A date. Lois had a date. That was fine. That was normal.

“You want me to call you if anything comes through the wire to see if you’re available?” Clark asked weakly.

“You mean if you want to stand me up again?”

Okay. He deserved that. “Lois, that was...”

“...a mistake,” she finished. He could tell by the look in her eyes she wasn’t up for clichés. “Why don’t we just table this whole office/thrown-together-in-the-trenches sparks thing, okay? Back to basics. Keep the game on the field.” Well, maybe just a few clichés.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good rule.”

“You should add that to the list,” she said, and turned away.

Clark looked down at the framed list in his hand.

Rule Number One: Always know your source.

He smiled at Lois’ back as she strode out the door and up the stairs. There was a bit more sway to her hips than usual, which meant she was thrown off by something and trying to return the favor.

Rule Number Two: Always make a good first impression (and don’t screw up with the boss).

When they’d first met, he’d thought she was blunt and direct about almost everything. She never admitted she was wrong, and she barely ever let her guard down, and woe unto you if she let her guard down and regretted it. Like when they’d almost kissed at Chloe and Jimmy's wedding reception. Which was a regret that bit both ways.

Rule Number Three: Do whatever it takes to get the story.

Getting the story wasn’t the problem. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d confronted powerful people, been in dangerous situations, literally run across the world following leads. But giving the story? People stumbled across the story that was Clark Kent by accident, or dug it up due to persistence, but he’d never given it. Sometimes he wondered if the years he’d spent hiding, lying to nearly everybody and pretending to be somebody else, affected him in other areas, too. Helped him lie to himself. For some reason, he thought about Lana.

Rule Number Four: If something seems too weird to be true, it usually is.

He hadn’t thought about Lana for a while, not since.... Was it since Lois got back? Was Lana that easy to dismiss? Was he really petty enough to be upset that Lois had a date when he had been thoroughly back together with his obsession mere months before and when he’d never explained where she had run off to this time? And had he just thought of Lana as an obsession?

Rule Number Five: Never take deadlines too seriously.

He had been dreaming about Lana ever since grade school. The first time he saw her, he thought she was an angel. He’d mapped out his future life when he was 12, and by now he had hoped to be Lana Lang’s husband. That and the lead quarterback for the Metropolis Sharks.

Rule Number Six: Triple check your facts.

Whitney Fordman. That kryptonite necklace. Worry about hurting Chloe. Jor-El and running away from Smallville. Adam Knight. Jason Teague. The proposal that resulted in first Lana’s death, then that of his father. Lex Luthor. Forsaking his duty as a hero. The suit that absorbed kryptonite.

In retrospect, maybe the universe wasn’t trying to play it subtle.

Rule Number Seven: Put all the good stuff at the beggining.

“The best ones always start out that way,” Lana herself had observed after first seeing Lois and Clark interact.

He ran his finger over the double “g.” Spelling was one of the few facts Lois didn’t bother to check, unless you counted the times she used him as a human dictionary.

There were other rules. The woman added a new rule every other day, although the numbering got pretty erratic. He was never sure if she was skipping rules or making up the numbers as she went. These seven, though, these were the big ones. This was the list that had been on his desk the first morning he came in to a day of sitting across from Lois’ empty chair.

No room at the bottom for another rule. He’d just have to remember it.

Rule Number Eight: Keep the game on the field.

“Always has been, always will be,” he muttered to himself, and smiled again.

Somehow he knew this rule was destined to be his favorite.