Previous Chapter: Chapter 9Chapter 10
Two Weeks LaterClark gently placed his hand at the small of his wife’s back and guided her through the crowd of reporters toward the front of the conference room. He eyed the mayor, who stood near the podium on the dais, chatting idly with a member of her security staff. Clark leaned forward and whispered into his wife’s ear, “You want to take this, or should I?” He kissed her cheek and straightened back up as he felt her step away from him slightly in response. He followed behind her and watched in admiration as she strode confidently up to the mayor, her chin held high and her eyes ablaze.
“Mayor Strauss, Lois Lane—Daily Planet.”
The mayor turned sharply to face them, and her eyes shifted from Lois to Clark and back with a brief flash of panic before she pasted a fake smile on her face.
“Oh, I know who you are, Ms. Lane,” Mayor Strauss responded, her voice dripping with distaste. She waved off her bodyguard, who stepped away from the group and positioned himself several feet away. “Now, what corruption and scandal are you going to accuse me of today?”
“The usual—accounting errors are all the rage these days, you know,” Lois said sarcastically, making of point of turning on her recording device. “Our work a couple weeks back on the drug trafficking ring involving some of Metropolis’s finest also uncovered a few names of major contributors to your reelection campaign. Care to comment?”
Clark laughed inwardly at her direct approach and carefully observed the mayor’s reaction. Even without using his superpowers, he saw her sharp intake of breath, the faint sheen of sweat on her brow, and the tension in her shoulders. But, like the seasoned politician that she was, she hid these little signs fairly quickly.
“Lois, Lois, Lois, always reaching, aren’t we? We’ve done thorough background checks on all of our major contributors. If you don’t believe me, please feel free to reach out to my assistant, Daniel, and he can give you all the details. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting to prepare for this afternoon.”
“Mayor,” Clark cut in, stepping up right behind Lois. “One of your contributors is Marvin Delano, who was the chief accountant of the drug trafficking ring. He was just arrested downtown.”
“He claims his contribution to your campaign ensured you would turn a blind eye to certain regulatory violations,” Lois added.
“Ms. Lane, Mr. Kent, I’m a very busy woman. So unless you have any other specific and factually based questions, I think we are done here. Mr. Lopez will escort you out.”
Lois turned on her heel and waved off the security guard as she grabbed Clark’s hand.
“I think we hit a nerve,” she whispered.
“You could say that.”
Clark smiled to himself and squeezed her hand as they waded back through the crowd and exited the building. The crisp air of the chilly fall day felt invigorating, and he looped his arm around her waist as they started off down the sidewalk at a brisk walk, heading toward the Daily Planet building a few blocks away. The smells wafting from restaurants as they passed made his stomach growl, and he frowned at the still-unfamiliar feeling of hunger growing in his gut.
“You want to stop and eat?” Lois asked, eyeing the long line outside her favorite burger joint.
She seemed to be getting accustomed to his newfound appetite much quicker than he was. And while he knew he was hungry, he also felt slightly nauseous and wasn’t ready to have lunch yet. Or admit to her that he wasn’t feeling that well.
In the two weeks since he’d met with Dr. Klein last and explained everything to her, despite avoiding using his superpowers as much as possible—and basically hanging up his cape—he’d continued to get weaker and slower. He could shave using a normal razor now, and he needed a solid eight hours of sleep every night and three meals a day to function. Although he knew he still had some of his powers, he hadn’t deliberately used them since the meeting with Dr. Klein. And just in the last two days, he’d gone from feeling “normal” and healthy to not-so-great, fighting nausea, headaches, and general body aches. He’d mentioned it once to Lois but hadn’t really told her the extent of these new symptoms. Some part of him hoped it was a phase and he’d start feeling better soon, in which case, there’d be no reason to worry her.
The other part of him knew that wasn’t true.
“No, it’s still early,” he said. “We should get back so we can go over our notes and write up what we’ve got so far.”
“Sounds good,” she agreed. “We can come back later when your stomach won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” She patted his chest playfully, and he chuckled and tightened his arm around her.
He navigated them around the crowds of people gathering along the sidewalk, and they rounded the final corner on their walk back to work, the famous landmark globe of the Daily Planet coming into view. As always,
he looked upon the monument with wonder and awe, and he felt an intense appreciation for the opportunities he’d been given since arriving in the city of Metropolis so many years ago.
His reminiscing was interrupted by his superhearing, which kicked in momentarily, and he stiffened as screams of
“Help!”, “The brakes!”, and
“It won’t stop!” infiltrated his mind. From years of practice, he immediately recognized the sounds of a city bus, its screeching tires speeding out of control five blocks north of their current location. He heard passengers crying and onlookers scream as the careening bus plowed through crosswalks and scraped against parked cars. His breath caught in his throat, and with extreme effort, he consciously blocked out the voices and turned off his superhearing. It was the one superpower he couldn’t always control, even still, and it insistently intruded on occasion, reminding him of the job he was now unable to do.
He blinked several times, holding back tears, and tightened his arm around his wife’s waist as they entered the lobby of the Daily Planet. As they stopped in front of the elevators, Lois turned to him and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting hug. He returned the embrace, burying his face into her hair.
“Is it bad?” she asked quietly. She knew. She always knew.
“Twenty-three passengers plus the driver on an out-of-control city bus on Sixth Street.” He didn’t know the outcome. He hadn’t listened that long. He couldn’t anymore.
She didn’t say anything in response. Instead, her lips brushed softly against his cheek, and she hugged him tighter. The elevator doors opened in front of them, and Lois stepped away from him and led him onto the elevator car. She hit the button for their floor and then wrapped her arms back around him as they settled into the back corner of the small confined space.
They rode up the elevator in silence and exited together into the newsroom. Lois took his hand and led him down the ramp and over to his desk, and he followed obediently.
“I’ll pull a chair up,” Lois suggested.
She kissed his forehead, and he watched her move away for a moment before returning with a chair to sit next to him. He reached forward and switched his computer on and then pulled out a file folder from the top drawer of his desk. Flipping it open, he sifted through the pages to find their most recent notes on the mayor’s campaign contributors as Lois pulled the keyboard toward her and entered his password to boot up the computer.
They fell into an easy rhythm, and within an hour, they had organized all of their notes and established a plan for the rest of the day. By then, Clark could no longer deny that he was very hungry, and they took a short break to grab a bite to eat down the street at a small sandwich shop before heading to the police station to chat with Marvin Delano again. However, Delano refused to answer any more questions, and they wound up heading back to the newsroom early to regroup.
Riding up the elevator for the third time that day, Clark leaned heavily against the wall and closed his eyes, suddenly feeling more tired than he should. His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it as the elevator doors opened and his wife’s arm reached around him to help guide him out.
“You okay?” she asked carefully, leading the way down into the bullpen. She headed to her desk this time, and he followed.
“Yeah, I’m just feeling a bit tired,” he admitted. He stopped next to her desk and pulled the chair out for her as she sat. He rested his hands on the back of her chair and watched over her shoulder as she booted up her computer and opened up one of their shared files. The words on the screen seemed to dance around a bit, and he blinked several times and reached up to rub his eyes under his glasses. “So, we’ll follow up with Henderson later this afternoon, when the additional arrests are made?”
Lois nodded and opened up a working draft of their article for the evening edition, her fingers starting to fly over the keyboard as she updated several paragraphs.
“Sounds good. I’m going to go and lie down for a few minutes,” he said quietly. He leaned over and kissed her cheek gently and then turned toward the smaller conference room.
“Clark, maybe you should head home and rest?” Lois had stopped typing and swiveled in her chair to face him.
“Nah, I just need to close my eyes for a bit.”
He gave her a weak smile and headed off again, ignoring the growing pain at the base of his skull. Maybe if he just got a few minutes’ sleep, he’d feel better. The conference room had a nice couch, and he could close the blinds. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to silence it and stopped abruptly as he read a missed call notification from S.T.A.R. Labs. His jaw tightened involuntarily, and he glanced back at Lois, who was now engrossed in the updates to the story, before finishing his trek to the conference room. He closed the door behind him, shut the blinds, and then sat heavily on the couch as he dialed in to his voicemail. His shoulders tensed as Dr. Klein’s voice came from over the speaker.
“Hi Clark—Dr. Klein here. I need to get a message to Superman, and I know he shared his health status with you, so I can have you just pass the message on to him directly, I hope. Anyways, can you please tell him that I think I’ve almost got the power problem solved and that my most recent experiments are promising. I think maybe just a couple more days is all. I’ll contact you again when I think we’re good to go ahead with the treatment. Today is Wednesday, so, I’m hoping by Saturday, at the latest. If he can call or stop in and give me an update on how he’s doing, I would appreciate that… Based on my cell experiments, I’m very concerned his condition may be getting much worse now, even if he’s been very good about not using his superpowers. Oh, well, that’s a lot of information there. Sorry. Please just tell him—soon, very soon, and we’ll get him fixed up. Thank you!”Clark shuddered and closed his eyes tightly as he turned off his phone. Just a few more days. He could hang on that much longer, he hoped. A wave of nausea hit him, and he doubled over in pain. Breathing deeply to steady himself, he pulled his legs up onto the couch and settled onto his side. He’d just close his eyes for a few minutes, then get back to work with Lois. He drifted off almost instantly.
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