Table of Contents From Part 2:
**********
Clark looked down at the key he held in his hand. He leaned his head back against the hallway wall next to Lois’s front door. This was worse than last night. An emergency had called Superman away last night. Actually several emergencies. He’d had a busy night.
But not so busy that he hadn't replayed their final words over and over. He couldn't shake the memory of the pain in her eyes and the ache in her voice. He had consoled himself that he at least he hadn't had to withstand the fury of her words.
Clark swallowed to work loose the lump in his throat. He hefted the Jeep key he held in his hand once.
He deserved every word she had lashed upon him.
*********
PART THREE
*********
<Clark Kent is Superman.>Lois sat up in bed, sucking in a sharp breath. Her alarm clock was blaring beside the bed. She reached out and smacked it to turn it off.
What had she been dreaming about before she woke up?
<Clark Kent is Superman.>What?
But that was insane! Clark Kent was her partner, her best friend. Superman was... well, he was...
Unattainable.
<Clark Kent is Superman.>The thought wouldn’t go away. And she knew it was true. She knew it was the truth because it was she herself who had uncovered it.
It had certainly taken her long enough. A tight suit and a pair of glasses...
Oh, yeah, she was a real world-class investigative reporter.
She reached up to rub her eyes and then ran her hands up her forehead through her hair. A soft cotton patch on her head caught the attention of her fingers as they brushed across it.
A bandage?
Why did she have a bandage on her head?
She got up out of bed and turned on the light. As she walked towards the bathroom, she noticed a potted plant on the floor that hadn’t been there before.
Where had that come from? She bent down to examine it. It had been watered recently. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Everything felt so hazy and disjointed, but surely she would remember having a new plant. After a few moments in which she came up with no explanation, she dismissed it. She would mess with it later. First... She walked into the bathroom, flicking the light switch as she went. She stopped in front of the mirror and confirmed what she had felt. A bandage.
Then she did a double-take.
What had happened to her hair?
**********
Clark was trying his best to pay attention during the staff meeting. He really was. But he was a little tired – he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night – and his mind kept drifting back to Lois. He wondered how she was feeling this morning. He had really wanted to call her earlier but then Perry had called this staff meeting and he’d lost his chance.
He should have gone ahead and made the call, though, because now he couldn’t concentrate to save his life. He glanced down distractedly at his watch. Surely the Chief would understand if he ducked out for just a minute or two to check up on her. After all...
[Help! Superman!]It was Lois’s voice. Clark was instantly worried. He jumped up out of his chair startling Jimmy, who was sitting beside him obviously lost in thought.
“Hey, CK, where’s the fire?”
Perry had paused in mid-sentence, as well, and was frowning at him.
Think.
“Perry, I just remembered... I was supposed to pick up a... prescription for Lois at the pharmacy this morning and I forgot. I’ll be right back.”
It was lame. But since Lois was injured and she’d had such a rough day yesterday, Perry seemed to buy it. Clark ran as fast as *humanly* possible to the stairwell. Then he flew up the stairwell to the roof, changing as he went.
[Help! Superman!]She called out to him again while he was flying, increasing his worry. Her voice was coming from the direction of her apartment. He flew straight there and through the open window.
Open window? On this cold morning?
Lois was standing there a few feet away... looking upset. And cold. She was rubbing her arms to keep warm and he realized in irritation that being cold seemed to be the only thing wrong with her.
The window was open because she had been expecting him. She had called him there on purpose. “Lois? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”
“Clark?” she asked hesitantly. “It is you, isn’t it?”
His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Of course it’s me. Why would...” He looked at her in disbelief as she began to pace in front of him.
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have *called* you like this. I’m fine. Or mostly fine. I’m just a little out of sorts this morning. Did something happen to my hair when you froze me? I mean, did it break off or something? Because it’s shorter this morning and I’m a little worried. I know it must be post-traumatic stress or something because I don’t remember anything after you froze me...”
She stopped talking when she noticed the horrified expression on his face. “Oh god,” she said and stopped her pacing, too petrified to move, “It’s bad, isn’t it? Did your parents...”
He shook his head. “My parents are fine. You don’t remember yesterday? You don’t remember when I took you to the hospital?”
“Was that after you unfroze me?”
“Lois.” He took her hands and sat down, coaxing her to sit next to him. “You have amnesia.”
She almost snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Clark. I know who I am. I remember everything that’s happened...”
“Yeah, up to the night that I froze you, but that was almost a month ago. You’ve forgotten everything that’s happened for the past month. We went through all of this yesterday. Do you remember any of that?”
“No,” she told him, her voice quivering slightly. She clutched his hands tighter, needing to feel something solid to ground her. “Clark, this is insane. How could I not remember the past month... yesterday?”
“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out. Come on, let’s go see Dr. Peterson again.” He rose from the couch and she came with him. Once they were standing, Lois started to let go of his hand and then hesitated. Instead, she lifted her other hand to lay it timidly against his chest, softly caressing the fabric of his suit. “It’s really true, isn’t it?”
“What?” he asked?
“You’re Superman.” Her eyes sparkled.
“Yes,” he said softly, allowing a smile to slip through.
“That’s so weird.” She let out a nervous laugh. “But it’s a good thing. Especially since I can’t find my car key today. I can’t seem to remember where I put it. It’s not in my purse where I normally leave it. Maybe you can just fly me where we need to go?”
“I took your key last night,” he admitted, producing the missing key. “The doctor told you that you shouldn’t be driving and so I... took it for safekeeping,” he half-mumbled.
She frowned at him. “So you just took it?” She yanked her hand away from his, grabbing her key back from him and gesturing wildly with her other hand. “Just like that, no discussion? Did you know that I wouldn’t remember again this morning? Is that why?”
“No, that’s not it, I...”
“If you didn’t want me to drive, all you had to do was offer to drive me. It’s simple. You didn’t have to take my key!”
He mentally shook his head. Oh, if only it were that simple.
*********
"Ms. Lane? You can come back now," the receptionist told her.
Lois stood up and took a couple of steps before realizing that Clark was still sitting.
"Shouldn't you come with me?" she asked him.
"Um, no, probably not," he mumbled.
"But we're dating, aren't we? It would be okay if you were in the room with me."
Clark flinched. They weren't dating, not anymore, but now was hardly the time to tell her that.
"I'll just wait here, okay?" he said in a strained voice.
Lois narrowed her eyes suspiciously. He had been nervously aloof all morning. "Suit yourself." She shrugged and followed the receptionist to the exam room.
Clark felt a sharp pain in his chest. Was this some kind of cosmic penance for the way he had broken up with her? Was he going to have to relive telling her that they couldn’t be together until he found a way to do it without traumatizing her?
Needing a distraction, he picked up one of the magazines lying on the table beside him.
He was half-heartedly skimming artichoke recipes when he heard Lois say his name. He looked up to see her standing in the hallway and gesturing for him to join her.
“Clark, the doctor thought you should hear this.”
He stood up and followed her back into the exam room. “Okay, let’s start again,” she said to Dr. Peterson. “You said that I’m not ‘creating new short term memories’. What exactly does that mean?” Her voice was tight and strained.
“Ms. Lane, you have what we classify as a form of ‘anterograde amnesia’ – you are exhibiting classic signs of short-term memory repression. Your brain is not taking your memories of the previous day and storing them in such a way that you have access to them. Your memory seems to be reverting back to the last memory it has access to. Now, I don’t know if this means that you really aren’t ‘creating’ new memories or if perhaps they are there and you just can’t access them right now. It could be that they are inaccessible due to the swelling from your concussion.”
“What if it’s not? What if the swelling goes down and I still can’t remember?”
The doctor fidgeted a little under the intensity of her gaze. Clark would have felt a little sorry for the man, if he wasn’t feeling that same level of intensity himself.
Lois couldn’t make new memories?
That was probably a worst-case scenario but it hit Clark hard.
“So what is your professional “opinion” of what I should expect?” Lois asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
“My *opinion* is that, at least until the swelling from your concussion goes down, you may experience this same type of memory loss each morning.”
Her face fell and she felt a little weakness in her legs. She could possibly have to go through this each morning? For no telling how long? She would continue to wake up thinking it was the day after the ‘big freeze’?
When the doctor saw her worried expression, he hurried to continue, “There have been several scientific studies that have shown that at night, when you’re asleep, your brain is still very active. Many doctors in the field of neurobiology share the belief that when we sleep, our brains are repairing themselves - undergoing a “reorganization” if you will – cataloguing the events of the day. It’s the time when your brain moves the short-term memories it has created, over to the long-term memory banks. But when this process happens in *your* brain, something goes wrong. Something is impeding synaptic plasticity from functioning normally. The memories either aren’t being created, or they aren’t being stored properly – as I said before, it’s possible they’re being created, but, due to the swelling, you can’t access the area they’re being stored in. So you revert back to the last memory you *can* access.”
Well, even if that was just his opinion, or his best guess, it made her feel a little better.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a more definitive answer for you,” he told her, his voice sounding truly regretful. She tried to look on the bright side – at least he had good bedside manner. “Neurobiology is my field of medicine but there is still so much that we don’t know about memory loss. We just won’t know more until the swelling from your concussion goes down. Then we can see where we’re at and if we need to run any further tests.”
“So what would you recommend we do for her in the meantime?” Clark asked, on the edge of panic. There had to be something they could do... besides just continue waiting. Patience and feeling helpless were not things he dealt with very easily. He was used to being Superman. To being able to help – no matter what the problem was. “Are there mental exercises she could be doing that would help? Is there a type of specialist she could see?”
“Well, of course, anything she could do to “exercise” her brain is bound to be helpful. It would be good to get her back into her normal routine, doing things that are familiar to her. In fact, she would be okay to return to work if she would like. As far as seeing another specialist, well that would be up to Ms. Lane. As I’ve said, this is my field of medicine, and I don’t know that anyone is going to be able to do much until the swelling from the concussion goes completely down and we can see what we’re really dealing with.”
“But there is a chance that I’ll revert to normal once the swelling is gone?” Lois interrupted him, mentally crossing her fingers.
“I certainly wouldn’t rule out that possibility. There is still so much that is unknown about the regenerative powers of memory and brain function.” The doctor finished up writing the notes in Lois’s file and tucked her folder under his arm. “There is one option I would like to present to you, Ms. Lane. There is a new drug that is being tested in clinical trials that looks very promising for patients suffering from various forms of memory loss. It was created as a treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia, but I feel there may be some of the same pathology at work here. If you would like to participate in the clinical trial...”
“Yes,” she said abruptly, and then stammered, “Sorry. What were you going to say?”
He smiled pleasantly at her. “We’ll need to have you fill out some paperwork. Then we’ll need to set up a schedule for you to come in so I can monitor your progress. Let me get you a sample of it that you can take tonight and I’ll schedule you to come back in the morning to fill out the information for the clinical trial. Okay? That is, unless you have any further questions...”
“Uh, no. I guess that about covers it for now,” Lois told him. Clark could hear the strain in her voice. She was barely keeping it together. “I mean it’s not like I’m probably going to remember any of what you’ve said tomorrow anyway. That’s why Clark is here.” She let out a small laugh, but all that did was make Clark feel worse. She was trying to be brave, to find a way to lighten the mood.
“Lois, if you’ll go on over to the nurses station, they’ll get the paperwork started while I go get that sample for you.”
Lois walked out of the room, headed towards the counter. Clark started to follow her, but he was stopped by an outstretched hand from the doctor.
“Mr. Kent? May I have a word with you?” the doctor asked him. His lips were pressed firmly together in a taut line.
“Yeah, sure. What is it? If there’s anything I can do to...”
“Her condition could be permanent.”
So much for subtlety.
Permanent? The word gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He may have told Lois that they couldn’t be together, but that didn’t mean he could turn his back on his feelings for her that easily. It wasn’t like flipping a light switch.
He loved her.
And now there was a possibility that all the new memories he would create with her, working with her at the Planet, being friends with her... that she would never remember any of them?
“Why are you telling *me* this?” Clark asked him, slightly confused. “Isn’t this something you should be telling Lois?”
“I would, but it’s very likely she won’t remember any of this tomorrow and it would only upset her to hear it right now. You are going to have to be her memory, Mr. Kent. You were about to tell me if there was anything you could do to help...?” Clark nodded at him and Dr. Peterson gave him a nod in return. “Well there is. She is going to need friends and family to help her out while she finds her bearings. Does she have any family in the area that can stay with her for a while?”
“She doesn’t have any family living in the immediate area, no. But I’ll definitely contact them and see what I can arrange. In the meantime, I guess she’ll be stuck with me.” Just what he didn’t want. He was supposed to be limiting his contact with her, especially as Superman... now he was going to have to watch over her constantly...
“Good. I would like to continue evaluating her and running tests, perhaps on a daily basis - we’ll see how she responds to the medication. This is going to be an ongoing process, I’m afraid.” The doctor laid his hand on Clark’s shoulder and gave it a pat. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kent, you have my firm assurance that I’ll do what I can to treat Ms. Lane. I’ll see the two of you in the morning.” Clark watched the doctor walk away.
Permanent?
He hoped the doctor was wrong. He had to be wrong.
***********
Lois walked out of the doctor’s office and spotted Clark sitting in her Jeep. He had brought the car around to pick her up.
He was so thoughtful when it came to things like that. The little things... like opening doors for her, helping her on with her jacket, those morning cups of coffee – just at the right time, fixed just the way she liked it – all the little things.
She had this *feeling* deep inside her that said that it didn’t really matter that he was Superman. Somehow she knew that, in the past month that was lost to her, she had come to grips with who he was.
How could she have lost that? If she didn’t get those memories back, she was going to have wade through the emotions she was feeling right now – and probably not for the first time. It would be so much easier if those memories returned and the doubts and fears she was having were just automatically resolved.
But what if they didn’t come back – forget that... what if she never made any new memories?
No, she didn’t even want to *think* about that. That wasn’t even a possibility. She *would* get her memories back and be back to normal... In no time.
Wouldn’t she?
She climbed inside the passenger seat of the Jeep, thankful to be able to slump down into the solid feel of the seat beneath her.
“Where to?” Clark asked her, a fake smile plastered on his face.
“Don’t bother smiling, Clark, if it’s not real. I can tell you know. I lost my memories for one month – not the past two years,” she grumbled.
Clark let the smile slide from his face. “Lois, it’s going to be okay. You’ll see. In fact, I bet you’ll be back to your old self in no time. Chasing off after stories, me running to keep up...”
“Don’t. Please. I can take the doctor coddling me, but not you. I know you’re just as worried as I am.” She frowned, staring out the windshield in front of her. A big bug had splattered its brains all over the upper right corner of her windshield. She normally kept her car so clean, when had that happened?
Her frown deepened into a scowl - she didn’t remember. Somehow she felt a certain kinship to that bug. Her brains were a scattered mess, too.
“You’re right. I am worried,” Clark admitted. “But I also know Lois Lane. I know how strong you are, how... determined you are.” He smiled warmly at her. “I know you’ll find your way through this.”
She pulled her eyes away from the bug carcass to look into his eyes. They were so warm, so caring... and so afraid.
She reached out to take one of his hands in hers and she squeezed it lovingly. The touch of his skin against hers mixed with all the strange emotions she was feeling, sending a tingle up through her arm. Clark traced one finger lightly over the inside of her palm. Suddenly she had this overwhelming feeling that she didn’t want him to let go... ever.
She rubbed her thumb softly against the back of his hand – more tingles – and then she ran it a little further up his hand, relishing the smoothness of his skin... the polished perfection of Superman. He had such nice hands; so soft and warm, with such tantalizingly long fingers. She laced her fingers in between his.
Clark shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. She was going to kill him if she kept this up. He needed to stop this, right now. He was supposed to be limiting his emotional involvement with Lois, not encouraging it.
He reluctantly pulled his hand away from hers. “Okay, where do you want me to take you? Do you feel like going in to work because the doctor said...”
“Are you serious? I can’t go in to work. Clark, what would I do? I can’t remember anything from one day to the next. Perry can’t put me on any stories of any significance. If I broke the story, I wouldn’t remember how the next day. If Perry lets me work on anything I’ll be demoted to local dog shows.” She curled her lip in disgust.
“No you won’t. We’re partners, remember? I’ll help you remember. You can make good notes... to help you remember from day to day where you are, until you get your memories back.”
“If I get my memories back,” she muttered under her breath disgustedly.
“Don’t say that!”
Oh, yeah, momentary lapse of memory. He was Superman. Of course he could hear her muttering. “Well, it’s the truth!”
“No, it’s not,” he countered, looking agonized. He knew it as well as she did. She opened her mouth and he cut her off. “No, it’s not. Being despondent isn’t going to help anything.”
She sighed and then sat up straighter in her seat. “I know. I know. You’re right.” Of course he was right. He was Superman – he was *always* right... or at least *thought* he was. She rolled her eyes in disgust.
Wait. Why did she do that? Why did she think that?
Why did she feel that way about Clark?
She smiled. It wasn’t a memory - not yet - but it was a feeling about a memory. Something had to have happened to make her feel that way.
Clark saw her smile and gave her one of his own - little did he know what she was smiling about. “There, that’s better. Now, how about we get you back into your routine, get you working on some *hot* story. That’s bound to help... get your juices flowing.”
**********
To Be Continued...
Oh, and forgot to post this earlier. If anyone is interested in reading about the kind of amnesia that Lois has, or anything about neurobiology, here are the links:
Neurobiology Amnesia Oh, and a thank you to Nancy for her help on some of the medical issues...
