ToC - for previous parts.
Getting even closer to wrapping this up. Thank you all so much for staying with this story and for all the wonderful feedback so far
Waking a Miracle (21/??)
Footsteps rumbled along the hallway behind him as a cadre of guards tailed him through the warehouse. It was a conference on the move, mostly to avoid the roaming, prowling Trask. After their last confrontation, Thompson was not looking forward to the next run-in, especially not this close to the completion of his scheme.
"So," Thompson began.
This was not going as well as he'd planned. Not at all. Lane wasn't scaring in the slightest. And the factor that he thought he could rely on -- Clark Kent's submissive nature -- was all but bleeding away before his eyes. If he were to kill Lane, Clark Kent would never remain silent. Never. And that was a fact he had banked on.
"Kill them," he said to the guard walking behind them. "Take Trask's extra Beretta from my hotel suite and the other sample of that rock and kill them both. After the press conference or during, I don't care. Dump them in the bay but don't weight them down. It will just be more evidence against Jason."
"Yes, sir," the guard in front replied, and the six of them that had been following him were suddenly gone, leaving his footsteps unaccompanied in their echoes across the walls.
He glanced at his watch. A few more hours and this would all be over.
*****
Voices tickled at her ears -- soft, indistinct, distant.
The cool air swept past the skin of her face as they skidded to a halt by the corner. She peeked around, only to see two men in camouflage chatting with each other, surprisingly casual-looking, all things considered. AK-47s hung silent by their sides on black weave straps as they gestured back and forth. She caught enough words to know they were talking about some football game. Of all the things she would have expected roaming lackeys to be discussing, this was probably the lowest on the list. At least that meant nobody knew she and Clark were gone yet. Unless they were so unimportant that the football game and whether the quarterback from the Metropolis Destroyers sucked ranked higher on the list of urgent topics of the day, which would be slightly insulting and highly unlikely. Right? Of course. Clark was way more important than a sucky football team that hadn't won a Super Bowl in over three decades.
And speaking of Clark... Clark was panting softly behind her. A quick glance back revealed him to be leaning up against the wall. There were small beads of sweat forming on his face, and his chest was hitching violently as he sucked in air, but he didn't say anything or complain. Given the state he had been in when he'd broken open the door in front of her, this had to be taking a considerable toll on him.
She studied him more closely.
He looked horrible. Really horrible. The whole side of his face was swollen and discolored, but other than that flowery blemish, he looked very, very pale, as though someone had stolen her much coveted white-out and slathered it across his face. Okay, well maybe not *that* pale. But definitely on the pale side -- more white than flesh-toned for sure. Regardless, it wasn't hard to guess what Trask and Thompson had been doing with him while they'd been separated. At least the heat of fever was no longer rising from his skin like it had been back in her room before they'd taken him away, but he was still and quite undoubtedly in bad shape.
She couldn't decide if he had looked worse at Thompson's hotel suite than here or not, and for a brief moment she felt anger swell up inside her. But, as a superstar reporter for the Daily Planet she had had more than her fair share of experience escaping mysterious maze-like warehouse buildings. And now was just not the time for those kind of thoughts.
No, seeing *sunlight* was her focus right now. Escaping this dilapidated fortress. Tasting Rocky Road again! And talking. With Clark.
Clark.
She rotated on her feet to look at Clark directly, only to find him staring right back at her, his lips creased into a sloppy grin, even as he continued to pant. How could he be happy at a time like this?!
"Back the other way," she mouthed, gesturing back at the hallway. "Let's move."
Clark's quirk of a smile immediately fell into a flat line, and they were off again, only to find themselves in the same situation at the other end of the hallway, except these men at least had the sense to be discussing the stock market instead of sports teams. She growled in frustration, but it died softly in the back of her throat. Making noise at this particular point in time was probably a very bad idea.
So. Blocked at both ends of the hallway. She looked at Clark, who shrugged, and then winced at whatever that motion had twinged. It was strange feeling a bit like cattle being herded into one spot for roping. She assured herself, however, that it was merely a coincidence. None of the wandering people in the building had seemed even the slightest bit worried about more than their shares in LexCorp or Johnny McGoyle scoring another touchdown. Certainly not a roaming Miracle Man and his Girl Friday.
Clark Kent was Miracle Man--
Stop that!
Focus.
She blinked and counted to ten. So there were men at both ends of the hallway around the corners. Either way they went they'd be seen if they tried to make for it across the intersection. If they stayed here and the men started to move past this hallway, they'd be seen.
For Pete's sake, hadn't the man who'd designed the layout of this building given any thought to escaping fugitives? There were no obstructions anywhere. None. Not even a small trashcan or an unlit area in the whole sprawl!
And that was when the men she had been observing around the corner started to move. Towards the intersection where she and Clark now sat just feet away from like very glaring, very illegally parked cars. Towards her and Clark. She pushed back on her heels only to collapse onto Clark, who was huddled right behind her. She barely suppressed a yelp and she found her legs flailing out as she tried to keep her balance. Her heels skidded along the floor, and she flopped about, helpless, but he pulled her up with a surprisingly strong grip and ferried her back down the hallway a little. Before she had had time to register the situation, Clark had pulled her into one of the unlocked side rooms, and now they were swathed in darkness as the door clicked shut behind them.
"Clark," she hissed, "What are you doing?"
His arms were still clutched around her midsection, and thus, she was right smack up against his sculpted chest. In the dark. Alone. It was comfortable.
Very. Lots.
"We had to hide, I thought," he replied in a whisper. She felt his breath slip down the back of her neck as he spoke, soft, rustling. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose with the sensation, and goose bumps flecked her skin.
Really comfortable.
Stop!
She righted herself, goggling for much-needed oxygen, just in time to keep her precarious footing from turning to mush altogether, and he released her without word.
She didn't respond to his earlier comment as she fumbled along the wall in the darkness. His feet shuffled as he darted clumsily-sounding out of her way, hissing a soft curse as he slammed up against something hard. She paused and looked blindly towards the sound. All she could see was a dark mushy blur, even as she strained to focus on it. Probably this was how he felt even when the lights were on. This situation must be odd for him -- being relatively helpless for what was probably the first time in his life. The soft sounds of his breathing interrupted her thoughts, and she shook her head, resuming her search along the wall. The surface was smooth and cool wherever her hand went, until finally she brushed against what she was looking for. Flicking the lights on, she peered around.
They were in an office cubicle it seemed. There was a computer on the desk that sat against the wall. There was a lamp next to the monitor. And papers. Everywhere. They were practically spilling over the sides of the desk surface, and clotting the drawers from shutting all the way. There was a bulletin board on the wall with newspaper clippings from all sorts of locations, mostly small articles involving some sort of unexplained phenomenon, all the way back to Roswell in 1947.
"Where are we?" she murmured.
"Room 113c," Clark whispered back, as though it meant something.
"What's that?" she asked dumbly. One of those automatic responses that people tended to give in order to fill in conversation, even when they weren't really interested in the response. She hated people who did that.
"The room that we're in," he replied.
Heat rushed to her cheeks as she whirled about on her feet, her index finger pointing at him in an accusing gesture. She had her mouth open, ready to zing a withering retort back at him when she noticed he was grinning ear to ear.
"Cute," she growled. So how were they going to get out of this one? "Well, newsflash, Kent, we're stuck in an office without a window in the middle of a huge warehouse complex full of bad guys with semi-automatics. Unless you're about to get miracley anytime soon, which I'm assuming you're not, since you look like you just went through several rounds with a garbage disposal and came out the loser, not that I wouldn't be eternally grateful if I were wrong, I just don't see a way out of this one."
He shrugged and ambled over to the desk, shifting the papers aside. She could tell from the way his stare was set that he wasn't really looking at the contents of the papers, perhaps on purpose, perhaps not. She suppressed a shiver. Finally, he unearthed his evident goal. A phone.
"Call for help?" he suggested.
She stared at him, slack-jawed. "Just who are we going to call, Clark?"
He shrugged. "The police?"
"Right, I'm sure Inspector Henderson will raid a huge government complex at just my behest. No... we could call the coastguard to come save the day. Granted there's no water around here, but heck! Jeez, did that rock thing affect your brain too because--"
She stopped talking right then. All amusement that had been cradled in his bruised features bled out in an instant, and he looked for a moment, horrified, or perhaps... guilty? But why would he be guilty-- unless he thought this situation was his fault.
A sigh of realization hit her.
And why wouldn't he, since all these goons seemed to want were his pain and destruction?
"Clark, relax. I'll call Inspector Henderson. It can't hurt, I guess."
She picked up the phone and stuck it next to her cheek as she watched Clark. He didn't look like he was entirely convinced by her reassurances, not that she'd done a very good job with the reassuring bit anyways. The phone rang several times before somebody finally picked up. At least it hadn't been a busy signal or the dumb elevator-country music that indicated she was on hold that greeted her.
"I need to speak with Inspector Henderson," she whispered into the receiver when a young-sounding male voice that she didn't recognize answered. A new pencil-pusher, she supposed. A young hopeful who probably didn't even know the grip from the muzzle of a gun, so they'd given him the thankless job of talking to pig-headed people like her who had emergencies that just *had* to be addressed right then.
But this *was* an emergency that just *had* to be addressed right then.
"I'm sorry, Inspector Henderson isn't avail--"
He sounded almost a little whiney. She cut him off. This was important after all!
"But he's there right?"
Completely unprepared, the young-sounding desk lackey rebounded with a response before he most likely realized what he was saying. "Well, yes, but--"
Good, so Henderson was just screening calls. "Listen, cloth-ears," she growl-whispered into the phone, not giving the young man a chance to finish his excuse, "This is Lois Lane, top reporter in the *entire* city, and trust me, he'll want to hear about this!"
There was a confused pause, and the man's voice got quiet to match her own tone. "Why are we whispering?"
"Just put him on the phone," she hissed.
There was a long pause and some shuffling before Henderson's snarl of a voice greeted her. Actually it was more of a grunt. Neanderthal man. Errrrr. Snuffle. Kind of like she was without coffee in the morning. He didn't sound very happy, but then, when did Henderson *ever* sound happy? The man was like a walking frown with handcuffs to play with.
"Henderson!" she snapped as loudly as she could risk. "It's Lois."
"Do you have a sore throat or something?" Henderson's gruff voice replied.
"No, I'm not sick. I have to be quiet. Would you just listen a moment? Clark Kent and I--"
"Dug up a new one, eh?" Henderson cut her off. She resisted a growl. Just who did he think he was taking on a judging tone like that?
"Yes, he's my new partner." There was a long silence, and she suddenly felt the need to retort that she did indeed know how to connect with fellow human beings. "Hey, I have partners!" she snapped.
She could practically feel his grin bleeding through the phone lines, mocking her. Taunting her. "Uh huh, and what happened to Jeevers?"
Hypocrisy! she wanted to scream. She rarely saw Henderson wandering around with his partner. In fact, Meyers was usually still at the crime scene looking cluelessly around at the lines of yellow tape by the time Henderson and she had conferred notes and gone their separate ways following leads off into the unpredictable beyond. HYPOCRISY. The word burned across her throat like a searing flame, only to be followed by the stomping pouting of lame excuses.
"He didn't count," she replied glumly.
Jeevers had been after Claude, and he really didn't count. He had quit after a week, and it had totally not been her fault. So she had borrowed his car to get to a source meeting on time. So she had scratched it up just a little when she had tried parallel parking with it. The thing was a monstrosity! Reporters should *not* drive classic Cadillacs! It was against the great reporter rulebook or something! The insurance people had all been very nice. It wasn't her fault that they didn't sell the type of fender he needed for a reconstruction anymore. Anywhere. And *certainly* not her fault that the replacement paint job had been ridiculous. And pink. Wow, what a mix-up.
Henderson didn't seem to have followed her on her mental tangent. "Mahoney?" he quizzed.
"He didn't count either," she growled in return. "Look cut the crap. I'm in a warehouse on Bessolo being held hostage by George Thompson and his alien-fearing cronies!"
Silence. Well it did sound a little odd, she granted. Okay, a lot odd. Looney-bin odd. He must have thought somebody had put her up to this. An office bet. Or something.
"Henderson! Would I joke?" she pleaded. "I'm sitting in room 113c at the moment with Clark. We're cornered and we need help."
"And what do you want me to do about that, Lois?" The grin of Henderson's was more infuriating than Clark's. She couldn't even *see* Henderson's and it was making her scarlet-faced mad and wanting to scream. Except she couldn't scream, because that would be too loud.
"Send the SWAT or something!" She started to pace, not caring that her voice was definitely not whispering now. Clark was making shushing motions and looking viciously between her and the door with his eyebrows raised.
"Lois..." Henderson began. Oh, so he was being condescending now. He was going to get a piece of her mind if they ever walked out of this alive. Maybe Clark's powers had an on-off switch and they would get out of here with or without Henderson's help. She glanced at Clark again, who had ceased his shushing motions now that she'd stopped to listen to Henderson. He mostly just looked tired and worn. Henderson continued, apparently unaware of her worry, "Were you breaking and entering when you happened to umm, be taken hostage?"
"No!" she groaned in a half 'pity me' half 'just let them find me and kill me' tone. "A source gave me a security card under the table. We got in with no breaking... Just entering!"
"And that's *so* much better." He rolled his eyes. She didn't see it, but she certainly imagined it. Yep. There they went. Around in a giant circle like he was watching a fly do a loop-the-loop over his coffee cup. She grit her teeth together and patted Clark on the shoulder in reassurance, although who she was reassuring, she didn't really know at this point.
Good grief Lois, is he a dog?
SHUT UP.
"Henderson. Will you just *listen* to me?" Silence. She took that as her cue, and babble began to tumble forth, strung into one long uninterrupted concatenation of syllables. Henderson had absolutely no chance of interrupting her, assuming he didn't want to let her keep going just for the entertainment value. "Clark and I have been working on this story all week. We know that George Thompson is head of a secret government organization called Bureau 39 that is bent on destroying the alien threat. Don't ask me what the alien threat is because I don't know. Anyways, Bureau 39 is responsible for the fires in Metropolis last year and countless other crimes. We know the press conference is really going to be a setup for him to slam all the blame onto one of his agents so that he can exit gracefully. You know about the press conference right?"
Nope. No chance of interrupting her at all. She doubted he had any speech left in him after that ridiculous spiel, regardless -- she'd probably knocked it right out of him.
He found his voice after some amount of seconds. "Yes," he answered with a cautious drawl, "I've got men cordoning off the streets around the Courthouse already."
"Look, we're stuck here," she pleaded with him, staring at Clark the whole while, wishing she could beam some will into whatever inside him caused those powers to work or not work. "We can't get out, there's too many guards roaming around. We need help, Henderson. A 911 call is probable cause! Arrest me for breaking in when you get here... Or, say you were pursuing me for that break-in to your office you had last month."
Another long silence.
"That was you?"
Well, yes, but--
"Does it matter!" She gesticulated wildly. "JUST GET US OUT! Since when does Lois Lane ask for help?"
There Clark went with those shushing motions again.
"Hmmm, you do have a point," Henderson replied, but his tone of voice was almost jovial. There was a small flutter of air that swept against the receiver on his end.
She saw red.
"Oh, my God. You're enjoying this aren't you? Clark's life and mine could be in danger and you're sitting there eating Krispy Kremes, drinking your disgusting black coffee, and snickering at me. What a waste of public funding-- I *pay* your salary, you know!"
"All right, Lois. All right. Relax. I've traced your call. I'll send a squad over."
"Don't send a squad, for crying out loud! Send your whole damned force! There's at least a dozen guys here and they all have semi-automatics."
"I'll do what I can, Lois. Be careful okay?"
It was a rhetorical question but she answered it anyway. "Who me?" she had the nerve to ask before the line went silent with a click.
She set the phone back in its cradle and stared at it for a long moment. Well, that had gone better than expected. But she couldn't tell if that meant it had gone well, or just not horrible. Hopefully Henderson didn't send just a car out, or they were in trouble.
Clark was looking at her expectantly as she turned around and took a deep, heaving breath, trying to calm her now energized, sparking nerves.
"Cavalry, so to speak, is coming," she commented wryly. "Just don't ask me if it's one horse or fifty."
He visibly crumbled at the words. The tenseness faded in his posture, and he let out a long sigh. "So, Miss Lane," he said with a quirky look. "Just how do you propose we spend the time?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering once again at the fact that *this* was Miracle Man. Her Pulitzer was sitting right in front of her in all his well-defined glory, waiting and ready -- well maybe not quite so ready, she noted at the apprehension hidden behind his relaxed expression -- for the interview of a lifetime. And for the first time since the mysterious figure dressed in black had started stopping bombs and saving planes, that prospect didn't excite her at all.
"Clark, I think it's time we had a talk," she replied gravely. "While you can't fly away on me, and we're probably going to die soon -- when could be better?"
He regarded her for a long moment. There was such expression in his eyes once again, she felt like her breath had been swept away. The fear was there anew. Horror. Acceptance. Apprehension. And unadulterated desire.
The pieces were slowly starting to fit together one by one. But she had a feeling she had a long way to go before she understood this man.
"All right, Lois," he began, his tone calm despite his strange potluck expression. "What would you like to know?"
*****
TBC...
(End Part 21/??)
