Since it's been awhile here's the TOC


Just a small note for this chapter, there are a few paragraphs that may stretch beyond PG but nothing worse than what you would see on TV.


Ch 13

“Clark,” Lois whispered to her partner, who had lagged behind her in the hallway of Leek’s building to keep watch. “Quick, here’s his office. Keep an eye out for that janitor again while I get us in.”

“I don’t think he’s on this floor,” he replied, pretending to keep a look out. Clark knew the janitor was three floors above them vacuuming. Time was not an issue at this point.

Arriving at Dr. Leek’s office building just after 1 AM, it took them longer than expected to find a way in. Eventually, Clark spotted a second story window by the fire escape that someone hadn't shut all the way, allowing them entrance to the building without having to disable the extensive first floor alarm system. Clark was surprised to find that a building such as this only had a security system on the first floor, but he had no way of telling Lois that so they proceeded with caution through the window. Now inside, they had made their way down to the first floor after quietly evading the janitor.

As Clark waited for Lois to pick the lock, he x-rayed the room more carefully. The door to the next room was hidden in a fake storage cabinet. Past all the equipment he had seen earlier was a set of stairs leading down to a basement room door. He took a closer look at the equipment. It wasn’t in use at the moment, but appeared to have been used previously. Clark wondered what the equipment had been used for, but judging on its size, he had a good idea. The largest tank could easily have fit him.

“I got it!” exclaimed Lois quietly. She slowly opened the door, afraid that its hinges would squeak, and was relieved when they remained silent. Clark followed her in and locked the door behind him.

Lois looked around the dark room with her flashlight. “Did Superman say how we get into this other room?” she asked.

“Yeah, there’s a hidden door in that cabinet.” Clark pointed to the back right corner of the room with his flashlight.

She walked over to the cabinet and opened it to find it empty with no sign of a door. From behind her, Clark pushed on the back wall and it gave way. They both entered the room and were drawn to the same thing, the large, transparent storage tank sitting in the middle. Having seen all this from outside, Clark quickly glossed over it and headed towards the basement. Lois stayed back to take a closer look.

Without the ability to x-ray into the basement, he was unsure whether it had an alarm of any kind. Currently, all he could find on the door was the single deadbolt secured with a combination padlock. While Lois was still taking pictures of everything upstairs, he ran through the combinations until the lock clicked open. After removing it, he slid the deadbolt and opened the door.

The deadbolt noise caught her attention. “Clark, what do you see in there?” Lois asked as she descended down the dark stairwell.

He tried to answer, but his voice caught in his throat. His blinking eyes the only movement he could muster as he soaked in what they were seeing.

“Clark,” Lois said, again, before becoming impatient and pushing him through the door to see what had left her partner speechless. “Oh, my God,” was all that she could say as well before covering her mouth with her hand.

The room was dark, lit only by a soft orange light, giving the room an unsettling glow. A low hum of machines echoed quietly in the background. Containers filled with clones packed the room. Supermen in various forms were everywhere. Most of them were barely recognizable. They were all naked, some deformed, some dismembered, and some both. An eerie human representation of what had been done to the frogs upstairs, but all left alive. They were being held in stasis, living only by the tubes and wires that floated along with their bodies in milky green goo.

In a daze, Clark walked slowly up to one of the more intact clones and placed his hands on the glass. It was warm and sent a tingly feeling down his hand causing him to quickly withdraw it. The clone inside was pale, weak, missing a foot and only about seventy percent of Clark’s height. Clark looked at him and tuned in to the creature’s heart rate. It was accelerating. He realized that not only were they alive, but conscious. The clone knew Clark was there. To his surprise, Clark saw his hand flinch as if he was trying to reach out to him, but like an infant, unable to fully control his appendage. Clark could sense his pain and almost envision what he had gone through.

Not a moment later, as if they had all become aware of his presence, the pain and emotions from every clone in the room flooded into his head, compounding on each other. Clark couldn’t breathe anymore, he began to feel suffocated. Stumbling backwards, he nearly lost his balance before bumping into another tank. His head was reeling. He couldn’t discern whether the pain he was feeling was from the inhabitants of the room, the kryptonite they were living in or both, but he had to get out of there before he collapsed on the floor, overwhelmed by it all.

As Clark turned to escape up the stairs, a gentle hand on his arm stopped him.

Clark shook off her hand. “I need to get out,” he said in a panic. “I can’t...this has to stop.”

Sensing his urgency, she released him.

Clark ran up the stairs at normal speed, but switched to super to get out of the building as quickly as possible. Had he not felt the need to wait for Lois, he would have taken to the night’s sky and flown far away from here, possibly the moon, to clear his mind and find some perspective on how to solve this. Instead, he found a park bench near the car and collapsed on it.

His body felt numb as he sat there, his head in his hands, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. He didn’t know how, but it was as if he had been mentally linked with every clone in there. Those were their memories that he had received. There was no way he could have imagined all the details that he saw. They were all suffering, dying, being kept alive by machines and chemicals. Some had been drugged, only to wake and find part of themselves had been harvested. Others no longer had any control over their body; probably thought by Leek to be brain dead, but still very much aware.

How could anyone do this? These were people. Him. Someone had taken a part of him and created all these beings for… what? For science? For profit? To create an army of Supermen and use the defective ones to enhance humans? At that moment, Clark couldn’t find the words to describe how wrong this was. What Dr. Leek and by extension Dr. Goldberg was doing needed to be stopped. Now. Clark had to find a way. He knew how to solve the issue with the clones. They had all been screaming it loud and clear in his mind, but, in his heart, he didn’t know if he had the strength to do it.

A soft, warm hand gently touched his back, breaking his thoughts. He ran his hands through his hair as he glanced up to find Lois taking a seat next to him.

“I locked up and made it look like no one had been there,” she said.

“Thanks,” was all he could reply, before going silent again.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to offer her any explanation, Lois let him sit in silence only for a minute before pushing him for answers. “Clark, what happened in there? You looked as if you were having a panic attack.”

Clark fidgeted with his hands and gazed off into the distance. “Maybe I was.”

He felt Lois’s arms go around his back and pull him willingly into her embrace. As she sat there holding him, he could feel the tension slowly leaving his body and with it the images of the basement faded. All too soon, though, she released him. Clark momentarily panicked until he realized she had moved her hands to cradle his face and pull him towards hers.

Every thought left Clark's mind when her lips touched his. At first, it was slow, tentative, but having given him no sign of wanting to pull away, he tilted his head a few degrees, taking control and deepening the kiss.

When it came to an end, or more accurately, when they both were in desperate need of air, Clark leaned back and looked into her soft brown eyes. The numbness he had been feeling a few minutes earlier was gone, replaced with warmth that only Lois could give him. He smiled at his beautiful partner. “What was that for?”

She shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.”

Clark could tell that the kiss had as big an impact on Lois as it had on him. Her pupils were dilated and her heart rate was up. He wished he could kiss her again.

“Did I really once say that you had ‘dull, insipid mud brown eyes’?” she asked.

“Um…Maybe. Why?” he replied, not understanding the non-sequitur.

“Because they’re not even close. I don’t know what happened to you down there, but I do know that you care for those beings. When I looked into your eyes before we… kissed,” she said shyly, blushing. “There was no spark. All I saw was pain. What’s down there has hurt you deeply. Now, looking in your eyes, there’s nothing dull about them. They say so much.”

“Lois,” was all Clark got out before she placed a finger over his lips.

“Let’s not talk about this here. It’s freezing. Let me take you home.” Lois stood, taking Clark's hand and causing him to rise to his feet.

They walked together back to the car, hand in hand, neither saying anything.

******

Lois watched her partner as he retrieved his teapot from a cupboard and prepared two cups of tea. They had driven to his apartment in complete silence and it continued in his apartment. His awkward silence puzzled her, but she guessed it probably had something to do with the kiss.

She didn’t know what had come over her to kiss Clark and like that. It had just felt like the right thing to do at that moment. In his eyes, she could see the pain he was feeling and wanted to comfort him. The hug just didn’t seem enough. What surprised her was how right it felt and how it left her wanting more.

They had never even been on a date. Sure, she had thought about it, a lot, recently. They had been sharing more evenings and meals with each other lately and they had both told each other things that nobody else knew, but he had never even hinted that he was interested in asking her out on a real date.

Unless she counted him asking her to join in for a weekend in Smallville, her mind reminded her. Now, she could tell by the way he looked at her earlier tonight and the way he had sought her lips so passionately during their kiss that he wanted more than friendship. If Lois was going to be honest with herself, she was beginning to think that there could be more on her side as well.

Clark placed two mugs of tea on the table and took a seat. She watched as he cupped his mug with both hands and stared at the light brown liquid, wondering what was going through his mind.

“Clark, are you going to say anything? You’ve barely said two words since we got here.”

“Sorry,” he apologized into his teacup. “I guess I’m just really tired. It’s been a long day and I have a lot on my mind.”

The high, she had been riding since their kiss, came crashing down around her ankles. Perhaps the kiss hadn’t meant as much to him as she had thought. Since they left the park bench, she had thought only about what had happened between them and where could it go. The kiss had gone a long way in letting her forget about what they had found in Dr. Leek’s office. Obviously, reading his body language, not for him. All she was sensing was that he wanted to be left alone with his thoughts. “Do you want me to go, so you can get some sleep?”

Clark shook his head and remained silent another minute, taking little sips from his steaming mug. “Lois, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she replied tentatively.

“Would you mind staying here tonight? I’d take the couch; you can have the bed.”

“Why?” Had she been wrong? What was really going through his mind?

“I would just feel better if you spent the night.”

Clark was a terrible liar. There was definitely more, and she was determined to get it out of him. She felt under the circumstances of where their relationship was going that she was entitled to the truth. She reached across the small table to pry his hands off his mug. Holding them, she caringly said, “I can tell it’s something else. Clark, please tell me what’s really going on.”

Clark looked at their joined hands. Relaxing his shoulders, he slowly surrendered to his partner. “The other Superman has made some…threats in regards to you.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. Clark’s statement had caught her off guard. She pulled her hands back to take a cautionary sip of her hot tea. “What type of threats?”

Clark let out a sigh. “He wants to claim you as his.”

“Claim me? I’m no possession,” she raised her voice, angry at the thought of anyone thinking they could possess her.

“I don’t think he sees things that way. He thinks he’s the strongest man in the world and can take anything he wants,” Clark paused and made quick eye contact with her, “including you.”

Lois looked away briefly. What he had been saying did make sense in a sick and twisted way, but what good would staying here do. He could squish Clark like a bug if he really wanted to. “Well, no offense, Clark, and I know you stood up to him in my apartment, but, it’s not as if you could really protect me against him. The only one who could do that is Superman.”

Clark didn’t respond immediately. She wondered if he hadn’t thought about that tiny detail.

After taking a few sips and mulling over her statement, he finally responded. “I know, and I don’t think he’s planning on doing anything soon. It’s just that I’m really tired and I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at all if you went back to your place.”

She had finally gotten the truth out of him and she had to agree with him. Staying here tonight was the best option, for both of them. “Okay, I’ll stay.” She paused and took a sip of her now drinkable tea. “He scares you,” it was more of a statement than a question.

Clark nodded. “He does. He’s a loose cannon. I don’t know what to do about him.”

“Clark, you can’t do anything about him. Superman is going to have to be the one to figure out how to deal with him. We can try to come up with some ideas, but neither one of us can take him on.”

He glanced up hopefully, before asking, “Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with the imposter?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. You’re not the only one who’s tired. It’s almost three in the morning. We should probably both be going to bed.”

“Agreed. Let me get changed first, and then I’ll set something out on the bed for you to wear.”

Lois watched Clark get up from the table, down his tea and head to his open bedroom. Five minutes later, he returned wearing blue sweatpants and a white t-shirt.

“I hope you don’t mind. My mom left some clothes here so I pulled a few things out that will probably fit you better than anything I have.”

“Thanks.” Lois picked up her unfinished cup of tea and headed to his bedroom, setting the cup on the nightstand. She then prepared for bed. “Goodnight, Clark,” she called as she crawled into his bed.

“Goodnight, Lois,” he returned from the living room.

*********

Lois awoke a few hours later to a strange sound coming from the living room. She went to check on Clark and found him still asleep, but drenched in sweat and mumbling incoherently. His face was contorted in pain from the nightmare he was having as he thrashed around unconsciously on the couch.

As she approached him, deciding that it was best to wake him rather than let him continue to struggle, his words became clearer.

“Die… all die… want…” he repeated over and over.

She wasn’t sure what to make of his mumbles and hoped that once awake, he could tell her.

Lois knelt down next to the couch and noticed that, although askew, he still had his glasses on. She reached out and carefully slid them out from behind his ears, folding them up and placing them on the table next to her. She then looked back at her partner. It was dark and the room was only lit by the neon sign outside his windows, but she could still see that his hair was wet, sweat soaked, and plastered down on his forehead. His jaw was clenched so tight she had no idea how he was still able to talk while asleep. She hesitated, unsure of the best way to wake him. He had settled down somewhat as she approached him and hadn’t even flinched when she removed his glasses. The last thing she wanted to do was startle him.

Lois reached up and pushed his drenched hair up off his forehead. Clark stirred, but didn’t wake so she trailed her hand down his cheek and neck stopping at his shoulder. She gave him a slight shake. “Clark,” she whispered. He calmed slightly, but still didn’t wake, so she gave him a harder shake. “Clark.” His eyes bolted open as he awoke from his nightmare. Lois watched as he took his time sitting up and then she joined him on the couch.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” he asked.

She nodded. “You were having a nightmare.”

“I guess so.”

“Clark, you’re not alright. Look at you.” She softly cupped his face, turning it so that he was now facing her. “Me staying here wasn’t just for my safety, was it?” She already knew the answer, but wanted him to say it.

Clark’s eyes trailed away from hers.

“Please, Clark, tell me,” she pleaded softly.

He hesitated. She knew he was gearing up to tell her and let him have his time.

“Lois, I needed… need you here tonight. Earlier, when you found me on that bench, I was lost. I couldn’t handle what I had seen down there, but then you made that all go away. I guess I was hoping that having you here would keep the nightmares away. Apparently, it didn’t work. I am sorry to have awakened you. We don’t need to be up for another hour or so, you should go back to sleep.”

Lois picked up his hand. Standing up, she pulled him to his feet and moved in the direction of his bedroom.

“Lois, what are you doing?” he asked, confused by the fact that she was taking him towards his bed.

“Nothing, I was just thinking that maybe you need to be closer to me than a room away.”

Clark stopped, bringing her to an abrupt halt. “Lois, you don’t need to do this. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

“Shh, Clark.” She tugged on his hand to get him moving again. Pulling back the sheets, she allowed him to lie down first. He moved to the far side and rolled over to face away from the middle, leaving her with the majority of the bed. Lois joined him, scooting over to his side and placing her right arm over his back. She felt his body tense under her arm.

“Clark, relax, close your eyes,” she whispered into his ear. He stayed tense for the next few minutes, but thereafter relaxed once he fell back asleep. Lois soon followed.

******

Lois was the first to wake when the sunlight began to creep through Clark’s windows, announcing that it was officially morning. She tried to move down further in the bed in hopes of hiding under the covers, delaying the inevitability of greeting the day, but found herself unable to change her position. Sometime during that last hour, they had rolled and Clark was now spooned tightly against her back, his arm draped comfortably over her body with his hand tucked under her stomach. She touched his hand and realized that it wasn’t just tucked under her, holding her firmly against his body, it had crept under her shirt and was in full contact with her bare skin.

Lois quietly tried to squirm out of his grasp. This is not how she imagined waking up. She had invited him to share the bed to calm him. Being pinned against him so intimately was too much, too fast. Try as she might though, she could not budge herself from her partner.

Behind her, Clark began to stir. Readjusting her position, he loosened his hold allowing Lois to lie slightly more on her back. Then, to her continuing surprise, Clark followed that up by brushing her shoulder with what she assumed were his lips which worked their way slowly up her neck.

“Mmmm...Honey, you feel so good,” he murmured, his lips capturing hers in a lingering kiss. “Let’s never leave this bed.”

Lois didn’t know what had come over Clark or quite how to respond to that suggestion. After that amazing kiss last night and the revelation of how she had thought Clark really felt about her, she had hoped he would kiss her again once they were back at his apartment. He hadn’t though, nor had he shown any sign of wanting to, so she had reconciled herself into believing that the kiss hadn’t meant the same to him as it had to her. Now that his lips were moving back to that sensitive spot he had found on her neck, thoughts of caring what had changed and why he was acting as if nibbling on her neck was commonplace, rapidly seeped from her brain. It wasn’t until his hand under her shirt started to caress her stomach that the butterflies she felt there motivated her into speaking up. She cleared her throat.

“Well, while this is nice, we do have to get up some time. We have a lot of work to do today.”

“Work?” Clark chuckled. “Lois, it’s our honeymoon.”

“What?” she exclaimed, realizing what was happening. “Clark, are you awake?”

“Hmmm…” he replied in a drowsy tone.

“Clark?” Lois repeated more loudly while also attempting to put a little space between them.

“Lois!” Clark yelped. “What are we doing in my bed?”

She glanced down at where Clark’s hand was still hidden under her shirt. Then, before she could look back at him, he seemed to realize for the first time where his hand was. Clark jerked his hand away, letting her go as he scrambled to sit up. He turned his back to Lois and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Lois, what just happened? Why am I in my bed?”

“You don’t remember any of it?” Lois asked, and Clark shook his head. “You had a nightmare last night, mumbling something about dying. You were covered in sweat, so I woke you and moved you into the bed with me. You seemed to sleep fine after that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” was all Clark mumbled before hanging his head.

Lois watched him as he sat on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped, running his hands repeatedly though his hair. She attempted to move closer to him and was hurt when Clark stood up and headed out into his living room. She heard him pick up his glasses off the coffee table and then start to work on folding the blanket left on his couch.

Frustrated that he was completely ignoring her, especially after what transpired during the night and this morning, Lois hastily slid off the bed and joined him in the living room. She managed some restraint as she placed her hands on his and removed the blanket. “Clark, you need to explain to me what’s going on. You can’t brush off everything that’s happened. Please, don’t shut me out.”

“Lois.” Clark hung his head, unable to meet her eyes. “I’m not sure what to say.”

Lois stepped back giving herself room to pace before deciding that the games needed to end and she needed to just be direct with her partner. “How about the truth, Clark? I can see that you’re in pain. It consumed you last night. Just tell me what’s going on, so that I can help.”

Clark looked up, and could see that her posture told him that she was done beating around the bush, but he still had no idea where to begin. “It’s just not that simple, Lois. I can’t just tell you.”

“Why not? What is it that makes it so bad that you can’t tell me? Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, more so than anyone I’ve ever known. There’s just no good starting point.”

“Well,” she unfolded her arms and took a more relaxed stance. “Start with your dream. You were mumbling about all wanting to die or needing to die, something like that. Who wants to die?”

“Lois, please,” he pleaded, turning away from her.

She could tell from his body language that his dream was more than just a nightmare. “No, Clark. You need to get this out. Who wants to die?”

Clark walked towards the angled window in his bedroom, his demeanor showing defeat. He was going to tell her. She quietly followed him, leaving some space between them.

“The clones,” Clark said, barely above a whisper. “The clones, they all want to die.”

She stepped up closer to him. “How do you know?”

“My dream, my nightmare,” he started, and then sighed, staring at the wall outside the window. “It wasn’t a dream. My mind was replaying their memories.”

“You’re not making any sense, Clark.”

“I know.” He turned around to face her before beginning to pace. “That’s why this is so hard to tell you. I didn’t know before yesterday that I could do this. It surprised me and overwhelmed my senses,” he admitted, running his hand through his hair again. “I couldn’t handle it, which is why I ran.”

“Couldn’t handle what?”

Clark stopped pacing and went back to the window. “Telepathy, I guess. The clones each sent me their life story, nothing but torture and pain streaming into my head all at once. Each pleading with me to end it, but I can’t, Lois. I can’t kill them, they’re a part of me,” Clark turned back to look at her, pain written all over his face. He stared at her, as if frozen; his only movement was to slowly reach up and remove his glasses. “Superman can’t kill anyone.”

In shock, Lois backed up, needing some space. She took a long studious look at the man she thought she knew. It was all there in front of her: the hair, the face, the eyes. Clark is Superman. Two men really one and neither had she ever seen look so dire. She never imagined that her hero could look so vulnerable or her partner, so defeated.

He hadn’t moved. He just stood there, waiting for a response. His eyes softened, begging her to understand that emotionally he was at the end of his rope.

She was hurt. He had been two people to her for almost a year; yet, for some reason, she wasn’t mad that he had lied to her. Instead, his words from the last few weeks now made sense. She understood where he was coming from and how much he just wanted to protect her. How ironic it was that she was the one last night trying to protect him from the flood of images penetrating his mind. Seeing what he had been going through, and how he had tried to hold himself together, she realized that she needed to be there to protect him emotionally as much as she needed him to protect her physically.

Having made up her mind on how she was going to handle this new information, she stepped towards him, closing the gap until she could touch his hand. She carefully pried the horned rimmed glasses from his fist and placed them back on his face where they belonged. Then, trying to repeat the event from last night, she slid her hands from the frames down his chin, and then slowly, but confidently, met his lips with hers.

Unlike last night, there was no hesitation from her partner. His previously stiff frame quickly relaxed as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. Before long, she felt his kisses change. They became more urgent, almost frantic. Swept up in the feeling, she followed his lead.

She had kissed both Clark and Superman before, but this was nothing like those kisses. She now realized that those had all been done with restraint on his end. This was what it was really like to kiss her partner, raw and unrestrained. She had never felt anything like it, no high school crush, no college boyfriend, and certainly not Claude had ever invoked such feelings inside her.

He drew her in more and more, until her head was spinning and she was unable to focus on anything, only Clark. He backed her up a step and she hit something firm, but padded, with the back of her knees. Pulling her back to reality was the realization that Clark had somehow moved, perhaps floated, them to the bed. As much as she wanted her partner and knew he returned the feeling, she knew this wasn’t the right time.

She gently laid a hand on Clark’s chest and broke the kiss. “Clark,” she whispered.

He moaned something incoherent before seeming to realize his surroundings. He took a shaky step back, calming himself while he raked his hands through his already tousled hair. “Lois, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I…” Clark looked down at floor, unable to look her.

From the bed, Lois reached out, grabbing his hand and tugging it towards her. Clark easily conceded to her request and joined her. She kept a hold of his hand. “Clark, there’s nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He looked at her genuinely. “Lois, you know I would never…push…you into something.”

“Clark, I know that. We were both just caught up in the moment. It’s okay, really.”

“I’ve never lost control like that before. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t think it’s really that hard to figure out. Look at what you’ve gone through the last few days and then cap it off with what we found yesterday. Clark, you may be Superman, but even you have a limit, especially emotionally. You’re the most caring person I’ve met, and when we kissed, if it was anything for you like it was for me, I forgot about everything else,” she said, blushing slightly.

His cheeks followed suit and went a shade of red as well. “Me, too. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to keep kissing you, floating us over here...well, it just happened. But Lois, what if we hadn’t stopped? What if…”

“Clark,” she interrupted to cut off his list of hypotheticals. “Stop beating yourself up over this. I’m fine. We’re fine.” She squeezed his hand to reaffirm her statement. “Right now, we need to focus on the investigation, stopping the doctors, the Superman clone, the… all of it.”

Clark breathed a sigh of relief. Lois was just so amazing. She had taken in everything that had happened since last night and was still there to keep them on track to catch the bad guys.

“I don’t know what to do with the other clones. None of them will make it out of that lab and survive, but I can’t kill them.”

She agreed that by killing them, he’d be killing a part of himself, but there was a lot to do before it came to the clones. “We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you go and take a shower first? You look like you need it,” she teased, patting his knee as she tried to lighten the mood.

He stood to head towards the bathroom, pausing first to give her a quick kiss.

Once he was out of sight, Lois breathed her own sigh of relief. Since last night she had been on an emotional rollercoaster. With what they had planned for today, it wasn’t going to get any easier, but with this huge revelation out in the open and Clark by her side, she was ready for it.

******** End of Chapter 13********

Almost done, one more to go. How will this get wrapped up? Let me know here .