The ambulance practically flew them to Metropolis at a rate that rivaled the once invincible superhero Clark had portrayed. Thinking of Superman had made a lump rise in Lois’ throat. Looking at Clark, it was nearly impossible to reconcile the frail, broken, dead-eyed shell of a man before her with the god-like hero who’d chased down villains, lifted a rocket, swallowed a bomb, and destroyed an asteroid the size of Metropolis two decades ago. She closed her eyes for a few precious moments, summoning up images of the hero she’d once known, befriended, and flown with, but it had hurt too much to cling to the ghosts of the past. She opened her eyes again and kept them fixated on Clark as he lay, unmoving, on the gurney while the EMTs spoke to one another in a litany of medical terms that was as alien to Lois as any foreign language.
When Clark had been cleared to leave the accursed Arkham Asylum, Lois had been furious with the decision to bring him to Metropolis via ambulance rather than by a medical helicopter, but the ride into Metropolis hadn’t been too bad. Though Clark was undeniably in bad shape, he wasn’t in critical condition. At least, that’s what she kept reminding herself during their ride. He was breathing and moving on his own, despite his skeletal appearance. But the ride had given one thing the shorter trip a helicopter would have robbed her of; it had given Lois time to think and make decisions. Among those was the absolute need to share Clark’s identity with Dr. Klein when they arrived at S.T. A.R. Labs.
Dr. Klein.
Lois flashed back to when she’d introduced Clark to the esteemed scientist, a little over twenty years ago. She hadn’t known Dr. Klein all that well or for all that long when she’d made the decision to introduce him to Clark. In fact, in a lot of ways, she and Dr. Klein had still been in the very early stages of building what had started out as a simpler reporter and source relationship and had gone on to become a strong friendship over the ensuing years.
She almost smiled at the memory. Almost. It had been a few weeks after Clark had been made her permanent partner – well before she’d learned to accept Clark’s friendship. Clark had been working on a rare solo assignment and had asked for her help in locating an expert opinion for his investigation. Perhaps it had been because he’d been on a solo assignment – and, therefore, hadn’t been the competition. Or maybe it had been because he’d gone out of his way to bring in what she now knew had to have been authentic croissants that morning for them to share – a sweet gesture given how rude she’d been to him just the day before. Or maybe it had just been her wanting to assert her dominance as the senior partner.
Looking back now, she wondered if some part of her had accepted that it was a part of being partners – sharing sources and supporting one another. And while she’d never once thought of herself as the partner type, Clark had changed all of that. He’d been decent and smart, sometimes goofy but always determined, and he’d never once sat back and refused to pull his own weight. Never in the years before Clark or in the decades spent frantically searching for him, had Lois ever found anyone else she could stand to be partnered with.
She sniffled and wiped away a single tear as she recalled bringing Clark him to S.T.A.R. Labs and how easily the two men had befriended one another. Later – as she learned from Jonathan and Martha – Clark had turned to Dr. Klein, trusting the gentle-hearted scientist to be Superman’s physician in the rare event he might need a doctor.
And now, more than ever, Clark needed a doctor.
The EMTs had called ahead when they were just a few short blocks away from the lab. Dr. Klein had been ready for them, waiting impatiently for the ambulance to arrive. As they waited for Clark to be unloaded, Lois took note of how anxious Dr. Klein was - evidenced only by the way he rocked back and forth on his heels and the way his features seemed pinched together. As soon as Clark was out of the ambulance, he’d motioned for the EMTs to follow him to an exam room he’d prepped in advance. Lois was just a scant few steps behind, her heart racing, her stomach churning in dread, and the world around her seeming to move in slow motion. As soon as the EMTs had left Clark in Dr. Klein’s care, Lois breathlessly unveiled the secret that would be crucial to Clark’s treatment and, hopefully, recovery. She could only pray that it would be enough.
Shock wasn’t the word to describe the look on Dr. Klein’s face when she dropped the bombshell that Clark – her best friend, her former partner, the simple, unassuming man Dr. Klein had befriended so long ago - was also Superman; the man who’d saved the world from total annihilation by destroying an asteroid with his bare hands. The more Lois told him, the whiter Dr. Klein’s face became, until he looked like a man who’d never once seen the sun in all his life. A range of emotions played across his features – everything from shock, to horror, to understanding, and even disgust. He’d looked like she’d slapped him across the face with an old, dead fish as he stood in place, eyes practically bulging out of his head and his jaw hanging low and slack. But, to his credit, he recovered his wits quickly and ushered Lois to another room while he turned all business to examine Clark.
“How is he?” Lois asked as soon as Dr. Klein stepped back into the room, what felt like hours later.
Dr. Klein didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he slowly paced across the room to the rolling chair in the far corner. With two hands, he steered the chair over to rest next to the one in which Lois sat. All the while, he was silent and a grave expression was on his face, making Lois all the more worried. Her stomach churned as her imagination kicked into overdrive and all kinds of worst-case scenarios ripped through her mind with lightning speed. Was Clark dying?
“Dr. Klein?” she prompted him again, aware that her tone of voice was more pleading than before.
“He’s…things…” Dr. Klein futility began, gesturing helplessly.
“Just tell me,” Lois prodded.
Dr. Klein sighed and rubbed at his temples for a moment. “I’m afraid the news…isn’t good.”
“How bad is it?” Lois asked, choking down a sob.
“Bad,” the man said simply. “He’s…probably been tortured,” he admitted in a pained voice. “Mentally and physically.”
“Oh God,” Lois moaned as she fought back the sting of tears.
Dr. Klein sighed again. “He’s malnourished, for starters. How he’s still alive is beyond me, to be unfortunately blunt about it. I don’t know when he’s last seen the sun. His body needs it, as much as possible. I didn’t think Superman could survive this long without the nourishment it provides him.”
“I’ll make sure he gets plenty of food and sunlight,” Lois vowed.
“I wish that was the extent of it,” Dr, Klein continued, looking away for a moment, as though he couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes. “Clark’s got a number of bones that were broken, probably at all different times. The x-rays show that some of them healed well. But others…there are some serious malunions going on.”
“Mal…unions?” Lois asked, breaking the unfamiliar word apart.
“His bones didn’t heal correctly. Some of them are…grotesquely misaligned,” Dr. Klein explained, swallowing hard around the difficult news. “I’m sure you must have noticed some of them. Every finger. Every toe. Both ankles. His wrists. His right tibia. His left fibula.” He indicated the bones in question by pointing to his own leg bones. “I would bet my medical license that his bones were broken repeatedly, based on what I can tell from the x-rays. Of course, unless the breaks are noted in the medical file, there’s no telling for sure, nor can I tell you how long ago they happened. I’ll read the file over more thoroughly tonight, once I have a chance to sit and really give it my full attention. I only had the chance to gloss over it, looking for anything that stood out. My main focus was on evaluating Clark’s condition.”
“Is there anything that we can do?” Lois asked, her mind already spinning. “For the malunions, that is.”
Reluctantly, the doctor nodded. But he looked far from happy. “He’ll need to be vulnerable, of course, but I can…rebreak his bones and set them correctly. With casts and splints, I can make certain that they heal properly.”
“Does it have to be now?” Lois asked, horrified.
Dr. Klein shook his head. “No, of course not. Clark’s been living this way for probably a long time now. He doesn’t seem to be in much discomfort, so I think it’s safe to wait until his natural healing aura returns to speed up the regrowth of the bones. He may or may not need physical therapy afterward to help him regain his proper strength and to relearn how to use the broken areas the correct way again. For better or worse, he’s adapted well to using his malformed bones the way they currently are.”
“So…what then? We just let Clark continue on as is for…how long? A week? A month? A year? What if he’s in pain but can’t communicate it to us?” Lois demanded.
Dr. Klein gave her an apologetic look and spread his hands in a helpless manner. “I know it sounds inhumane. Believe me, I want to correct his injuries as soon as possible. And I would do it right now if I felt confident enough to do so. But he’s been through a lot of trauma. I’m afraid if I broke his bones now, it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak.”
“You mean it might kill him?” Lois gulped around the words.
“Maybe. The pain involved…there’s a number of malunions I’d have to correct. But the greater potential for damage is against his mental state.” He tapped the side of his head for emphasis.
Lois shuddered. Clark’s mental state scared her more than any physical needs he might have. “How bad is it?” she ventured, her voice lower than it had been a moment before.
Dr. Klein closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before answering. It appeared he was gathering his thoughts, or maybe just his courage, before delving into things.
“I don’t know…how to say this,” he stammered. “He’s…nearly catatonic. He shows no true awareness. He knows that you or I are there and talking to him. But he doesn’t seem to be able to react to us at all…at least nothing past fear and confusion. He doesn’t react to his own name in the way I’d expect. It’s like he doesn’t even recognize that it belongs to him.”
“When I saw him in the asylum, I used his name. I called to him. I hugged him and said his name,” Lois said with a shake of her head. “He pulled back in terror. I think he’s afraid of his name. I just don’t know why.”
“I…may have an explanation for that,” Dr. Klein cautiously stated, rubbing his chin in thought. “In going through the file the police seized from the raid on the asylum…it looks like he was…experimented on.”
“Exper…” Lois choked on the word and was unable to get the vile thought completed.
“Not in the way you’re probably thinking,” Dr. Klein quickly amended, gesturing frantically. “But he was subjected to a lot of…electroshock ‘therapy.’ Or torture, as I – and most scientists - prefer to call it.”
Lois felt like her old friend had slapped her in the face. Her stomach lurched and her mind went reeling. She blindly grabbed the trash bin next to her and threw up in it as the full extent of what Clark had gone through hit her. She vomited until her stomach was empty, then dry heaved a few times before she felt confident enough to put the garbage pail back down. Dr. Klein crossed the room and filled a small clear plastic cup with water from the sink and offered it to her. Lois took it gratefully and sipped gently at the drink.
“Thanks. And sorry,” she said after a moment.
Dr. Klein shook his head. “Don’t apologize. I nearly did the same when I read about it in the file.”
“What…what does this mean? For Clark?” she fearfully ventured a few seconds later as she stared at the water in her cup. She couldn’t look up at Dr. Klein, not yet at any rate.
“It means…his brain is…damaged. His memory…it’s not there, Lois.”
“What does that mean?” She gulped around the question, dreading the answer.
“It means…the electricity they shot into his brain…it’s destroyed some of his brain tissue. Normally, for regular people like you and me, once that tissue…once those cells…are damaged, they don’t heal,” Dr. Klein said quietly, his voice a bare-whisper so fragile it seemed made of the thinnest glass.
“But…he’s not a regular person,” Lois asserted. “He’s Superman. If his bones can heal, can’t his brain heal itself too?” It was a faint hope and a poor comparison, but she couldn’t give up what dim hope there might be for Clark to return to normal.
Dr. Klein sighed and it almost looked like he was holding back a sob. “I wish I knew.”
“He has to be able to come back,” Lois said, more because she wanted it to be true than because there was any evidence that it could be true.
“I hope so. But we have to be realistic here, Lois.”
“I am. If anyone has a chance to beat this, it’s Clark,” she declared with resolve.
“Lois, you understand, this isn’t a disease or infection. There’s nothing to beat here,” Dr. Klein stressed gently. “We can do the best we can to give him what he needs – we can fix his broken bones, we can give him all the sunlight and nutritious foods possible, we can fill his days talking about his past and who he is. But we may not be able to ‘fix’ – for lack of a better term – all the things that are wrong with him. We may be able to help his body heal…but his mind? There’s, unfortunately, nothing we can do to make the dead tissue regenerate.” He took both of her hands in his, forcing her to make eye contact with him. “As much as I want to make promises that he can come back from this, the truth is, it’s far more likely that he’ll never recover. Even if his powers return.”
Lois looked up sharply. “If?”
Dr. Klein let go of her hands and shrugged helplessly. “He’s gone without sunlight for a long, long time, Lois. For all we know, being shut away for so long might have…altered…his body’s ability to recharge in the sunlight. It’s possible he might never recover the use of his powers. Which, in his current mental frailty, might not be the worst thing in the world. Imagine, for a moment, what a disaster it could be if he suddenly regained his heat vision without his memories of how to control it.”
An involuntary shudder raced up Lois’ spine. “We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it,” she vowed. She squared her shoulders to bolster her own confidence. “So…what do we do now?”
“It’s too dangerous to admit him to the hospital and I don’t have the resources to keep him at S.T.A.R. Labs,” Dr. Klein said slowly, as though the ideas were coming to him in that exact moment.
“He can stay with me,” Lois decided as the scientist paused in thought.
“I’m not sure…”
“Help me bring him to my place,” Lois insisted. “I have a spare bedroom. He can be comfortable and have his privacy. No one will be the wiser that the freshly rescued Clark Kent is also Superman. If you need to set up IVs and the like to give him medication, he’ll be able to receive those too without gossip and prying eyes. Just give me the chance to get my car and I’ll take care of all the rest of the details.”
***
“Here we go,” Lois said late that night as she parked her car in front of the house she’d bought a little over eight years before. “Home sweet home.”
She glanced over to Clark, who looked straight ahead with blank eyes. He seemed not to notice the townhouse on his right. Lois sighed internally. It was heart-wrenching to see how little he seemed to take in of the world around him. She wished there was some sunlight, so she could set up a chaise lounge chair on the small patch of lawn she owned, in order to get the healing process started for Clark. But even then…how much would he heal, if at all?
“I know, I know,” she said, just for the sake of talking. The silence she was met with from Clark was more than she could bear. “It’s a lot different from my apartment. Who would have imagined it, right? Me, a homeowner?” She laughed nervously, wishing he would respond in some way. “There was a time when I couldn’t imagine tying myself to a house. It just seemed so…permanent. Like putting down roots. After you disappeared…I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to stay in Metropolis. So many reminders…” Her voice trailed off and she cleared her throat.
Clark continued to look uncomprehendingly ahead.
“Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I needed to stay. Especially once the Daily Planet was rebuilt. Can you believe it? Perry found a buyer for the paper and, within a couple of months of the bombing, we were back in business, our office better than ever. So I stayed. And, honestly, I had hope that you’d find your way back to my apartment one day.”
Clark blinked slowly and his mouth opened. For one torturously slow moment, Lois had hope that he would speak. But all he did was release a small yawn and Lois’ hopes turned to ash.
“Then my apartment building got sold,” she continued, as she shut off the Jeep and unbuckled her seatbelt. She turned more fully toward Clark. “Overnight, the rents were more than doubled and I had to find a new place. Jimmy and I busted this weird mad-scientist lady in this house and went it went up for sale. It wound up being pretty much dirt cheap. People don’t want houses with crimes associated with it. My mortgage payments are cheaper than my rent ever was. So…here I am, with a house on Hyperion Avenue.”
She paused then, giving Clark a chance to make any noise of acknowledgment, but he didn’t.
“Yeah, I know. I talk too much. Okay, let’s get inside. I kept some of your old clothes in storage in case you ever came back home and needed them. I’m guessing they’ll be a bit big on you now, but they should serve until I can pick up some new stuff for you.”
She opened the door and clamored out, then quickly went around the front of the car to help Clark. He didn’t move, so she opened the door and helped him unbuckle his seatbelt, then she took his arm to help him out of the car. Clark allowed her to help him shuffle down the sidewalk and up the few steps leading into the house. She helped him stay steady as she unlocked her front door, wondering if he truly needed her help, but unwilling to risk him collapsing or hurting himself. He was so painfully frail-looking that she felt she needed to protect him against even the gusts of icy wind that were blowing. She shouldered the door open and helped him inside.
As soon as they were in, Lois kicked the door closed, then reached over with her free hand to lock it up again. She wanted the cold outside and she had the nagging instinct to shut out the entire world so that Clark could recuperate in private. She snuck a peek at him as she guided him deeper into her home, hoping to see him taking some interest in his surroundings. She wanted – needed – some sign that the man she knew was still somewhere inside, even if hidden down deep within. He couldn’t be gone. He was Clark. His personality was vital to everything that made him so extraordinary.
But Clark merely stared ahead with glazed eyes and an unchanging, neutral expression.
“So…what do you think of the place?” Lois found herself asking before the words were given permission to pass her lips. “It’s a bit cozier than my old apartment, that’s for sure. Lucy – you remember my sister, don’t you? – helped me pick out some of the furniture. She always hated the stuff at my old place. She said it was…stiff and uninviting. But you never said you disliked it. Still, she might have been right,” she continued in a nervous babble, “the new stuff is a lot more comfortable. I think I feel more at home now than I ever did in my apartment. Heck, I used to feel more at home in your apartment than I did in mine.”
She guided him to the living room, showing him the Christmas tree that stood in one corner, all lit up in white lights and bedecked with a scattering of ornaments – some obviously newer, some older and harboring a thousand memories within them. He looked impassively at it, as though not comprehending what he was seeing.
“It’s a few weeks before Christmas,” she told him in a soft voice. “It’s always been your favorite holiday. You used to tease me when I said I never really enjoyed it. You couldn’t understand how anyone could hate the ‘happiest time of the year,’ as you used to put it. I’ll never forget how much your eyes sparkled when you talked about Christmas back home on the farm in Kansas.”
She felt compelled to keep bringing up the past, praying silently that something she said would trigger a spark in his mind that would bring all his memories cascading back like an avalanche to envelop his brain and restore who he’d once been. But Clark didn’t react at all to her story.
“Come on,” Lois said after a moment of indecision. “Let’s get you upstairs to your bedroom and into some clean and more comfortable clothing,” she added, shuddering to look at the dirty hospital garb he’d been forced to wear.
Silently, Clark complied as she brought him to the stairs. For a moment, she was uncertain about how well his malformed ankles would handle the challenge, but with a jostling, shambling, wobbling motion, he mounted each step one by one until they were at the top of the staircase. The way he had to force his body to move looked uncomfortably unnatural to her eyes, but he didn’t seem to be in any pain, so she took what solace she could in that fact. Curious to see how well he actually could move on his own, Lois only took him gently by the elbow as she helped him find his room. He seemed not to know what to do when she ushered him inside, merely standing in the middle of the room. Lois patted the chair near the window and he sat with eerie obedience. Lois went to the closest.
“After I took in some of your things, I put your clothes in the closet,” she explained as she rifled through the assorted sweaters and sweatshirts that hung neatly from a variety of different colored plastic hangers, like ancient relics from a bygone era. “I never saw you use pajamas, not even when we had our overnight stakeouts from time to time. At first, when we were in the Lexor, I thought maybe you were just shy, but, no matter what time of night I showed up on your doorstep, you were always in shorts or sweatpants with either a t-shirt or sweatshirt.”
She threw a look over his shoulder but not even that reminder of his past appeared to strike a chord with him. She continued her search. “I think I have some things that are a little on the smaller side…ah, yes! Here we go!” She triumphantly extracted a brandy-colored Midwestern State University sweatshirt from the closest and a pair of faded black sweatpants from the nearby dresser. Next, she found a pair of his old boxers and socks and laid it all out on the bed.
“I know, creepy, right, that I have all this stuff? Like I said, I kept hoping you’d show up and wanted to make sure I had everything you might need in case you did. We’ve made some enemies over the course of our careers, and for all I knew, you’d be on the run from someone and be unable to get out to the stores to pick up the essentials.” She deliberately refrained from mentioning Superman. Clark didn’t even know his own name. He probably didn’t recall Superman at all, and she feared what dropping that information on him might do to his already precarious mental state.
She pointed to the door on the far side of the room. “You’ve got your own, private bathroom in here. Come on. I can trim your hair for you,” she offered, looking at his unkempt, shaggier than normal locks. “And help you shave if you need it.” The course, days-old stubble told her that he likely wasn’t capable of tending to things like that and the doctors who’d kept him locked in the asylum hadn’t made it a priority of keeping him bathed and groomed each day.
Clark stood like a mute ghost and shambled across the room to the bathroom. Lois had him sit down on the closed lid of the toilet seat while she first shaved his face back to his smooth, neat, familiar looks. Then she used the buzzer she’d found in Clark’s bathroom, back when she’d been helping Martha and Jonathan clean the place out – one of the many props Clark had collected over the years in an attempt to appear as normal and unremarkable as possible. With hands that only trembled twice, she shore away the tangled mass of knots and dirty, oily, limp hair to give him a neat cut that resembled his former preferred style. Stepping back, she frowned a bit.
“I think I may have gone a little shorter than you used to keep it,” she decided. “But, I promise, you look as handsome as you always did.” She gave him a smile that he did not acknowledge. Then she put the buzzer away and gestured to the tub and shower. “It’s all yours,” she offered. Clark stood in what seemed to be a vague awareness of what she wanted, then he peeled off his shirt and let it fall to the floor.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to disrobe in front…” she began before a gasp of horror cut off her words.
Clark’s chest and back were a roadmap of old scars. Some were short, others were long. It was abundantly clear that some ran deep, as though chunks of flesh had been torn from his body. He was pockmarked and bruised. There appeared to be burn marks mingled amongst the wormy-white scars that crisscrossed his skin in a nightmarish dance. He was so thin she could count every bone in his torso. His clavicle bones were so prominent they looked like the shoulder padding he would have worn during his college football days and his hip bones stuck out well beyond his shrunken waist.
“Oh, God,” she said, the words nothing more than a sob that stuck in her throat. “What did they do to you, Clark?”
She almost regretted using his name as he flinched in fear from the word. Almost. But she was determined to restore ownership of his name and identity to him. And for that, she had to make him see that Clark belonged to him and that he was Clark. She needed him to not only accept the name but to embrace it the way he once had. She reached out to him but he instinctively drew back and she let her hand drop. Was he afraid that she was going to add to his horrific collection of scars? Did he imagine that she was going to abuse him as badly as his former captors had? And that was how Lois viewed the doctors and nurses at the asylum – as nothing more than sadistic captors who’d hurt Clark in unspeakable ways.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t find you sooner,” she apologized to him. “I’d do anything to go back in time and save you from…whatever they did to you.” She sighed. “Take whatever time you need. Everything is right here for you. And when you’re done, I’ll be waiting, okay?”
With tears pricking her eyes, she turned and left Clark to his shower. How much humiliation had that poor man suffered? How much torture had he endured before – or after – his electroshock therapy? And here Lois wasn’t sure which was worse – being fully conscious of what was happening as he was abused or being unaware and unable to advocate for himself.
“He needs food,” she decided, mostly to give herself something to do. She needed to focus on a task – any task – to keep her mind from wondering about his scars.
She went down to the kitchen and took stock of her fridge. As usual, she’d put off grocery shopping until she was almost in the “dire need” stage of desperation. Still, she had a pound of ground beef and some ziti. She checked and double-checked her fridge – no cheese.
“So much for baked ziti,” she sighed as she set to work making meatballs and sauce. “Looks like we’re having just regular pasta tonight.”
By the time she was finished preparing the meal and setting in all on a tray to bring to Clark’s room, she heard the water in the shower shut off. She took the meal upstairs to Clark’s room and found him dressed and sitting on the bed. Was it her imagination or did he look almost forlorn? Did he know how much he’d lost in the last twenty years?
“Hey, I made us a late dinner,” she said gently from the doorway. Slowly, his head left his chest and he looked at her. “And you don’t have to worry. I can actually cook now. Well…sort of. There’s a few things I can do well. Shocking, I know,” she teased with a shy smile. “I kind of gave Lucy and my mother food poisoning, oh, about ten or twelve years ago. Lucy’s Christmas gift to me that year was cooking lessons. She thought it was hilarious,” she said as she brought the tray to the bed and sat across from Clark. “Joke’s on her though. After almost setting the school’s kitchen on fire five or six times, I now make a better roasted chicken than she ever did.” She grinned widely, partly in pride, partly in hopes that it would encourage Clark to react.
He blinked once at her, then his eyes dropped to his plate. Methodically, he picked up his fork and wordlessly ate his meal. After ten or fifteen minutes, Lois noticed that he hadn’t touched the can of Coke she’d brought for him, so she reached over and popped the tab for him.
“Drink up,” she encouraged with a gesture at the can. “It’s always been one of your favorites. I guess they didn’t give you stuff like this when you were…in the hospital,” she said, forcing the words out and swallowing her disgust with the place. “I promise though, you’ll like it.”
Clark stared at the can for a long moment, then went back to eating. When he was finished, he picked up the can of soda and drained it robotically. Lois scrutinized his features, waiting for some flash of recognition or joy – anything to show her that the taste of the drink had brought back some remembrance of his likes and dislikes. But his face was a blank slate. Lois shoved aside her disappointment.
“It’s been a long day,” she finally settled on after debating on how to proceed next. “You should get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll make sure you get plenty of sunlight and I’ll go food shopping and start making you all the things I know won’t send your stomach into a protest.” Brazenly, she reached out and took his hand in hers. He tensed but looked too afraid to pull his hand away. “We’re going to figure this out, I promise. I just don’t know how yet. But Dr. Klein and I will do everything we can. I know you’re still in there, somewhere. Fight, Clark. If not for me, do it for you. Find that spark I know you have inside.”
Clark’s only response was a tired blink as he slipped his hand from hers when she loosened her gentle grip on it. Lois stood and collected the remnants of their dinner – and she was pleased to see that Clark had eaten every last bite of food on his plate – before heading for the door. She turned back to look at him one last time for the night.
“Good night, Clark,” she whispered and her heart yearned to hear him say it back, just like he used to on the phone after their stay in the Lexor.
But Clark simply sat in the darkness as Lois turned off the light.
To Be Continued…
