s fine, no one said you could never be a writer, but why can’t you
take courses at the community college in Myers County?  It’s only an hours
drive from here.”


	“Lana, it’s not just the writing,”  Laura said, “I’ve wanted to tell you
this for the past few months, but I could never find the right time or place.”


	“Whatever it is, it’s not going to make a bit of difference,”  Lana said
as she reached out to being their hands together once more.  “I will love you
forever as well.  Of course if you’re going to tell me you’ve been fucking
“Bash” Bradford on the side, I might just have to change my mind about
that,”  she added, hoping a little humor would make her friend feel better, “if
only for exhibiting a total lack of good taste.”


	That humor faded from her thoughts as she took hold of Laura’s
hands and felt them trembling in hers.  Whatever she was holding inside, it
was more serious than she could ever have imagined.


	“Laura, I love you,” she said simply and directly,  “please tell me.”


	Laura took a deep breath and then asked Lana if she had heard all
the stories these last few months of some strange girl who appeared out of
nowhere and stopped both several disasters as well as crimes around the
state?


	“I heard some of that on the radio, but who believes those things?”
Lana replied.  “More importantly, what does that have to do with you?”


	“They really happened, and it was me,”  Laura said.


	“What are you talking about?”  Lana said, now confused.


	“Lana, I’m not like anyone else,”  Laura said, still holding her hand
tightly.


	“Oh course not,”  Lana said.  “That’s one of the reasons I love you
so.”


	“Oh this isn’t going to work,”  Laura said as she released her hold on
Lana and rose to her feet.  “I’m just going to have to show you.”


	Still confused, Lana rose to her feet as well.


	“Lana, do you trust me?”  Laura asked.


	“Of course,”  she replied.


	“Then just humor me for a minute, will you?”


	Lana nodded her head yes.


	Laura looked around for a second, and then decided it would take
too long for the two of them to get dressed again.  Instead, she picked up
the blanket they had been laying on and wrapped it around Lana.


	“It’s going to be a little colder where we’re going so I think you’re
going to need this,”  Laura said.


	“Where are we going?”  Lana asked.


	The answer was forthcoming as, with a surprising display of
strength, Laura picked Lana up and into her arms.  Lana was hardly a heavy
girl, but the ease with which her friend lifted her left her almost speechless.
What happened a heartbeat later would leave her most definitely so.


	In an act that Lana knew had to be impossible, the two of them were
rising up into the air, picking up speed with each second until they were high
enough for her to see the lights of Smallville a few miles distant.  Then, once
Laura was sure that her passenger was secure in her grip, the two of them
began to soar across the night sky.


	“Holy Mother of God!”  Lana cried out as her voice returned, the
phrase being one she had NOT used since she was a child being taken to
church by her parents.


	Laura just smiled as they continued to sail across the heavens,
holding Lana in a tight and reassuring embrace.  After a short while, Lana
no longer felt afraid and actually began to enjoy their flight as they went far
enough away from Smallville to float among some clouds.  Then, as they
began to turn for home, Laura had to increase her speed to avoid a
passenger jet she had veered into the flight path of.  If one of those
passengers had been stargazing instead of catching some sleep, they
would’ve witnessed a sight to see indeed only fifty feet off their left wing –
two young women, one wrapped in a blanket, the other totally nude,
crossing the void like a pair of angels.


	“I guess you have to believe me now,”  Laura said once they were
safely back on the ground.


	“How…how is this possible?”  Lana asked, her sense of
wonderment being replaced once more with a heavy sense of reality.


	“I’m not human,”  Laura said, thinking that was the first time she had
ever said that to anyone, even her parents.  “I mean, I wasn’t born here on
Earth.”


	“Where, then?”


	“I was born on a planet called Krypton, which died in an explosion
the light of which won’t even reach here for another century,”  Laura said,
keeping her tone calm and reassuring.  “My parents sent me away just
before the end in an experimental rocket; in fact it landed just a half mile
from here over in the cornfields.”


	“Then the Kents…”


	“They found me when I landed, they raised me, loved me as their
own,”  Laura continued, now failing to keep the emotion those words
produced under control.


	“Of course they did,”  Lana said.  “They’re good people.”


	“The best,”  Laura added.


	“My head is still spinning,”  Lana said as she sat down on the large
picnic basket they had brought.  “This is all so much to take in.”


	“That’s why I was so hesitant about telling you,”  Laura said. “I was
afraid how you would take it, when you found out I wasn’t really human.”


	“Now that’s a load of horseshit, as my grandmother used to say,”
Lana said as she again rose to her feet.  “You are more human than anyone
else I’ve ever met, don’t ever think different.  But even if you weren’t human,
I would still love you.”


	“Even if I really had green scales and a forked tongue,”  Laura
smiled, relieved at her friend’s words.


	“Well, it might take some getting used to the scales,”  Lana smiled
back,  “but a forked tongue might have some interesting possibilities if you
think about it.”


	They stood there for a moment, each knowing that both nothing and
everything had changed forever.


	“I do want to stay here with you,”  Laura said.


	“But you can’t, I know that now,”  Lana replied, a sadness in her
voice.


	“You could come with me,”  Laura pointed out.


	“No, no, I couldn’t,”  Lana said, the sadness more evident.  “We both
know that this is where I belong, the only place that I’ll be truly happy.”


	“We could try,”  Laura said.


	“And destroy what we’ve had,”  Lana interjected.  “Laura, my dear
sweet Laura,  I’m just a small town girl, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”


	Laura opened her mouth to say something, then stopped as she
realized that nothing else she said was going to change anything.


	“But you… You’re famous, or at least you’re going to be,”  Lana
went on.  “No, that’s not right.  I don’t think there’s really a word for what you
are going to be, or what you are going to mean to the world in the years to
come.”           	     	
   	
	“The world can go hang,”  Laura said in an emotional outburst as
she realized what she was losing.  “I can stay here with you.”


	“No, you can’t,”  Lana replied, tears now sliding down her cheeks,
“and I could never be that selfish to ask you to do that.  I’m just glad we had
tonight, so that I could be just a little selfish and have you to myself for one
last time.”


	As she floated above Metropolis, Laura still remembered the last
kiss they’d shared, before she’d flown up into the night sky and out of Lana’s
life forever.  She had watched from thousands of feet in the air as Lana
drove home, but turned away when she saw her drop crying into her bed.
That was the night the Girl of Steel learned that her supposed invulnerability
didn’t extend to her heart.


	Laura Kent left Smallville a week later, supposedly to help take care
of a distant relative on the East Coast.  Since she had long ago earned
enough credits to graduate, the high school was more than willing to issue a
diploma in her name for her to take with her.  Already she had applied to
and been accepted by Metropolis University for the next fall term.


	Only a few months ago, Laura had learned from her parents that
Lana had again found love.  It was the best news from home she had ever
gotten.


	The sound of a distant alarm caught the Maid of Might’s attention
and she happily altered her flight in that direction.  Lana was gone from her
life but Lois was now in it.  It was just a matter of finding out what that was
going to mean.


				-=-=-=-


	“Supergirl saves five in waterfront fire,”  Lois read as she held up
the front page of the early morning edition of the Daily Planet,  “by Laura
Kent.  I guess you still lead a charmed life, always in the right place at the
right time.”


	“I just happened to be out for a walk,”  Laura said as she looked
over Lois’s shoulder at the headline, taking note that Lois hadn’t referred to
her by either of her names.  ”It’s not like I could’ve known that there would
be a fire.”


	“Just out for a walk, down by the docks, at two o’clock in the
morning,”  Lois added as she folded the paper and dropped in on her desk.
“And then you rush back to the office, just in time to make sure it’s the
banner story in the first edition, scooping any other paper in town.”


	Lois had been surprised to discover Laura already at her desk when
she herself showed up at the crack of dawn, eager to pick up where she’d
left off on her latest investigative piece.     	


	“I couldn’t sleep and went out to think,”  Laura said.  “Down by the
water just happened to be where I wound up.”


	“Think about what?”  Lois said as she sat on the edge of her desk,
facing Laura across the aisle.


	“Things.”


	“Things?”  Lois repeated, making it a question.  “What kind of
things?”


	“Well, if you have to know,”  Laura said,  “I was thinking about what
happened last night.”


	“What happened last night?”  Lois asked, as if she hadn’t been
there.


	“You well know what happened last night,”  Laura said, glancing
slightly to her left and right to make sure no one else had come into the
newsroom yet.


	“Okay, yes, I know what happened last night,”  Lois said, relenting.
“So I guess the real question should be, what do you want to do about it?”


	“What do you want to do?”  Laura countered.


	“Alright, look,”  Lois said, slipping off the edge of the desk into the
aisle.  “We can toss this back and forth all day, but I think that would be a
waste of time on both our parts.  So I’m going to step off the ledge here and
tell you how I see it.”


	Laura nodded her head in agreement.


	“I’m attracted to you,  I’m pretty sure you’ve figured that out by now,”
Lois began.  “Don’t ask me the why or how of it, because I don’t know and
have learned that sometimes it’s better not to ask.”


	Laura again nodded her head.


	“Moreover, unless I’m way off the mark, I think I can honestly say
that you’re attracted to me as well,”  Lois added, then paused to see if Laura
wanted to agree to that as well.  When she didn’t, the brunette fell back on
‘silence is sometimes more of an answer than words” and went on.  “But I
also get the impression that’s there’s something out there that’s preventing
you from letting this go forward.  Something that frightens you, and it has to
do with that girl Lana you mentioned.  Oh, those girls in college were okay,
because, as you said, that wasn’t real.  But this, this would be quite real and
that scares you.”


	Laura was speechless.  She couldn’t believe how much of a read
Lois had on her.  Part of her wanted to just grab her and kiss her, but
another held her in check..  Thankfully, Lois then offered a solution.


	“I think you are someone worth fighting for, and I’m willing to take it
as slow as you want, or until you figure out if it’s something that you don’t
want.  Is that okay with you?”


	“Oh yes,”  Laura smiled, filled with the urge to throw her arms
around Lois and kiss her right here in the newsroom.


	A kiss that didn’t happen as a figure just entering the newsroom
from the other direction shouted Lois’s name from the top of his lungs,
diverting her attention in a reflex action.


	“Lois,”  Perry While cried out as he walked across the room,
“Commissioner Henderson’s office just called, and they want you down
there to talk to the District Attorney about your testimony at the Inter-Gang
trial next week.”


	“Now, Perry?”  Lois asked, remembering that Laura was standing
there beside her.  “It’s barely seven o’clock, don’t they normally start their
day around nine-ish?”


	“Right now,”  Perry repeated.  “They’ve been working almost around
the clock on this case and when I mentioned that you were already in, they
asked if you could come right over and I said it wouldn’t be a problem.  I
wasn’t wrong, was I?”


	In a story that was already being talked about as Pulitzer material,
Lois had cracked open the biggest criminal organization in the city in the last
fifty years.  Bruno Mannheim, the boss of bosses who ran Inter-Gang, was
looking at multiple life sentences and the dismantling of his empire, all due
to her investigative skills.


	“Okay, I’ll head right over there,”  Lois relented.


	Not expecting any other answer, the editor was already headed
back to his office.


	“I guess we’ll have to finish this later,”  Lois said to Laura.


	“I could come with you,”  she offered instead,  “just as company.”


	“I’d like that.”  Lois said as she reached down alongside her desk for
her bag.


				-=-=-=-




	“Aren’t you at least a little worried that some of Mannheim’s hoods
might try and keep you from testifying at his trial?”  Laura asked as she and
Lois exited the Planet building onto the near deserted street and started to
walk down to the corner lot where Lois’s car was parked.


	“It goes with the territory,”  Lois, who was walking along the curb line
to Laura’s left, said.  “Besides, my testimony is just the icing on the cake;
they already had enough to send that bastard away for two lifetimes.  The
D.A. just wants to put a human face on it, that’s all.”


	“He’s not the one that Mannheim threatened at his arraignment,”
Laura said, taking note of the slight quiver in Lois’s voice that normal
hearing would never have detected.  “From what I’ve read of him, he’s not
the type who makes idle threats.”


	“Well, if you want to play with the big boys…”  Lois started to say,
but paused when she saw a strange look on Laura’s face, as if something
else had abruptly drawn her attention.


	“Oh no,”  Lois heard Laura say a half second before all hell broke
lose.


	In a display of speed and strength that would no doubt have
astonished Lois if she’d had the time to appreciate it, Laura grabbed her
fellow newswoman and, literally lifting her off the ground, pulled her away
from the curbside.  Everything blurred as Lois felt herself flying through the
air, slamming against the side of the Daily Planet building, a half second
before she felt Laura’s body press tightly against her own.


	She had no way of knowing that Laura had instinctively reacted to
an almost imperceptible but familiar double click, one that had emanated
from a car parked at the curb just behind them.  A sound unique to the firing
mechanism of an Uzi machine pistol in the seconds before it spewed a
lethal stream of lead at six hundred rounds a minute.  And in this case, there
had been two double clicks.


	Lois opened her mouth to say something, but her words were
drowned out by the roaring rip of machine gun fire that shattered the early
morning calm, causing the plate glass window of the office supply store just
behind them to explode inward in a hundred tiny fragments.  An army brat
familiar with the sounds of the firing range, Lois identified the booming
sound, along with the thought that both she and her friend were dead
women.


	The thunder of gunfire cleared as unexpectedly as it had appeared,
replaced by the screech of tires as the ambush car sped away from the
curb.  In their haste, they failed to note that despite the carnage, they were
leaving behind a still standing, stunned but very much alive, Lois Lane.


	“Laura!”  Lois screamed as her mind came back into focus and her
first thought was that the woman pressed up against her had taken the brunt
of the deadly assault.


	She could see where the stream of bullets had first impacted on the
younger woman’s side, then worked their way across her back, ripping the
light jacket she’d been wearing to shreds.  Death had to have come almost
instantaneously, Lois thought as her mind continued to race, Laura’s body
falling against her own, saving Lois’ life at the cost of her own.


	“Oh God, Laura,”  Lois sobbed, tears running down her face as she
held on to the body of a friend who only minutes before she wondered if she
might have been much more.


	“Lois ..it’s okay.”	


	The sound of Laura’s voice came as a bigger shock than the assault
itself, and Lois instantly decided that if she had actually heard it, it had to
have been a dying breath.


	“It’s not possible,”  Lois gasped as she felt the body in her arms
shift, and then lift itself  to stand on its own.


	“It’s not possible,”  Lois repeated, refusing to believe what she was
seeing as the battered, but unbloodied girl before her began to quickly
examined Lois’ body.


	“Oh no, you’re hurt,”  Lois heard Laura say, this time loud and clear,
the comment drawing her attention to her left shoulder where the material of
her jacket had been ripped away and blood splattered across it.


	“Thank God, it’s just a flesh wound, probably from a ricochet,”
Laura went on,  “there’s no muscle or bone damage beneath the skin.”


	“How can you know that?”  Lois asked, her inquisitive nature kicking
in automatically.  Then, as the first waves of shock began to dissipate – she
knew.


	“Oh my God!”  she exclaimed, in a voice eerily reminiscent of one
Laura had heard in a cornfield on a spring night years before.  “How could I
have not seen it?  You’ve been right in front of me all along.”


	“Lois,”  Laura said, a measure of unaccustomed panic in her own
voice. “I never meant for you to find out like this.”


	“Get out of here,”  Lois abruptly said, her voice now again strong
and firm.


	“No,”  Laura said,  “Please no…”


	“You have to get out of here,”  Lois repeated,  “before someone
recognizes you.”


	Laura finally realized that Lois wasn’t lashing out at having been
deceived, she was taking control of the situation.  Already, people drawn by
the sound of gunfire were converging on the two.  Those closest had kept
their distance as they ascertained their own safety, but the more
adventurous were already putting that aside.  An emergency medical unit
was also pulling up into the space the gunmen’s car had vacated, having
been just around the corner when the sound of gunfire filled the air.


	“Go!”  Lois insisted as she pushed Laura away.  “I’ll be fine.”


	Laura stepped back as the first EMT approached, turning so that if
he hadn’t already seen the impact marks on her back, they would be hidden
from his view.


	“Her first,”  she said in an ‘I will be obeyed’ tone.


	Seeing the blood on Lois’s shoulder, the medic followed her
instructions.


	Quickly assessing that Lois’s injury was not life threatening, he then
turned to check the woman who had been standing next to her.  To his
surprise, despite the fact that he had only turned his head for a few
seconds, there was no one there.  His partner, who had been grabbing their
emergency gear from the ambulance, confirmed that there had indeed been
two women standing there when they arrived.  The second one had just
vanished and he was likewise at a loss to explain how.






				-=-=-=-




	A thousand feet above the Daily Planet building, Laura rid herself of
the last of her tattered outfit and incinerated it, along with the rest of her
civilian disguise, with a burst of heat vision.  There was no time to find a
hiding place for what parts of it might be salvageable.


	Focusing her telescopic vision on the street far below, she first
confirmed that, yes Lois was indeed going to be all right. Then she altered
her range of perception and picked up both the heat and emissions trail of
the gunmen’s car.  There was no doubt who had sent them as, even over
the roar of gunfire, she had heard one of the would be killers cry out that it
was a gift from Boss Mannheim.


	It took but a few more moments to track the car to a large,
seemingly nondescript, but in reality heavily fortified warehouse a half mile
distant.  From having read Lois’s notes on her story, she identified the
warehouse as belonging to a front company for Inter-Gang and a favorite
hiding place for Bruno Mannheim.  The place was so heavily armored that
they could probably hold off a dozen Swat teams if they had to, which was
fine, because this time Supergirl was in no mood to be gentle.


	Inside the warehouse, in the central first floor hall where the King of
Crime in Metropolis liked to hold court, Bruno Mannheim was receiving the
report of the men who had carried out his orders.  It had already been a
busy day for the gang lord, after having managed to successfully slip out of
the downtown jail where he had been held since his arrest, leaving behind a
double to convince the police that he was still in custody.  Eventually the
deception was sure to be discovered, but his doppelganger had been well
paid to take the fall once it was.


	Good sense should’ve dictated that Mannheim waste no time in
getting out of the country.  Had he wished, he could even now be on his way
to a country with no extradition treaties.  But ever since he had been a lowly
button man working for the old bosses, Bruno Mannheim had never been
one to leave unfinished business behind.  There were at least thirty men,
dead by his own hand, as proof.  If he couldn’t do the same for Lois, he
would be damned if he would leave until he was sure his orders had been
executed.


	“There’s no doubt that you hit her,”  Bruno asked his top shooters
for the third time.


	“Boss, we emptied almost a hundred rounds into her and some
other broad she was with,” the lead gunman answered yet again.  “Those
bodies have got so many holes in them that they’re not even going to be
able to embalm them.”


	“Good,”  the mob boss finally said as he sat back in his chair.  “I
owed that lousy bitch and Bruno Mannheim always pays his debts.”


	The gunman who had answered couldn’t believe how much trouble
the boss was giving him over one simple hit.  If he’d known it was going to
be like this, he’d have brought along a fourth guy to videotape it all.  Then,
on reflection, he figured he’d better keep that idea to himself, or the boss
might think it was a good idea for the future.  That’s all they needed, films of
their hits that could wind up in court.


	“You said there was some other broad with her,”  Mannheim asked.
“Any idea who?”


	“Just someone with worse luck than the late Lois Lane,”  the hit man
laughed.  “What’s it matter, she ain’t about to come knocking to complain.”


	Bruno Mannheim stared at him for a few seconds, then began to
laugh.  The gunman joined in, followed by all of the gang in earshot.  If
Bruno thought it funny, everyone had better think so.


	The loud laughter abruptly stopped as a sudden roar of wind
drowned out the sound, one that quickly built in intensity until it exploded
into a sonic boom that shattered every window in the three-story structure.
As if by magic, every man’s hand filled with an automatic weapon, aimed in
every direction including that of the eight by ten, five inch thick steel door
that led to the street outside.  A seemingly impenetrable barrier that, a
heartbeat later, blew off its hinges, shattering as it did into a dozen pieces.


	With a direction to aim in, if not a target, two dozen weapons came
to life, filling the entranceway with billowing clouds of dust and debris,
punctuated by a shower of death.  Out of that conflagration walked the red
caped woman in blue, moving forward with slow deliberate steps as she
made no effort to avoid the fusillade.


	After a minute or so, the sounds of destruction decreased in volume
as most of the weapons began to click on empty chambers, while others
ceased fire of their own accord.  The sight of the growing pile of depleted
slugs that had dropped harmlessly at her feet had been enough to cause
even the most determined gunmen to have second thoughts about drawing
her attention to them.


	Still, there is always one made braver by the gun in his hand; or in
this individual’s case, a shoulder-launched rocket propelled grenade.  It had
been part of the loot from a raid on a military supply depot some months
back. Taking quick aim at the Girl of Steel from a second floor balcony, he
confidently pressed the trigger.


	A column of smoke shot across the warehouse as those who
recognized the weapon’s signature quickly sought cover.  To their
confusion, the roar of the missiles passage had not been followed by the
expected explosion of its high explosive warhead.


	Looking up from behind the storage crates where they’d dropped for
safety, they were met by the sight of Supergirl calmly standing in the same
spot as before, the crushed rocket in her hand.  That had been enough for
even the most diehard of Mannheim’s minions, as the sound that now filled
the air was that of weapon after weapon being thrown to the floor.


	“I don’t care what kind of super-bitch you are,”  Mannheim bellowed
as he stepped down from the elevated chair he had been using as a
makeshift throne.  “Bruno Mannheim doesn’t roll over for any broad.”


	With that, he drew his personal firearm from his shoulder holster
and aimed it directly at the Maid of Might.  Supergirl slowly shook her head.
After watching all the gunmen at his command fail to stop her, what did he
really think he was going to do with that popgun?


	Still, just to be sure, she gave the weapon a quick x-ray scan.  After
all, Inter-Gang had been known to possess some extraordinary technology
at times and it was never good to be overconfident.  The weapon turned out
to be a common  .357 magnum, no more dangerous to her than a bag of
peanuts.


	Supergirl took one step forward, and Mannheim fired at point blank
range.  Whatever he was expecting, it certainly hadn’t been to have none of
his shots find their target.  By the time his last round had been expended,
Supergirl was only a foot in front of him.  She smiled, lifted her hand and
one by one, dropped each of the pristine slugs to the floor.  Too fast for the
eye to see, she had caught each one in mid-air.  That was enough for even
the fearsome Bruno Mannheim.


	“Don’t worry,”  Supergirl grinned as her sensitive sense of smell
drew her attention, first to the stain on Bruno’s pants, then to the small
puddle at his feet.  “After they book you back at the jail, you’ll get a brand
new suit free of charge.”


	As she watched the MPD escort Mannheim and his men into the
waiting police vans outside, Supergirl felt a sense of satisfaction at how
things had turned out.  When she’d first crashed through the door, she had
been uncertain if, for the first time in her life, she was going to be able to
keep her anger in check.  They had tried to kill Lois, and the desire to grind
their all too human bones to paste had been strong indeed.  If Lois had been
hurt worse, she might now be surrounded by the mangled bodies of those
who had done it.


				-=-=-=-






	Like a tiger in a cage, Lois Lane paced back and forth in the small
hospital room.  Clad in just a hospital gown with her bandaged arm in a
sling, she fumed at the ridiculous determination of both the doctors and her
own editor to keep her here, at least until the last of her lab tests came back.
She had been shot, big deal, it wasn’t as if it had been the first time.  She
remembered how in her first year in Metropolis she had ignored the orders
of the incident commander and found herself hit in the leg by a stray round,
when a standoff between the Special Crimes Unit and Inter-Gang
degenerated into a shoot out.


	“I’ve got to get out of here,”  Lois thought as for the third time she
looked into the empty closet in her room,  “if only to find out what happened
to Laura.”


	So far, she had stubbornly refused to answer any questions about
what exactly had happened this morning, much to the consternation of both
Perry and the Police Inspector who had interviewed her.  No matter what,
she had to keep Laura out of it.  At least until she could come up with an
explanation as to why she wasn’t dead, without explaining that her junior
partner moonlighted as a superhero.


	“Nice view,”  a familiar voice said, coming from an unexpected
direction, that of the open twenty-third floor window.


	“Laura!”  Lois cried out as she whirled around to face the figure now
gliding through the window.  “I mean Supergirl.”  she quickly corrected
herself.


	An unaccustomed blush filled her face as Lois realized that the view
Supergirl had been referring to wasn’t that outside the window, but rather
the one presented by the hospital gown, which had refused to stay tied and
had been hanging open in the back. Normally, she could’ve walked naked
through the locker room of the Metropolis Monarchs and not given it the
slightest pause.


	“Are you okay?”  Lois asked as her momentary embarrassment
faded.


	“I think that is supposed to be my line,”  Supergirl said with a smile
as she glided across the room, closing the small distance between them.


	“Oh, this is nothing,”  Lois said, grimacing slightly as she attempted
to lift her bandaged arm to show it was fine.


	The discomfort on Lois’s face brought a twinge of sadness to
Supergirl’s.


	“I feel responsible for that,”  the girl in blue said.  “If I’d been paying
more attention, if I hadn’t been distracted, none of this would’ve happened.”


	“Don’t be absurd,”  Lois said, gratitude evident in her tone.  “You
saved my life.  Having to put up with this for a little while is a small price to
pay,”  she added, indicating her arm but this time keeping it hanging in the
sling.


	“Well, that I can at least do something about,”  Supergirl said as she
produced a small instrument, the likes of which Lois had never seen, from a
belt pouch that had been hidden beneath her cape.  “This might sting a little
at first, but it will pass quickly.”


	Lois watched in fascination as the end of the device began to glow
and, as Supergirl ran it back and forth against her wound, a soothing
warmth began to spread outward from the injured area.  By the time she
was done, her shoulder felt as good as new.


	“That was amazing,”  Lois said as she removed the now superfluous
bandage, revealing unmarked skin beneath it.  “What was that?”


	“It’s a dermal regenerator,”  Supergirl responded as she slipped it
back into the hidden pocket.  “Part of an emergency med kit that my father
had the foresight to add to my rocket just before launch.  I haven’t had much
use for it, but in this instance I’m glad I had it.”


	Lois took another few moments to stretch and test her arm,
marveling in her recovery.  Satisfied, her thoughts turned what had
happened during her enforced stay in the hospital.


	“Mannheim?”  she simply said, remembering the Inspector
mentioning that his escape had finally been discovered.


	“Back in police custody, along with his men and a whole new
assortment of charges,”  Supergirl replied.


	“That’s good,” Lois said, not really expecting any other answer,
especially after the way Supergirl had charged off in pursuit of the gunmen
this morning.  That brought forth another question, one that she waited a
moment before asking.


	“Did anyone see you this morning?”  Lois asked, worried what the
answer might be.  “I mean, did anyone connect you and Laura…I’m sorry,
but it’s still hard to realize that the two of you are the same person.”


	“I know it probably does take some getting used to,”  Supergirl
smiled, “but Supergirl is just something people call me when I have this
costume on.  In or out of it, I’m still just Laura.  Just give it a little while, you’ll
be surprised at how quickly you become accustomed to it.”


	“Okay,”  Lois smiled.


	“And to answer the question, as far as anyone is concerned,
Supergirl, who had learned of a possible attempt on your life by Inter-Gang,
decided to play bodyguard while in disguise. – Laura Kent was never there.”


	“And you think people will buy that?”  Lois asked, her tone
expressing her own disbelief.


	“People will buy a great many things if presented correctly,”  the
Metropolis Marvel grinned.  ‘Sometimes all it takes is a wig and a pair of
glasses.”


	“Touche,”  Lois thought, only partially suppressing her smile.


	“And you think people will buy that?”  Lois asked.


	“Well, it’s been up on the Metropolis Star website for the last two
hours,”  the Girl of Steel replied, pausing for a second as she double
checked that no one was within earshot outside the room  “an exclusive by
Toby Raines, and no one seems to have any reason to doubt it.  I thought
that in this instance the story should go with another paper, even though I’m
sure Perry is furious about it.”


	“Toby Raines?”  Lois asked, suddenly picturing the reporter for the
Star who had been an occasional rival, in both professional and personal
circumstances.  “How do you know Toby Raines?”


	“I met her a few times through Maggie Sawyer,”  Supergirl said,
amused to discern a touch of jealousy in the tone of Lois’s question.


	The mention of the Police Inspector, who Lois also knew in a non-
professional capacity, caused her to further recall a conversation with Cat
Grant a few months back.  Evidently, one of Cat’s contributors had spotted
the head of the Special Crimes Unit and the reporter for the Star in certain
invitation-only nightspots, and the gossip columnist was considering making
it an item in one of her reports.  While Maggie Sawyer made no real attempt
to hide her sexual preference, she did value her privacy when it came to
non-job related matters.  Lois had casually suggested to Cat that it was her
decision, of course, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to get on
Maggie’s bad side.


	“I’ve actually been worried about you,”  Lois said, putting her
previous thought aside.  “I know that sounds pretty silly, given what I now
know, but I actually have.”


	“It doesn’t sound silly to me, Lois,”  Supergirl smiled.  “I think it’s
quite natural to worry about someone you care about, regardless of how
unnecessary that concern might be.”


	“I don’t just care about you,”  Lois said.  “I realized that in that single
terrifying moment when I thought you were dead.”


	“I love you too, Lois,”  Supergirl said as she reached out and took
Lois’ hand in her own.  “I think that I fell in love with you that first day in
Perry’s office.  It’s just taken me this long to be able to admit it.”


	“No ghosts of Lana?”  Lois asked, remembering their conversation
of earlier.


	“I will always love Lana as part of my past,”  Supergirl said as she
took hold of Lois’ other hand,  “but I love you as part of my present, and
hopefully - our future.”


	The kiss they shared was long in coming but no less satisfying than
if it had not been interrupted hours before.  They held each other close, the
press of their bodies against each other producing a warmth that equaled
that of the regenerator.


	“I think maybe we should take this somewhere a bit more private,”
the girl in blue suggested, as she heard a muted conversation out in the hall.


	“They took my clothes,”  Lois pointed out.  “I guess they figured that
was the only way to keep me here.”


	“Oh I’m sure we can work around that,”  Supergirl replied as she
kissed her again.


				-=-=-=-


	When the ward nurse, whose conversation out in the hall had
heralded her impending arrival, opened the door to Lois’ room and stepped
inside, she was presented with a mystery.  The room was quite empty, and
the only evidence that it had ever been in use was the soiled bandage in the
wastebasket and the crumpled hospital gown tossed on the bed.  If she had
happened to glance out the still open window, the fifty-six year old might
have discovered the answers to her unspoken questions in the form of a
pair of figures already fading in the distance.


	Wrapped tightly in the red cape that protected her modesty, Lois
watched the city race by below her with indifferent eyes.  Normally, the
tapestry would have impressed anyone, but it paled beside the warmth and
strength she felt in the arms of the woman so effortlessly carrying her.


	Much to Lois’ surprise, the flight turned out to be much shorter than
she expected, ending in quite familiar surroundings – the balcony of her own
high-rise apartment.  Still tightly holding the cape around her, she watched
as Supergirl used a burst of her heat vision to expand the metal of the door
lock, just enough to allow her to open it from the outside.


	“You said you needed clothes,”  she said to Lois.


	“I guess I did,”  Lois replied as she stepped past the girl in red and
blue into her apartment.  “But I somehow thought we might’ve been going to
your place.”


	“I think you might’ve found that a little disappointing,”  Supergirl
responded as she looked around the apartment, which she had of course
seen from a distance but had never been in.  “I live in a small studio
apartment over in Queensland Park, just across the river.  You can even
see it from your balcony, well, I can at least.”


	“You’re kidding,”  Lois said in surprise.


	“Where did you think I lived,”  her guest laughed,  “in some kind of
fortress carved out of a jungle or maybe the Arctic?  Although now that I
think of it, having a place like that to get away from it all might not be a bad
idea.”


	“I just thought that Supergirl…” Lois said.


	“Supergirl might be able to turn coal into diamonds,”  she laughed,
“but Laura Kent has to at least look like she’s living on what a reporter
makes, at least one without a bookcase full of awards to her credit.”


	“I guess so,”  Lois said as she stopped in the middle of her living
room.  “You know, I was going to change, but as I think about it, it does
seem a waste of time, doesn’t it?  After all, it’s not where you are that
matters as much as who you’re with.”


	With that, she dropped the cape to the floor.


				-=-=-=-


	With slow, deliberate steps, Lois walked over to Laura and, bringing
her hands to the side of her face, kissed her once more.  This time there
was no rush, no sense of urgency, just the desire to share with her love the
passion that she felt filling her.


	Laura returned the kiss with equal fervor, her tongue rolling over
Lois’ as it explored the deepness of her mouth.  She brought her hand up to
cup Lois’ breasts, even as she felt first her belt, then  the zipper of her skirt
being undone.


	“I’m glad to see that you designed this to be easily removed,”  Lois
grinned as the bright red skirt came loose and fell to the floor, her hands
already moving to the clamp down between Laura’s legs that held the one
piece top tight against her body.  Once that was undone as well, it was easy
to take hold of the upper garment and slide it up and over her head.


	“No underwear,”  Lois laughed,  “wouldn’t the more upstanding
citizens of Metropolis be shocked.”


	‘Fuck the citizens of Metropolis,”  Laura laughed back.


	“I’d much rather you just concentrate on this citizen,”  Lois smiled as
she kissed Laura once more.


	Without breaking the kiss, Laura again lifted Lois in her arms and
turned in the direction of the rear bedroom.  Lois started to point out which
of the two rear rooms was the bedroom and was surprised when Laura said
she knew.  The how of that was quickly tossed aside in anticipation of much
more important things.


	Laying Lois out across the bed, Laura quickly joined her, their
bodies pressing tightly, one against the other.  She started to ease Lois onto
her back, but Lois instead took hold of both her shoulders and held her
back.


	“No,” she said,  “you just lay back and relax.”


	Laura nodded and let herself be overpowered, sinking back into the
softness of the mattress beneath her.


	Her mouth again seeking out Laura’s, Lois let her hands run up and
down the woman beneath her, enjoying both the softness of her skin and
the warmth it produced.  Bright pink nipples atop firm rounded breasts cried
for attention as her fingers, then her lips, glided across them.  A soft sigh
spilled from Laura’s lips as Lois’ mouth closed around her left nipple, her
tongue caressing the tip to a new hardness before her lips wrapped around
them as well.


	She couldn’t believe how soft Laura’s breasts actually were,
especially in view of the fact that she had seen bullets bounce off them
numerous times.  At the very least, she had thought they would’ve felt at
least as hard as some fake mounds did.  But that was another thought that
only lasted as long as it took to think it, as even more enticing delights
awaited her.


	Laura arched her back and let out an even louder moan as Lois’
tongue continued to flicker across both her breasts, followed by her hands
as she squeezed the soft flesh from beneath.  Lifting herself up just a bit,
Laura brought her own mouth to within reach of Lois’ larger mounds,
pressing her face between them before giving equal attention to both left
and right.


	Both were now kneeing on the bed, sharing kisses and the softness
of each other’s breasts, hands running up and down their backs, tracing a
line down across the roundness of their asses.  They held each other tight,
breast against breast, nipple against nipple, rubbing their bodies and
savoring the sensations each movement produced.


	Lois reached down and cupped the lightly haired mound between
Laura’s legs, her thumb quickly finding its way to the younger woman’s clit
and pressing softly against it, her remaining fingers parting the folds and
slipping inside.


	“Oh yes,”  Laura moaned softly as Lois began to rub back and forth.


	This went on for nearly a minute, then Lois withdrew her hand and,
raising it to her face, slipped her fingers inside her mouth.  A murmur of
satisfaction brought a smile to both.


	Lois then eased Laura back once more onto the bed, kissing her
way down her body.  She started at the nape of her neck and then
downward, skipping over the treasure between her legs to continue down
the length of her long legs before reversing direction.  Once more, she
bypassed the temptations between Laura’s legs, preferring to once more
focus her attention on the fullness of her breasts.


	As she did, one hand again came to rest against her mouth,
repeating the earlier ministrations while the other slipped beneath to grasp
the equal fullness of her ass.  Each new motion added to the cumulative
delights racing across Laura’s body.


	Lois again brought her mouth downward, duplicating her path on
Laura’s other leg, lavishing soft kisses across it before again moving
upward.  She pulled Laura’s body lower on the bed, even as her own rose
up to meet it.  Another series of long, soft kisses followed, Laura’s hand
running across Lois’ back as the longer haired woman again suckled at her
breasts.


	Following an imaginary line down the valley between Laura’s
breasts, across her stomach and over her waistline, Lois finally reached the
source of her womanhood.  She slipped her arms up under Laura’s legs,
reaching upward until her hands met Laura’s and their fingers interlocked.
Bringing her head down between Laura’s legs, Lois extended her tongue
and ran it across the entire length of Laura’s sex, repeating the action
several time, much to Laura’s delight, until finally guiding her probing
appendage deep within.


	Laura gazed down with joy, her eyes meeting Lois’s as her head
continued to rise and then disappear between her legs.  Each time sending
a wave of indescribable pleasure across her quivering form, waves that
were building upon themselves and growing stronger with each repetition.


	Laura was now stretched back on the bed, her eyes closed as she
let herself be carried away on the waves of ecstasy. Low and not so low
moans of encouragement filled the air, urging Lois to drive her tongue and
mouth both harder and faster.


	“Oh fuck yes!”  Laura called out, a particularly fierce surge of
gratification causing her body to convulse.


	Lois responded by reaching up with a free hand and closing it
around one of Laura’s sweat covered breasts, her fingers quickly closing
around its nipple and adding to the rising passions.  Laura followed suit by
closing her own hand around Lois’s and the other against her still bare
mound.  Together their bodies rocked back and forth, the intensity of their
joining building to a crescendo.


	Slipping her hand from beneath Laura’s, Lois brought it down
between her legs and slipped as many fingers as she could inside her,
joining their motions to that of her tongue. That proved to be the final push
as, only moments later, Laura’s body exploded in orgasmic fury.


	“Oooooh  yesss!!!!!”  she cried out as she grabbed the sheets
beneath her and balled them up in her fists.


	Holding onto her just as tightly, Lois continued to propel her fingers
and tongue deep inside Laura, driving the force of her orgasm until it finally
began to subside.


	No sooner had it begun to fade than Laura moved to return those
delights that she had just been given. She told Lois to turn around, and in
moments, Laura found herself just inches from Lois’ damp mound.  Lois
continued to gently caress Laura’s mound with her fingers, even as the girl
underneath reached up with her own hand to probe Lois’s.


	Laura slipped two, then three fingers inside Lois, sliding them
across the sugar walls within with much the same effect that Lois’ actions
had produced inside of her.  Then, with a burst of speed and strength, she
lifted Lois and whirled her onto her back, allowing the shorthaired girl to take
a more dominant position.


	Her hand quickly returned to its task, sliding in and out with ever-
increasing speed, each repetition producing the expected results.  Laura’s
head dropped down to Lois’ breasts, her mouth and tongue working their
way across their bounty.  Never one to lay passive, Lois reached down with
one hand and added to Laura’s ministrations with her own.


	“I’m going to come!”  Lois said, much to her own surprise, only
minutes later.


	“Not yet,”  Laura cried out, not wanting her to climax until she tried
something she had long thought about.  She kissed Lois hard, then flipped
her over once more so that now she was bent over on all fours.


	Extending two fingers, Laura once more slipped them inside Lois,
pressing them in and out a few times, just enough to keep up the excitement
while tempering the onrushing results.  Lois felt the difference, but was still
enjoying herself too much to complain.  Laura seemed to have something in
mind, and she couldn’t wait until she found out what it was.


	The answer came but a heartbeat later, much to Lois’ delight and
surprise.  Laura’s fingers, buried deep inside of her, had actually begun to
vibrate. It was a little trick she used when pleasing herself but, seeing she
had never been intimate with someone who knew the truth about her, had
never had the opportunity to try on someone else.  She was greatly pleased
to see that Lois enjoyed it as much as she did.


	The tiny oscillations around her fingers continued to build as Laura
increased the frequency of her vibrations.  She and Lois had again shifted
positions so that Lois was now kneeling upright with Laura tight behind her,
one hand massaging her breasts, the other still buried inside her.


	“Oh God, fuck me!”  Lois cried out as her body gyrated back and
forth.  “Fuck me harder, it feels so good!”


	Laura abruptly released Lois, letting her fall forward onto the bed,
then she pressed her down against the pillows with one hand while the other
again picked up where it had left off.  Lois continued to rock back and forth,
slamming her body back to meet Laura’s forward thrusts.  Once more Laura
brought Lois to the edge, driving her wild with anticipation, only to pull her
back from the precipice at the last moment.


	In a final position shift, Laura effortlessly lifted Lois’ lower body and
buried her face between her thights.  Nimble fingers parted the way as a
tongue that could only be seen as a blur buried itself far inside of Lois’
pussy.  With the vibration trick having worked so well with her fingers, Laura
saw no reason not to try to duplicate the results with her tongue.


	The effect, she discovered, was both immediate and quite
explosive.  Lois’ body quivered and quaked in a manner she had never
experienced before.  Sweat ran down her face and across her breasts as
wave after wave of orgasmic euphoria washed across her body.  At one
point she feared she might very well black out, at another, that her heart
might burst under the strain.  If so, it would be worth it, she concluded what
tiny bit of conscious thought remained.


	But her heart didn’t stop, nor did she black out.  Her only after effect
turning out to be a fear that her ride through the fields of Elysium might
never be repeated. 	


	“Are you okay?”  Lois finally heard Laura ask though a slowly
diminishing fog.    	


	“I’m okay,”  Lois said, still just a little out of breath.


	“I was afraid for a moment that I went a little too far,” Laura said, a
touch of concern in her voice.  “I’ve never actually used my powers during
sex before, at least not with someone else.”


	“Then that was definitely their loss,”  Lois said, finally regaining full
control of her breathing.


	“I’m glad you enjoyed it,”  Laura said,  “because I know I did.”


	“I can’t imagine that what I did for you came anywhere close to what
you did for me,”  Lois said, wiping a damp strand of hair from her eyes.


	“Don’t sell yourself short,”  Laura grinned,  “and you didn’t even
need power tools to do it.”  she added.


	“Oh God, I did say that, didn’t I?”  Lois said, remembering the dinner
conversation that now seemed so long ago.


	“That’s okay, I forgave you almost as soon as you said it,”  Laura
smiled.  “In fact, when I thought about it afterwards, I actually thought it was
kind of funny.  Just think of the money I could make from product
endorsements.”


	“Good enough to get Supergirl off!”  Lois said, matching her smile
as she suggested copy for an imagined advertisement.


	“Of course they might want their money back if they discovered that
all that was needed to do that was the touch of the woman she loved,”
Laura said, her voice becoming once more serious.


	“I do love you,”  Lois said, taking one of Laura’s hands in hers.


	“And I you,”  Laura replied, taking hold of the other.


      They met once more in a kiss, as a love that  was meant to be, in any
reality, once more became true.




      END
	




While this story is indeed my own, I want to acknowledge it was partially
inspired by "The Never Ending Fight" by Les Bonner, which I had the good
fortune to read over a dozen years ago.  I long ago lost his email address,
but if you ever come across this Les, thank you once again for sharing your
marvelous work.










(c) Ann Douglas 2010

 
   

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