Are You Sure About This?

By Tank Wilson <tankw1@aol.com>

Rated: G

Submitted: May, 2011

Summary: Some reporters will go to extreme lengths for a story
... .

EIC's Note: This story was originally posted to the Fanfic
Messageboards (http://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php) on
January 10th, 2008.

I wrote this a while back, never really intending to post it. I
was in a nasty mood and decided to take it out on Lois. But since
I'm rather fond of Lois I gave in and gave her a Happy Ending.

Recently I ran across this in my documents file and decided what
the heck. What better way to start off the new year than with a
classic evil haircut story with a happy ending? So I have posted
this little throw away tale for the gentle readers to peruse if
they so desire.

The King of Happy Endings strikes again.

***

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, Clark, I'm sure." Lois frowned, then squirmed a bit in
the hard chair she was sitting on. She was sure about this, but
not too happy about it. She had spent the last two days trying to
think of some other way to attack the story but couldn't think
of any other way. Some times desperate measures were necessary to
get to the truth. And in this case, the truth would net her a
Kerth, if not a Pulitzer. "Just do it."

She knew Clark was uncomfortable with this, but he was her
partner, and her friend. She had been able to convince him of the
need to do this. Her breath caught in her throat as she heard the
loud hum as he thumbed on the small machine and felt the cool of
the metal blades as they contacted her forehead.

A moment later the hum changed to a deeper growl as the clippers
chewed through her long, dark locks. Her hair fell in sheets past
her eyes and onto her lap. Once, twice, three times, the small,
vibrating appliance was passed across the top of her head and the
pile of silky dark tresses grew ever larger in her lap and on the
floor.

Lois clenched her fists as Clark shifted his focus to the right
side of her head. He placed the clippers in front of her ear and
pushed it up to the crown of her head, effectively denuding the
area of hair. 

Soon, he was placing the cold, vibrating blades at the back of
her neck and easing them upward. The growl deepened as the
clippers fought the thick growth of hair at the back. She'd read
somewhere that the back of the head contained twice as much hair
as the sides or top of the head. Apparently that was true.

Her hands shook, ever so slightly, as she mentally rehearsed her
Pulitzer acceptance speech. It would be worth it. She just knew
it would be. 

Suddenly, Clark stopped. The sound of the clippers ceased and her
partner stepped away, a slight frown on his face. "Are you
really sure you want to go through with this?"

She sighed. "Clark, it's a little too late to back out now,
don't you think?"

He shook his head. "No, you still have hair, Lois. It's really,
really, short ... but there is still something there."

She reached up and ran her hand across her buzzed scalp. She
could feel the soft brush of the stubble that covered her head.
"I thought you understood what I had to do?" She brushed the
huge pile of hair off her lap. "I need to go undercover at a
post-chemo therapy clinic. It's a place where women who've had
difficulties with their chemo go to get special attention and
treatment. But we both know that it's just a front. There is
something very wrong going on there and the only way I know to
get in there to find out what is to go undercover as a new
patient." She shifted again in the chair. "Let's get on with
it."

She heard a loud sigh escape from Clark's lips. In a way she
felt a little sorry for Clark. She was the one who was going to
be bald, but he was suffering the guilt for actually shaving her.
Well, once she had broken the story a little thing like losing
some hair would be a mere inconvenience. It would grow back ...
eventually.

She felt the soothing coolness of the shaving cream being spread
across her scalp. It felt rather nice. Soon she could feel, and
hear, the scraping of the razor as Clark deftly manoeuvred it
over her head. It was almost hypnotic. A part of her was
disappointed when he finished up and began toweling the remaining
foam from her head.

Just one last thing. "Clark ... the eyebrows?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot."

He dabbed a little shaving cream on her brows and quickly erased
them from her forehead. She had to grit her teeth as he did so.
She wasn't sure, but she thought that she'd miss her eyebrows
even more than the hair on her head. At least she could wear a
wig, but she could only pencil fake eyebrows in until they grew
back.

It was with more than a little trepidation that Lois got off the
chair and went into the bathroom to see what their handiwork had
wrought. While on her way there, the phone rang. "Would you get
that, Clark?" she threw over her shoulder as she entered the
small powder room.

She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out when she first
confronted her reflection. She looked like a freak. Her white
scalp seemed to gleam in the glare of the bright fluorescent
lights which flanked her bathroom mirror. The lack of eyebrows
made her forehead seem to go on forever. She fought back a tear
of regret. Lois Lane didn't have regrets. She took decisive
action to gain her ends. And the end she had made this sacrifice
for was to bring down the evil she knew existed under the cover
of that seemingly innocent clinic.

There was a knock at the bathroom door. "Lois?"

"Don't come in!" Lois suddenly felt very insecure. She didn't
want Clark to see her now. Which, logically, didn't make much
sense since he was the one who'd shaved off all of her hair in
the first place. Still, logic wasn't uppermost in her mind at
that moment. Her gleaming bald head was. She grabbed a towel and
wrapped it around her head as if she were draping wet hair after
coming out of the shower.

She burst out of the bathroom and made a beeline toward her
bedroom. "I've got a suitcase already packed. If we hurry we
can get to the clinic and get me checked in before lunch."

"Ah, Lois?" She turned at the strangled tone of his voice.
"Don't bother with the suitcase."

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"That was Perry." He waved his hand in the general direction of
the phone. "He killed the story."

Lois' eyes bulged. "He what!"

Clark shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "It seems that the FBI
just raided the place. Perry says it's all over LNN. The story
has already broken. There's nothing left for you to
investigate."

Lois rushed over to her television set and thumbed it on. Since
it was always tuned to LNN, she was quickly greeted by a
well-groomed talking head. As if in a trance, she sat down on the
couch and watched dumbly while the news network showed pictures
of the FBI taking people out of the clinic in handcuffs and
revealed the story behind the raid.

Apparently, an FBI agent had gone undercover as a temporary file
clerk and had managed to uncover the necessary information to
bust the case.

Lois glared at the screen. "I tried to get that job, but they
told me they'd already filled it. It was that FBI hussy who beat
me out." It took a few moments to actually sink in. Her story
was gone ... just like her hair.

"Omigod, I'm bald!"

Clark looked puzzled. "Well, wasn't that the whole purpose to
what we just did?"

She turned to him, a look of despair on her face. "No, you
don't understand. Before, I was in disguise for an undercover
assignment that required me to shave off my hair. Now ... I'm
just bald."

She had a hard time not letting the tears flow now, but she
wouldn't revert to being a weak, vain woman who couldn't deal
with some personal adversity. At least, not while Clark was still
there. She knew that he looked up to her. Maybe, later tonight,
when she was alone, she could allow herself to break down and
mourn her lost locks.

Defiantly, she pulled the towel from her head and threw it on the
couch, then stormed into the bedroom. Reaching up to the top
shelf of her closet, she pulled down her Metropolis Lions
baseball cap, from her high school days, and jammed it on her
head. At least it will cut down on the glare, she thought
sourly.

She strode purposefully out of the room and grabbed Clark by the
hand. "Come on, Kent."

He followed along without resistance. "Where are we going, Lois?
The story is gone."

She stopped just long enough to glare at him. "We're going out
to buy me some hair."

***

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Lois was more than just a bit nervous as she rode the elevator up
to the bullpen's floor. She had made her decision only last
night and now she was going to have to deal with the reactions.
She checked her reflection in the glass walls of the car.
Self-consciously, she finger-combed her short locks into place.

All those months ago, when she'd had her hair shaved off for the
story that never was, she and Clark had acted quickly. She'd
found a wig that was the right color and had it styled to look
exactly like her own hair had been. Even though she never came
right out and asked him to, Clark understood her feelings and
kept her little secret. She was grateful to him for that. She
didn't tell anyone what she'd done, not even Perry.

A couple of colleagues asked about the eyebrows but she either
ignored them with a glare, or brushed it off as a tweezing
accident. Fortunately the eyebrows came back fairly quickly, but
the hair on her head seemed to grow agonizingly slowly for the
impatient reporter.

She had kept the wig on anytime she left the apartment, or
anytime she received any company. Even when Clark came by she
kept it on. But she was getting really tired of wearing it. It
wasn't that it was really uncomfortable, it wasn't bad, it just
wasn't her hair. And the fussing she went through every morning
just to get it on properly was worse than dealing with her own
hair. And that didn't even take into consideration the fact that
she had to wash and set the thing as if it were her own hair
anyway.

So, the time had come. It was time for Lois Lane to make her
first appearance with a 'new look'. No one, except Clark, would
know that her style was actually a grow out. They would all think
that she had just gotten it cut. Her original plan had been to
wait until her hair was long enough to make it look like she'd
just gotten a significant trim, rather than a new style, but she
couldn't wait any longer. She wanted out from under that rug,
and so, now, she was ready to face the reactions to the 'new
Lois'.

Last night, she had gone to see her stylist Cindy, who'd been
shocked when Lois had walked in and yanked the wig off her head.
The woman had actually laughed out loud when she told her the
story, but worked her magic on Lois' hair. Without taking off
any of the length that Lois had now achieved, Cindy had managed
to shape her hair into an attractive, feathered style that Lois
had to admit looked rather good, even if it wasn't what she was
used to. The elevator door opened, and with only the slightest
hesitation, Lois stepped off the elevator. Time to see if anyone
else thought it looked good.

As Lois walked toward her desk, she was surprised at how little
reaction her new look garnered. Most of the people who generally
ignored her, still ignored her, and those she had only a casual,
greeting type of relationship with maintained that casual 'Hi,
Lois' form.

She was almost disappointed when she had reached her desk without
any comments. At least, until Jimmy walked by.

"Whoa, Lois, what's with the chop job?"

She frowned up at him. "By chop job, do you mean my new
haircut?"

Jimmy blushed, and stammered. "Well, ah, yeah, I mean it looks
okay and all, but it's rather short, don't you think?"

"I believe that was the point of the haircut, Jimmy. Lois wanted
to try something different." Clark had come up behind the
skittish gopher. "I think it looks great."

Lois smiled up at her partner. "Thank you, Clark."

"Ah, yeah, well, I gotta go. Perry needs me to ... find
something. See you two later." Jimmy began to hurry off. "It
looks great, Lois," he tossed over his shoulder as he sped
away.

Lois couldn't help but giggle at the young man's discomfort.
She quickly shook off her amusement and turned a more serious eye
toward her friend. "I appreciate the support, but tell me the
truth. How bad does it look?"

Clark shrugged. "I like it, but do you? I thought you were going
to wait until your hair grew out to nearly your previous
length?"

"Yeah, well, I was going to, but it was just taking too long,
and I was sick of dealing with the wig." She reached up and
brushed her hand through the short locks. "I think I like it,
kind of. Do you really think it looks all right?"

Clark laughed and then sat down on the edge of her desk. He
reached out and gave her cheek a brush with his thumb. "I really
do. I think it looks great. It makes you look ... adorable."

"Adorable! Clark, I don't want to look adorable. I'm Mad Dog
Lane. I don't do adorable."

Clark patted her hand. "You do now." Still laughing, he got up
and moved back over to his desk.

Lois frowned at her blank computer screen for several moments.
Finally, she turned back toward Clark, who was booting up his own
screen. "Clark?" He turned. "So, do you think this
'adorable' thing will turn out to be good, or bad?"

Clark favored her with a big smile. The kind that makes you feel
as if you are the only one in the entire room. "I think it will
be a good thing, Lois. A very good thing."

Fin.

THE END