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.*･｡. AN ODE TO CLARK KENT .*･｡.
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033.
LOCKED DOORS.
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——

    "Lois! Hey— Lane!"

   Lois tried to ignore him, opting to stagger down the hallway in a stumbling state. Her eyes were teary and her breathing was erratic, and she wondered if she would perhaps collapse and have a panic attack — or a damn heart attack! — at any given moment.

   She knew that grief didn't succumb to alternative joy in a matter of days (five, to be precise), but she hadn't expected Cora's words to have cut her so deep.

   Years later, and Lois still grieved the death of her mother. Boyd dying right before her eyes wasn't going to have miraculously been mourned for and over, in less than a week. After all, Boyd was now dead and he wasn't coming back. They were trying to make up for that, trying to push on and save more people before innocent lives continued to be taken, but they were struggling. Yeah, they were. It wasn't an easy job, but they were trying. Cora's comment had been unnecessary and hurtful. She knew that Cora was grieving the loss of the boy that had been her only accomplice during the time she had spent locked away in that vault, but she wasn't the only one to hurt. Boyd's death had hit them all hard.

   Lois, especially.

   Her body staggered, and she nearly did collapse.

   She was incredibly glad that no one was traipsing the halls, and no one besides Isaac had followed her out. Anyone else would've been a crowd, and Lois didn't need any randoms watching as she had a minor meltdown in the middle of the school hallway. That was something Lois Lane really didn't need.

    "Woah— woah, woah!" Isaac rushed forwards to wrap an arm around her, holding her upright. "Breathe, Lois— breathe, okay?"

   He had seen Stilinski — both of them — the last time Lois had a panic attack, when she had found Kyle's body on the track for cross country, which had definitely been much worse than the state she was currently in. Both of them had clearly tried their best to refrain from touching her, and Isaac attempted to keep contact to a minimal, besides holding her up before her legs gave out.

   Isaac had never seen someone have a panic attack. Of course, he had suffered at the hands of many, but he had never seen one; he had never been an outsider looking in, and he was suddenly glad that Lois was having a mild panic, rather than a full-blown fit of despair. He wasn't sure he could have watched anything worse than the state she was already in. It made his heart ache, seeing her teary and snotty, unable to breathe without hiccuping. Lois' hands were shaky as they balled into fists, and the beta pondered the idea of what would come of her powers if she did have a full panic attack. Judging by her reaction to Boyd's death and what it had caused, Isaac decided he hoped to never find out in a fleeting second that lead into another, and the thought had diminished. It seemed wrong to think about that, right now.

   He carefully leaned her against the lockers, and decided that his feelings must have been similar to what she had felt when they had been locked inside the storage closet. But, Isaac's panic attack had caused him to wolf out — significantly scarier than water.

   Sharper teeth, too. Lois must have been freaking terrified, cause even without teeth and claws, Isaac felt a twinge of fear, as Lois cried.

   Not of her, but for her. He was concerned.

   Concerned that Lois Lane wasn't as fine as she always made out to be. Scared that she wasn't ever going to be fine.

   He couldn't think like that.

   The beta did her a solid and kept quiet as her distress started to dwindle, and she was left with faint hiccups and wet cheeks. Lois rubbed at her face with her palms, seeing fuzzy stars behind her eyes when she forced them to harshly into her skull, and sniffled in a disgustingly loud manner. She grimaced, but then decided there was no point in caring. Isaac Lahey had displayed himself in far worse states to Lois, optionally or not, and she hardly felt a bit of snot was anything to be concerned about.

    "We're trying..." her voice was hoarse, above a whisper. She let out a deep sigh and peered up at him with doe eyes. Isaac's heart lurched in chest, into his ribs. "We're trying our best, aren't we?"

   For a moment, no words came to him. Isaac was too focused on the light reflecting in the remaining tears rimming her waterline, and the redness to her plump cheeks. Even emotional, Lois Lane seemed to glow. He happened to think that emotional was when she looked most beautiful.

    "Yeah," he was as quiet as she was, "Yeah— we are, Lo."

   Lois nodded.

   His eyes flickered to her lips, only for a millisecond, before he had subtly cleared his throat. Isaac hummed, "Can— can you stand?"

    "I'm crying, Lahey. Not freaking incapable."

    "Good to know, gumdrop."

   With a last scrub at her cheeks, Lois stood up straighter and let out a sigh. It was a bit embarrassing, nearly losing her entire cool in front of teen-fugitive Isaac Lahey of all people, but there were worse things she could have done. Far worse.

   A bell sounded, signalling that the period would be over in ten minutes time, and she let out a weak and disgruntled groan. The noise amused Isaac, and kinda turned him on (sh!).

    "I'm outa here," Lois sighed, making for her lock only a couple blocks down.

   Isaac rose a brow, "What?"

    "I'm going home," she said, as if it were obvious, and listened to him scamper along behind her. The girl continued until she had reached her locker, promptly spinning her code and unlocking it, and tugged out her bag. She routed around for her car keys and threw them up into the air, catching them with one hand while the other held her bag. "I don't wanna be here, not after that."

   Lois didn't wait to head for the exit. Isaac shut her locker door with a slam! and again followed behind, jumping down the steps as she walked, landing beside her. He manoeuvred his body to get in her way, blocking her path and bringing a deep frown to her face.

    "Move."

    "Chill, gumdrop— I'm not gonna stop you," after rolling his eyes, Isaac held out an expectant hand. "But you're not driving. Give me your keys."

   Lois' eyes bulged out of her head and she nearly choked.

    "What? Why?" She clutched them, tighter.

    "You're not in any state to drive," Isaac shrugged. "Hand them over. You're not driving, anywhere— alright? I'll take you home,"

    "You are not driving my car!"

    "Why not?"

    "Because you can't drive!"

    "Yes, I can!" He demanded, "I have my license!"

    "That doesn't mean you can drive!" Lois scrutinised. She held her keys to her chest protectively, her fingers curling around them in fists. "There is no way in hell you are driving my baby, Lahey!"

  Isaac smirked, "Then, I guess you're going nowhere."

   She scowled, raising a challenging brow. Who did he think he was? Her father? Isaac had seen her close to a panic attack, and he was suddenly her keeper? Hell no! Lois had dealt with enough of the babying from her father, Stiles and Scott. Isaac Lahey was not going to baby her — not a chance! Lois Lane was soon to be going seventeen! She wasn't a kid. Of all people, Isaac was not going to be the one to treat her like a three year old. Not him.

    "What are ya gonna do?" Lois took a step towards him, and her nose brushed his chest. Like earlier, she tilted her head and peered up at him, but this time Lois wasn't innocent. No— there was a twinge to her eyes that was darker. Isaac shifted. "Stop me?"

    "If I have to," he warned, "Don't push me, Lane."

    "Cute..." lifting a hand to adjust the hem of his shirt with a light wiggle, she pouted her lip. "Almost got me."

    "Not convincing enough for you?"

    "Not nearly, bud."

    "Scott wouldn't let you drive."

    "Scott doesn't own me."

    "I'm sure Stiles would throw you in his ugly jeep."

    "I'm sure he would..." she shrugged.

   Isaac forced back a small chuckle, and crossed his arms.

    "Alright," he nodded once. This peaked Lois' interest, and she wondered if she had gotten away with it. When Isaac stepped out of the way, it seemed like she had. "Go ahead."

   Smugly, Lois stepped in the direction of her car, only for Isaac to tug her into his chest and snatch the keys from her palm. He let go and waved them about victoriously, dangling them in her face, and yanked them back with impressive speed when she reached to take them back. The beta snickered and twirled them around his finger, whistling to himself as he pressed the button to unlock her car.

  Hearing the alarm, and grinning, Isaac headed in the direction of the flashing lights and left her to traipse behind begrudgingly.

   While Isaac happily got situated in the drivers seat, sliding it back to make room for his long legs with ease, Lois sulked her way into the passenger side. Upon noticing how naturally his hands sat upon the wheel and how effortlessly gorgeous he looked driving a car — a sexy car, might she add — Lois only grumbled more. Not only was Isaac Lahey going to be driving her beloved, already once destroyed, car but Isaac Lahey was going to look good while doing it. That was enough to make Lois stroppily strap herself in and sink down in the seat, refusing to look at him as he put the car into drive and reversed out of the parking space.

"Don't frown, gumdrop." He sent her a sly wink as he checked his peripheral, getting great satisfaction when she frowned even further, purposefully. "Someone could be falling for your smile,"

"Unlikely," she deadpanned.

Isaac hummed, "If you say so."

"You know this is totally illegal? Right?" Lois prodded, "This isn't your car, so if you get caught—"

"Your father's a lawyer, and your uncle is the sheriff." Rolling is eyes, Isaac continued to drive through Beacon Hills annoyingly well. "If we get caught, I'm sure you'd be fine. You won't even lose your license! It's probably not the first time they've broken a few laws, for you. Live a little."

"Live a little?" A huff passed her lips, "I am perfectly alive."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah." She grunted, "I'm not worried about getting caught, not as much as I'm worrying about you totally crashing my car! Slow down, asshole!"

"I'm barely breaking thirty!" Isaac denied.

"Times it by three and add six, yeah—" she scoffed at him and pointed at the dash. "—poor thing won't make it out, unscathed."

Isaac muttered something about her being dramatic but slowed down a tad, easing her concern for her car's safety. Even the mere thought made him roll his eyes again, as he did a lot around Lois Lane. She was dramatic, and sarcastic, and damn annoying, but she was Lois. That was who Lois was, and as much as he hated to admit it, he probably wouldn't have liked it any other way. Lois in any other shape or form would've been wrong.

After a short while driving, only ten minutes, Lois' eyes caught sight of a sign out the window. Her brows met in the centre of her forehead, and she sat up straighter.

BEACON HILLS PRESERVE

She stared at the familiar area, eyes wide.

"Isaac—" Lois batted at his arm, "Hey— pull over!"

He blinked at her, "What?"

"There's something I need to do," she told him, although her attention was hardly on him.

"I thought you wanted to go home...?"

"Minor detour," the girl mumbled. Isaac glanced at her with a strange look, and Lois turned to look at him. A sigh through her nose, she tried to be more serious about it — it was something that she needed to do. Desperately. "I've gotta do something..."

Isaac's eyes flickered to her, confused.

"...and I need your help."

• • •

"Y'know— when you said that you needed to pull over, so you could do something, Lois... you said a minor detour, wasn't it?"

"It is a minor detour."

"Well— whatever you wanna call it," Isaac muttered, confused as to their current mission but still going along with it, nonetheless. "I really didn't think it would be this."

Choosing to ignore his complaints — which had been going on and on since they had stepped foot outside of her car — and keep her eyes ahead, Lois stepped over each rock and stone as she made for the area she was hunting for. If her mind wasn't playing tricks on her, and her perhaps-not-a-dream was anything to go by, then it would be along the beaten path soon enough. Since waking up there the morning prior, the preserve had been one of the biggest things on her mind; she couldn't stop thinking about it.

A minute of silence passed, with only the faint sound of autumn leaves beneath their boots and birds flying above the trees to be heard in the entire preserve. Lois counted her steps, eager to find her way back to the allocated spot, while Isaac let out a deep sigh.

"So, what exactly is it that we're looking for?"

Lois rolled her eyes, "I already told you."

"Right... that's what I thought," Isaac let out a hum, "Though, I'm pretty sure you told me we were looking for a river, or lake, or something. And, last time I checked—" he looked over at her as they walked, swinging his arms in a shrug, "—there were no rivers, or lakes, in the preserve. I mean, I think we've both run it enough times in the last year."

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, and that his comment was frankly annoying, but she couldn't. Lois had to admit, for the first time possibly ever, that Isaac happened to be incredibly right.

There wasn't a body of water, in the preserve. As far as anyone knew, there never had been one, either.

Not in Beacon Hills.

But, Lois was determined. She was adamant that her dream, or not a dream, had meant something. It had to. That feeling was in the pit of her stomach again, tinging at nerve endings, a memory that seemed stuck. Between what? Lois wasn't sure — but there was something stopping this memory from coming through, from showing her what she was missing, and Lois was certain that she would find a way to release it. Perhaps it would answer things, more things than currently answerable, and maybe it would shed some light on the darkness she was facing. Right about now, she would have really appreciated some light. A lot, actually.

    "What's the deal with this water, anyway?" The beta asked as he kicked a rock.

    "It's nothing—"

    "Come on, gumdrop." Isaac coaxed. When she didn't crack, or let on why it was she wanted to do this, he tried again. "Look— if this is important, I'm not gonna stop you. I'll help you find this water, I just wanna know why it's so important."

   Lois pursed her lips — should she tell him?

   After all, this was Isaac. It was Isaac Lahey: the boy that used to sit behind her in history class, back in freshman year, and the beta who she wasn't friends with, but whose life she had saved (and vice versa) a thousand times in the last year. Isaac was the boy who had tried to kill her, and yet felt guilty whenever he had caused her the mildest form of harm. He was the boy who frustrated Lois to the ends of the earth. But, somewhere deep inside, she didn't mind it when he did. Not as much, anyway.

   Isaac was the one who had helped her with her abilities, even when she had wanted to ignore them. In fact, Isaac had caused her breakthrough — in her bathroom, when he had managed to help her get a grasp of what drove her abilities. If anything, Isaac knew the most about what Lois could do. Who'd have thought it?

   And now, here he was. Following her through the preserve in a wild search for a body of water that didn't even seem to exist. He was Isaac.

   Lois wasn't sure when, but her opinion on Isaac had changed.

   Telling him felt right.

    "I found this, the other night." She cut to the chase, pulling the collar of her shirt down. He squinted at the black mark, and Lois continued to speak. "It wasn't there, before. I know it wasn't."

   He stepped forward, "What is that? A tattoo?"

    "Yeah— but I never got it," Lois nodded, sighing. "I have no idea where it came from."

   Isaac inched closer to her, not noticing how close they were until his hand landed on her shoulder. His touch was gentle, his thumb brushing over the symbol, and he acted as though he hadn't heard her breath hitch in her throat. He felt the same.

    "What does it mean?"

    "I don't know..." voice low, she glanced up at him. "But when I went to sleep, I had a really vivid dream. I was out here, and there was water, and I fell in." Lois recalled, "And when I woke up, I could've sworn I was drowning — it all felt so real, and it was like it had happened before."

    "Déjà vu?" Brow raised, Isaac voiced his thoughts and watched her nod her head in agreement. "You think it means something?"

    "That's the thing—" she breathed, "—I think it does."

Unable to understand, the beta awaited further explanation.

    "It has to mean something, 'cause it wasn't just déjà vu; I think it did happen already," Lois said. "It didn't feel like a dream, Isaac, it felt like a—"

   His brows cinched, "Like, a memory?"

    "Yeah, how did you—?"

   Lois cut herself short, realising that his last ordeal with any type of memories had been as a result of finding Erica, Cora and Boyd in the vault. It made her stomach churn, knowing that her cousin had been the reason he had needed to go through so much for the pack to locate the kidnapped betas, but she certainly felt less crazy with knowing she and Isaac were on the same page.

    "How do you know it wasn't just a dream?" Isaac spoke after a moment of silence, stepping away from her an inch. "I mean— you said it was vivid, right? We've all had vivid dreams,"

    "Because—" Lois said, "When I woke up, I wasn't in my bed."

   He guessed, "You were in the bathroom...?"

    "Isaac, I wasn't even in my house." After a light roll of her eyes, she turned back to look at the woods around her. It still wasn't the place she was looking for. "When I woke up I was somewhere here, not in my bed."

    "So— you're saying..." Isaac trailed off.

   She nodded, certain.

    "I woke up in the preserve."

   A silence lingered, and the beta tried to wrap his head around it. He didn't doubt that Lois, not at all, but it was a bit unbelievable, even to her. Waking up in the same place the dream she'd had was set seemed like more than a coincidence; no one did that. At least, no one who was normal. Isaac was sure that Lois was right. That wasn't just a dream. It couldn't have been, could it? Sure, he was no expert in dreams (was there such a thing?), but he'd had a fair few of them. None of them had remotely resembled what Lois was currently experiencing. Isaac couldn't think of any dream that came close to it.

    "Why would you wake up, here?" Isaac frowned, "Why would you have been in the preserve to begin with?"

    "That's the part that feels like déjà vu," she explained, "I don't know why I was out here, but in my dream there was water, and when I woke up I had no idea where it was. Even when I'm out here looking for it," Lois sighed, "I can't find it. I can't remember; I don't know why, or where, but I knew I'd seen it somewhere. I've been out here before, and I saw that water, but I don't remember it." A breath of annoyance, "It's like I'm trying to remember, but there's something in the way..."

   Lois bit her lip, "...I think I came out here, at some point, and I think I forgot it happened, and now my brain is searching for it."

    "You think it's a suppressed memory?" Isaac asked, to which the girl confirmed it with a nod. He ran a hand through his hair, "But that still doesn't explain why you saw water, when there's no water in the preserve. It's not like water can disappear, right?"

    "I don't know..." she pulled down her collar again to expose the inky black mark on her skin, "But what if it has something to do with this?" Lois glanced at the rain puddle by her foot and waved her hand to form a trail in the air, up by her shoulder, "Or, with this?"

    Isaac knew she was right.

   They had to have come from somewhere, at least.

"You're sure it's a memory?" He clarified, eyes trailing along the atmosphere in thought, until they landed on her.

    "What else could it be?" She responded.

   Another moment passed, and Isaac wondered whether he was really about to suggest what he was thinking of suggesting. Lois was a strong soul, and she would either jump at the idea or she would hit him. He wasn't sure which it would be, just yet, and he wasn't sure whether he should suggest it, at all. It wasn't the safest idea of the bunch, and he didn't want to suggest it in fear of her actually going for it. Honestly, Isaac hoped that she would hit him.

   But, he knew that he had to suggest it. It wouldn't have been fair of him to keep it from her — not when he could see how much it was weighing on her.

   Isaac knew what it was like, to have all these memories locked in a box at the back of his mind. Memories that he knew were there, somewhere, begging to be remembered. It was awful. If he hadn't have accessed them, he was certain that he would have gone mad.

   How could he do that to Lois?

   If there was even the slightest chance that Lois could find that memory, even if it was dangerous, then Isaac had to let her try.

    "I think I might have an idea..."

——

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