Nine days.
That was all Lois could spare away from Metropolis. That was all Jimmy could give her, what with the big Carson trial beginning. Lois had been the one to connect all the brutally murdered prostitutes to the unassuming high school shop teacher and it was only fitting that she should be the one to be there covering the trial and sentencing of the serial killer.
Nine days.
Nine days to give Clark the chance to take in as much of his childhood home as possible.
She talked to Martha about the possibility of Clark staying behind for a while – at least until the trial was over. But Clark seemed to become more and more agitated as the days wore on, and both wondered if it might not be better for him to return to Metropolis, back to Lois’ house where he knew he was safe, and was, therefore, calm and not displaying stress signals.
Martha was the one to broach the subject, on the morning of their seventh day on the farm. She’d whipped up her usual extravagant – by Lois’ standards – breakfast of fluffy scrambled eggs, thick-sliced ham, sausage, pancakes with maple syrup, toast, fruit, cereal, coffee, and orange juice. Lois was thankful and ate with a hearty appetite, outmatched only by Clark.
“I think Clark should go home with you,” Martha said without any preamble.
“Are you sure?” Lois asked, stopping her egg-laden fork in midair and looking at Clark’s mother in surprise. “You don’t think it’s better for him to be here, with you?”
Martha shook her head and discreetly shot a glance at Clark. Lois followed her gaze. “He’s not himself here. Or…his ‘new’ self,” she reflexively corrected herself. She nodded at the way Clark was fidgeting with his fork, despite the fact that he’d made serious headway on his second helping of the eggs. “He never acted like this in Metropolis. As much as I hate to admit it, I think he’s uncomfortable here.”
“This is his home,” Lois pointed out, stabbing the air vaguely with her fork.
But Martha shook her head. “It isn’t. Not anymore. He doesn’t remember it. Ever since your friend, Batman, found him in the asylum, he’s been in your house. Maybe he can’t express it, but he’s comfortable there. He associates it with safety and healing.”
“He’s safe here too,” Lois argued. “And so far, there haven’t been any assassins sent to this address,” she added with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
Martha cracked a smile and chuckled a little at Lois’ joke. “Maybe,” she allowed. “But Clark needs to be where he knows he’s safe. Besides, if anything were to happen, I’d feel better having Dr. Klein close at hand.”
Lois hadn’t thought of that. After all, aside from Clark’s mind, he had fully recovered from his surgeries and his near-starvation while he was locked in his tiny, depressing cell. His body still bore scars, but overall, he was healthy. But Martha’s point was a good one. If anything new developed, it would be better for Clark to be a mere car ride away from S.T.A.R. Labs and Dr. Klein.
“I guess you’re right,” Lois finally admitted. “Are you sure you can’t come back with us?”
Martha frowned and shook her head. “There’s too much to be done around here. If this truly is my last growing season on the farm, I need to make the most of it.”
“If money is your worry…” Lois began.
“A bit, yeah. Oh, Jonathan and I saved, it’s true. But with refinancing the house not long before he passed, coupled with some of the loans we were forced to take during some of the bad years…I’m a bit nervous about having enough to live on once I sell. Metropolis is a far cry from Kansas, expense-wise,” Martha confessed.
“You don’t have to worry,” Lois assured her. “I’d do whatever I can to help you.”
Clark’s mother shook her head again. “That’s kind of you, honey, but you shouldn’t have to.”
“I want to,” Lois insisted.
“Even so, I’m committed to the growing season now,” Martha argued gently.
Unsure of what else she could say to Martha, Lois focused on Clark. He was nibbling absently on a piece of toast heavily smeared with a generous amount of homemade blackberry jam. A warm shaft of sunlight bathed him from behind in a kind of almost ethereal manner, making him look angelic in a way. Lois couldn’t help but smile at him, though she knew he would never return it. He looked so peaceful that it was hard to picture ripping him away from his country roots to return him to the rat race of the city once more. But Martha was right. Metropolis had some advantages that Kansas didn’t have and he was far from settled here in his childhood home. He was listless and fidgety and it was worrying, to say the least.
What must be going on in his head? Lois thought with a mental sigh. Is anything going on in there? Has anything we’ve said or done made any difference in bringing him back?
***
A steady pressure was building in Clark’s brain. Ever since his surroundings had changed, a thrumming buzzing had started to build in his mind. Ever since the weather had changed and the sunlight had gotten stronger, something had shifted in his head. It had started out so small, so insignificant, it was barely even noticeable. But now it felt like molten lava was erupting in his brain. The buzzing had reached deafening levels to the point where no other sound could cut through the cacophony of abject pain. Black spots floated before Clark’s unseeing eyes. A scream wanted to rip from his throat but it found the way blocked. Every nerve in his body was ablaze, freezing him in place like one of Medusa’s once-human stone statues. Even his dull, slow blinking was denied to him. A roiling sensation grew in his stomach as the pain in his mind shot through his uncooperative, unresponsive body like liquid lightning.
The volcano in his head erupted. There was a phantom tearing sensation in his dead brain tissue. If Clark had been capable of forming coherent thoughts, he would have wondered if he was dying. He would have questioned if he was having a stroke or an aneurysm. But not now. His ability to think, to wonder, to question, to worry, to do anything other than exist in a zombie-like state had been torn from him ages ago and he was left to the mercy of the agony that was shredding his very soul.
A crack.
That’s what it felt like.
Like a city street torn asunder by an earthquake, a slight crack seemed to break in his head. Like a seedling forcing its way through asphalt, a hole appeared in the darkness. Like a single pinprick of starlight on a winter’s night, the blankness was marred. Like the mighty Hercules, Clark found the strength somehow to snap the chains that bound him.
With a bestial effort, Clark made his useless body respond.
***
As Lois looked on, the toast slipped from Clark’s fingers and landed, jam side down, with a wet splat! on the table. His hands flew up to the sides of his head as a nearly-inhuman sounding, strangled cry of pain ripped out of his throat, though it was muted by years of having his vocal cords languish away. It made Lois’ blood freeze in her veins and every hair stand at attention. Her appetite vanished in an instant, like a puff of smoke blown away by a sudden breeze. She dropped her fork and stood up, scared and confused by Clark’s actions.
“Clark?” she asked, not bothering to hide the terror in her voice. “Clark? What’s wrong?”
The only response she received was Clark’s continued sounds of agony. It was as though some demon had possessed him or inflicted some unseen, internal torture. Clark wretched his body from side to side, perhaps trying to shake off or escape whatever was causing him such distress, but he couldn’t get away from it. He slammed his elbows down onto the table with such force that his breakfast plate flew off the edge to crash and shatter on the floor, sending bits of egg, toast, and bacon everywhere. His coffee jumped in his mug and splashed all over the table as he repeated the action. He grabbed fistfuls of hair and pulled, as though trying to rip out his own hair to get to the source of his anguish.
Lois jumped into action then, standing behind him in the blink of an eye. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, as tightly as she could, hoping the feel of her touch would still his movements. She whispered soft shushing sounds in his ear.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here. Your mother is here. It’s okay. We’ve got you,” she assured him, though her platitudes would do nothing to quell actual, physical pain. “Just breathe through it,” she tried again, feeling powerless to help him. “I’ve got you. Calm down. It’ll pass. I’ve got you.”
Clark continued to struggle and cry out. Lois could feel his entire body shuddering with tremors that seemed involuntary and she grew more scared and anxious by the moment. She kissed the back of his head, wishing once more that she had some mystical power to take away his hurts, even if it meant taking them on herself. Wetness splashed onto her hands and she realized with a sudden drop to the pit of her stomach, that Clark was in so much agony that he was crying.
Crying.
She’d never seen Clark cry before. Not when he was whole and in the prime of his life, before he’d gone missing. Not since he’d returned home, a broken, blank slate of a man. Not even in his wildest nightmares that she’d witnessed in the beginning had tears ever dared to sting his eyes.
But he was shedding plenty now as he fought whatever torment had gripped him. She tightened her hug around him even more.
For how long Clark’s anguish lasted, Lois wasn’t sure. It felt like a lifetime as she clung to him, hoping to impart some measure of comfort to him. What Martha did during that time, Lois was unaware. She became blind to anything and anyone that wasn’t Clark. But, eventually, the spasms of his body slowed and became less violent. His whispered screams lessened until they were no more than almost dog-like whimpers. He tentatively loosened his grip on his hair and lowered his arms. He still remained slumped forward in his seat, but Lois felt slightly more confident in letting go of him. He didn’t move or respond as she slipped away to kneel in front of him. His hands had left his hair only to cover his face as he recovered from the brutal pain he’d been in, and Lois gave him a minute to simply just be before she tried to inspect him for any sign of lingering pain or the unlikely evidence that he’d caused himself bodily harm.
“I’ll call Dr. Klein,” Martha murmured to herself as she took a step away from the table.
“No, wait,” Lois replied, gently prying Clark’s hands away from his face. “We need to make sure he’s not hurt first.”
As Clark’s hands left his face, Lois noticed that he didn’t quite look the same. It took her a long moment to realize why that was.
As his features softened out of the grimace they’d been scrunched up into, she saw that they didn’t relax back into the expressionless flatness she was used to seeing. She looked closer and it was almost as though she could see actual clouds of confusion and dullness swirling away in his eyes as they cleared and his focus sharpened right before her very gaze. Clark took a deep breath as he closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, it seemed as though a fire had been lit inside.
“Lois?” he tentatively croaked out in a badly rusted voice.
“Clark?” Lois asked, barely trusting her own voice. She reached out and cupped his cheek with her left hand, as though needing the confirmation that it was really him and not some hallucination or dream that had spoken her name. She tried to smile but it wobbled too much and a few tears slipped down her cheeks. “Clark? Yeah, it’s me. I’m here,” she told him. She looked up to the ceiling as she tried to master her emotions, but it was a losing battle. “Oh, God,” she said in a mixture of disbelief and absolute relief.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lois could see Martha. Her hands were clasped in an almost prayerlike way and her eyes were glistening with elated tears. A part of Lois told her that she should make way for Clark’s mother as she moved toward her son, but selfishly, Lois didn’t want to leave his side. She threw her arms around him in a hug.
“You’re back,” she murmured into his neck. “Oh, God. I thought we’d lost you forever.”
Conscious of Martha, Lois pulled away then, and let the other woman hug her son for a long time. She tried hard not to listen in on what Martha said as she held Clark close. But she couldn’t help but notice how Clark, although he’d spoken, still seemed to hold his body stiffly and how he still didn’t seem to be “all there,” as her mother would have put it.
“Clark? Do you know us?” Lois asked when Martha had had her fill of hugging him.
“Lois,” he said, pointing. “Mar…Mom?” he asked, sounding unsure of himself.
Lois nodded. “That’s right. What else do you remember?”
Clark blinked at her and appeared to be thinking. “Not…sure…” he eventually responded, his words thick and slow. Lois wasn’t sure if he was having a difficult time just forming words after so long a time being mute or if it was his mind that was slow to figure out how to express himself.
It doesn’t matter, she instantly decided as her mind kicked into hyperdrive. He’s talking. He’s actually talking! He’s going to be okay.
But was he, really? She couldn’t be sure. It was true that he could now speak, but what did that really mean, in the long run? Did he remember anything?
She searched his face, desperately looking for the spark of recognition to flare up in his eyes. All around her, the room seemed to lurch forward and spin crazily, reminding her of the Tilt-a-Whirl she used to love so much at carnivals. Only, this time, the blur of colors and sounds didn’t bring her a thrill. It made her feel nauseous with anticipation as her heart raced faster than it ever had in her life.
Please, show me a sign that you remember, she silently pleaded.
But Clark’s eyes remained troubled and uncertain. She saw no trace of recognition there. The long-awaited smile she’d been yearning for did not appear.
Her heart shattered anew.
“It’s okay,” Martha encouraged him. “We understand.”
Lois nodded, quickly jumping in as well. “That’s right. You’ve been through a lot. We understand that it might...take a while,” she hedged, hope blazing in her heart that he might just recover his memories after all.
“I want…to remember,” Clark started to say, frowning at his own inability to access the memories he wanted. “I just…everything’s a blur.”
“It’s okay,” Martha repeated.
Clark slumped his shoulders and looked around a little as if seeing the farmhouse kitchen for the first time. He spied the mess on the floor and shook his head, as though trying to figure out where it had come from.
“Did I…?” he asked, tentatively pointing at the scrambled eggs by Lois’ foot.
“It’s nothing,” Lois replied, grabbing a napkin from the table and squatting down to clean up the egg in question. “Don’t worry about it. Are you still hungry? I can fix you another plate from what’s leftover on the stove.”
Clark shook his head uncertainly. “No? I think?”
“Martha, why don’t you take Clark into the living room,” Lois offered. “I’ll clean up here. You should talk to him a little.”
Martha nodded her thanks. Her hand went to her chest as if saying she was too choked up to verbalize anything at the moment. But Lois didn’t need spoken words – not from Martha. She wanted to soak up every last word Clark uttered from now until the end of time. She set to work cleaning up with a speed that would have rivaled Superman’s, if he still existed. Then she sped off to the living room, aching to be near Clark, frantically hoping he’d remembered something – anything – in the few minutes she’d been apart from him.
Clark was sitting on the couch when she entered, with Martha on the far end. His mother seemed to be afraid to be separated from him, but also unwilling to crowd him. Lois took the high-backed seat that Jonathan had been so fond of.
“Hey,” Lois said softly as she entered the room. She touched Clark’s shoulder briefly on her way to her seat. “How are you feeling?” she asked, concerned about any lingering pain in his head.
“Okay, I guess. Just…confused. Out of sorts,” Clark replied with a slight shrug.
“Well, you know us,” Lois said, pointing to Martha and herself. “That’s a pretty good start.”
“You’ve been taking care of me,” Clark answered blandly, and the hair on the nape of Lois’ neck stood at attention.
“Wait…is that all you remember?” Lois pressed.
“I think so.”
“Clark, what exactly do you remember?” Martha asked. “How far back? Anything at all. About us. About yourself. Anything.”
Clark closed his eyes as he thought. Lois could see his eyes moving beneath the lids as if he were reviewing a filmstrip of his life.
“Darkness,” he finally said, and Lois let out a breath she’d unintentionally been holding. “A small, cramped, dark room. Being afraid. Hating the small space. Fearing the man in the white coat.”
“Dr. Fulton?” Lois immediately asked, her hackles up.
Clark nodded shallowly. “I guess so. He had people with him sometimes.”
“What did they do to you?” Martha pressed.
Clark appeared to be trying to remember. “Hurt me. A lot.”
“Where?” The word appeared to stick in Martha’s throat.
Clark gingerly touched his fingertips to his head. “Here. I think the doctor enjoyed hurting me. He said it was good for me.”
“Why? Why did he hurt you?” Lois asked, recognizing the spot Clark had touched as the place where the electroshock paddles would have been placed.
“I don’t know.”
“How often did he hurt you?” Lois tried.
“I don’t know. A lot at first. Less often as time went by,” Clark replied, his voice hollow. Lois wasn’t sure if he was having difficulty remembering, if remembering was too emotionally painful for him, or if the injuries to his brain had altered him and made him incapable of feeling emotion.
“I’m so sorry, Clark,” she told him.
I looked for you for twenty years. I had every hero out there – super-powered or not – out looking for you. I went on national television and begged for information that would lead to you being found.
She cleared her throat. “What else do you remember?”
“Hunger.”
Her stomach bottomed out as she recalled how skeletal and barely alive he’d been when Bruce’s exploits as Batman had led him to Clark’s cell.
If Fulton wasn’t dead, I’d kill him myself for what he did.
“Then…some other people.”
“The police and EMTs,” Lois supplied.
Clark nodded. “Probably?” He looked straight at Lois. “Then…you.”
“I came as soon as I heard where you were,” Lois said, carefully choosing her words. She didn’t want to upset him by mentioning how long he’d been locked away and how badly off he’d been.
“Why?” Clark asked quizzically. “I mean, you came and took me out of that place and I think I’ve been living at your house but…why?”
Lois swallowed the nervousness that had leapt up into her heart. “Clark? How much do you actually remember? Anything from before Dr. Fulton?” she carefully inquired.
Clark fell quiet and looked as if he was thinking it over. “Nothing,” he replied in a detached tone.
“You…don’t remember anything about…us? About me? About your family?” Lois pressed.
Clark shook his head. “There’s nothing. Only darkness. Why? Were we involved? Did we…have a family?”
We could have if I hadn’t been so pig-headed and stubborn.
“Oh…no,” Lois gently corrected. “I didn’t mean that to sound like our family. I meant your family. Your mom and dad. Your childhood. Anything.”
“Nothing,” Clark confirmed.
“And us? The Daily Planet?” Lois tried desperately.
He shrugged with casual indifference.
What hope had flared into Lois’ heart sputtered out and died as the gravity of Clark’s injuries came crashing down around her once more.
***
Something was wrong.
Clark could feel it in his heart.
Something had been shaken loose in his mind. Some mental block had been cracked. His vocal cords had been liberated from their imprisonment in a body which constantly defied his wishes. And yet…
He was still trapped. His mind was almost a blank slate.
Oh, he had snatches of more recent memories. He had the vague impression of being imprisoned in a crypt-like room. He had the strong impression of always being hungry. He had snatches of memories of police and EMTs and this woman before him. He knew, somehow, that she’d been responsible for getting him out of the darkness.
The woman…
Lois.
That was her name…wasn’t it?
He was fairly sure it was.
But, then again…he wasn’t really sure of anything.
No, that had to be right. She’d looked…excited and expectant when he’d said the word “Lois.”
Why had she been so excited to hear her own name? Was he supposed to know her from somewhere? Is that why she’d taken him into her home?
Clark strained to place where he might know Lois from. Somehow, he doubted she was his sister or even a close cousin. Had she been a neighbor? Had they dated? Or maybe he’d always been unable to function on his own and she’d been his caretaker. Or…she’d mentioned something about a daily planet. If only he knew what she was talking about…
“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I’m trying but…am I supposed to…know you?” he cautiously asked, aware on an abstract level that she might not take the question well.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice sounding choked. Even in his barely-functional state, he knew she was trying hard not to tear up. “You truly can’t remember me?”
“You’ve been helping me,” he offered. “But…I don’t know why. I guess you must know me pretty well. It’s just…I just don’t know you.”
***
Weeks passed and the summer grew hotter. Clark came no closer to remembering his old life and the soul-crushing disappointment Lois had felt when he’d first admitted to not knowing who she was did not fade. She felt guilty for that. Of course, her disappointment wasn’t directed at Clark himself, but was, rather, directed at herself for believing that his mind would instantly be restored. But, mostly, she felt disappointed in the universe for teasing both Martha and herself. Clark could talk to them now, that was true, but he was still a stranger to them, as much as they were to him. It felt entirely unfair that he should be so tantalizing close to his old self without crossing that invisible threshold. She wanted to scream and shout and rage against God and the universe and fate and whatever else she could. But there was still nothing she could do to help Clark.
As soon as she returned to Metropolis, she brought Clark to Dr. Klein. The man was ecstatic to see the progress Clark had made, but offered no assurances that the healing would continue, nor did he make any guesses as to whether or not Clark’s missing memories would ever be restored. Lois couldn’t blame Dr. Klein for that, but logic didn’t stop her from feeling like the visit had been an exercise in frustration and pointlessness.
As before, she told Clark stories whenever she could. The only difference was that now Clark was an active participate who could ask questions and express his disbelief over some of the absurd things they had lived through. Lois was always careful to leave Superman as a third party, and never let on that he’d once been Clark’s alter ego. The poor man was still living without a past and she didn’t want to upset or confuse him.
“Clark?” she asked one night as they sat together in the living room after dinner.
“Yeah?” Clark replied distractedly as he watched the contestants on Jeopardy! get the answer to the final question wildly wrong.
Once, Clark would have jumped in and gotten most, if not all, of the questions correct. Lois had seen him do it on more than one occasion while they’d been holed up on stakeouts or having dinner together at one of their apartments. But he was strangely quiet and impassive as he watched the show now, and it only hammered home just how far they still had to go before he was back to normal.
“What do you remember about Superman?” Lois asked cautiously, testing the waters with a single pinkie toe.
Clark scratched his right ear in thought. “Nothing outside of what you’ve told me,” he finally replied. “I don’t recall ever meeting him. And, honestly? If you hadn’t shown me those old news clippings and internet videos, I would have said you were lying to me about a man who could fly and bend steel with his bare hands,” he scoffed. “I mean, it sounds absolutely ludicrous, don’t you think?”
Lois chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why?” Clark asked after a moment. “Why does it matter what I remember about some freak in cape?” His tone grew hostile and his eyes narrowed.
Lois’ defenses went on alert. “Just curious,” she only half lied. “You seem angry about it. Why is that?”
“Angry. Bitter. It’s all the same,” Clark spat. “You say this ‘Superman’ was good friends with me, right? So how come that clown in the flashy costume never came and found me? What kind of ‘friend’ leaves someone to rot in a cell no bigger than a closet and be subjected to horrors so bad that I can’t even remember them outside of a vague sense of pain and terror?” His eyes were flashing in hatred and Lois found herself a little scared. She’d seen him shoot heat vision from his eyes with less provocation than this.
But nothing burst into flames and she wasn’t reduced to a pile of ash. It seemed that the mental block Clark had still firmly held his powers in some inaccessible part of his mind. Never before had Lois been so glad of that as she was in that instant.
“It’s not that simple,” Lois tried to explain. “Superman…isn’t around. He hasn’t been for a long time now. Ever since you…disappeared.” She swallowed hard around the partial truths she was spinning for Clark’s own good.
“Good. The world doesn’t need him. If he has to run and hide and leave his ‘friends’ to such fates…then the world is better off without him and his fake ‘help,’” Clark snarled. “Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about someone who can so easily abandon the people he called his ‘friends.’”
Lois tied several responses in the privacy of her own mind, but none of them seemed right. In the end, she said nothing, and let the conversation drop. Either Clark would remember that he was Superman in good time and make his peace with being unable to save himself, or he would continue to think of Superman as a traitor who’d allowed him to be tortured. And there was nothing Lois could do to hasten or prevent either one of those eventualities.
To Be Continued…
