Excellently written, Sue.
I knew you would just keep teasing us with the Martha and Jonathan part, but it's still so frustrating to be told so little! The CCU? The Coronary Care Unit? Let's be thankful it wasn't the CSI....
"You're going to kill us for nothing. We don't know anything." Lois looked up at the clear blue sky above them. There was no sign of him. It was foolish to think that somehow Superman would have known they were in trouble and shown up.
So perfect! So horribly frustrating! The Superman-colored sky is as off limits to him right now as it is to you, Lois. But like Lara said, he's right beside you.
Lois felt her stomach flip over in cold terror. This was it. This was how it ended. On a perfectly beautiful, clear-skied day she was going to be worm food.
Like Lara, I have to pause at this. This is not how we usually talk about death these days. We don't spend a lot of time imagining what actually happens to dead bodies after murderers or doctors or coroners or undertakers are done with them. I just had a class of mine perform a wildly abridged version of Hamlet that I had written myself - in Swedish, too, since this was part of a lesson about literature that Swedes read in Swedish, whether it was originally written in Swedish or translated - anyway, I had Hamlet contemplate Yorick's skull, wondering where the jester's lips had gone, the lips that Hamlet had kissed so many times as a child. I guess worms had eaten them.
I like the contrast between the (now unattainable) clear blue skies above and the maggots that will attack dead bodies in or on the ground.
Who would Tony shoot first? Her vision blurred as she realized it would probably be Clark.
Beautiful. She is able to contemplate, relatively coldly, the question of which of them will be killed first. But her vision blurs with tears when she realizes that she will probably be alive to watch Tony shoot and kill Clark.
Her mind raced as her feet slowly plodded closer to their grave.
Beautiful contrast.
They had reached the mouth of the mine.
How interesting. Artemis was right that mines were involved in this.
She steeled herself to stop shaking and kicked at Clark, catching him off-guard so that he sprawled forward.
...
Clark had been surprised when Lois kicked him off his feet and even more surprised when a bullet had gone through his thigh.
In the previous chapter, Clark said that he knew that Lois would protect him. She did! If she hadn't kicked him, he would have taken that bullet in his chest.
But the sounds of struggle continued until there was another gunshot, then another in quick succession and Tony let out a loud bellow that fell away with an echoing Doppler effect.
Wonder if you put the Doppler effect in on my account, Sue? The Doppler effect is the change in pitch you can hear when something first approaches you, then catches up with you and overtakes you, going away from you. Think of an ambulance that first approaches you and then drives past. The pitch of the sound it makes changes. Also, of course, as it drives further and further away from you, the sound it makes gets fainter and fainter.
"Gun," Clark rasped out. "I have the gun, but I can't... Come get it. Be careful. There's a drop."
I like it. Clark can't shoot. There are two possible reasons for it. One, he is too hurt to be able to really aim at Randy. Two, he can't bring himself to actually, deliberately shoot another person to death.
She knew he would kill them, but she still wasn't sure she could shoot him.
And maybe Lois can't kill him either. I like the fact that she is so uncomfortable about shooting another person.
Just go away, her mind chanted. Just go away.
A dark silhouette appeared at the mine's entrance. "Tony?"
Lois swallowed, her finger trembling on the trigger. Go away. Just go away. Beside her Clark became absolutely silent and still.
I love this. It is so incredibly tense. We are just waiting for the explosion.
"Clark?" Lois touched his face, unable to make out his features in the dim light of the mine. His glasses were missing and she wondered just how blind he was without them.
Hmmmm, you have to wonder how blind Lois is going to be, now that his glasses are gone.
"He's going to... bring back... the others. You... have to... get away from here," he wheezed. "Just go."
"Can you stand up?" Her hands moved to his shoulders and for a moment she remembered kissing him last night, how thrilled she had been by those shoulders. What if she never got to kiss him again?
"Lois, please..." She had to get out of here; it wouldn't take too much time for Randy to catch up to Mickey. They were going to come back.
"Would you leave me?" Lois was horrified that he would even suggest she abandon him.
He tried to reason with her, panting against the pain. "Places reversed... I could... carry you."
"Then I'll carry you." She tugged on his arm, forcing him to a sitting position.
He groaned in agony. "Too heavy."
"I won't leave you. So quit arguing with me. If you want me out of here, you're going to have to go with me."
Clark was sweating now and he gulped in air. "You're killing me."
"I'm trying to save your life."
Great dialogue. They want to save each other. I particularly love the last things that Lois and Clark say to each other here.
She braced her knees, keeping her arms clasped around him and almost laughed at the thought that they were like carefully stacked cards - each of them was holding the other up.
Great simile. I love the idea that Lois and Clark need each other so badly that they are doomed to fall without the other one.
"Shot you..." he said weakly, pointing at her shoulder.
Lois looked at the crimson stain on his shirt. "He shot you, too."
"Your face..."
"My face?" she shot back. "You should see your face before you start making fun of me."
Oh, so Lois and Clark!
"Remember how you said I could ask you anything?" she asked.
"Yeah," he answered.
"That candy bar, on your desk? When we get home, can I have it?"
So you better make sure you both make it home then, Clark.
Clark was almost hopeful. It was easier to breathe now even though he could still feel the bullet inside him and the dull throb in his leg had not abated.
Is he getting slightly, slightly better? Is the sun reviving him, just a little?
Then Clark caught sight of the bruises and welts on her ribs. "Oh, Lois," he breathed. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Lois self-consciously crossed her arms over her chest as he leaned closer to look. "I couldn't. You wouldn't have come with me. I couldn't leave you."
"I'm so sorry." He looked almost desperate as his voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "Please, Lois, don't be angry."
"Angry?" she asked, thoroughly confused. She tugged her hand free of his and pulled his shirt up.
Clark let out a groan and dropped his head back. It hit the side of the culvert with a dull 'thunk'. "I'm sorry, Lois. I should never have let this happen."
Poor Clark.
"This isn't your fault..." Lois paused, unable to process what she was looking at. There was a bright blue fabric beneath his shirt and her mind seemed to stutter as she tried to make sense of it. She blinked and wondered if the heat was making her delusional. The material was ripped where a bullet had entered and it was stiff and dark with blood. Even so the Suit was still recognizable.
Yes, Lois. It's Superman's suit. And Clark is Superman. Only he isn't super any more, at least not right now.
"Please don't hate me," he said softly.
Her mind went into overdrive, remembering the intensity in his voice and the tension - no, the power, in his posture when he told Mickey to leave her alone last night. She recalled Superman's expression at the accident scene. He hadn't been surprised that she was in Vegas. Her first impression had been right. It was worry - because she had seen him there. That it was a staggering coincidence only occurred to her now.
Watch the cogs in Lois's brain slowly begin turning.
Their eyes met and she knew. It wasn't a hunch; it was the truth. She knew it as surely as if he had spoken the words.
Clark was Superman.
Watch the coin finally drop.
Okay, by the way, I know what happened to Clark! We are in UFO country, right? And everybody knows there is a huge government conspiracy going on, right? They are hiding the truth from us, aren't they?
Okay. Here's the truth. The FBI, or CIA, or NASA, or whoever, have come up with an anti-alien weapon that irradiates America's UFO-land with anti-alien-superpower rays. Anything that approaches the Earth from space and lands (or has landed) inside a spaceship will lose its powers when exposed to these rays! At least if it ventures outside. If the aliens stay in their spaceships they will be all right, because the government won't rob them of their chance of leaving! That's why Clark was all right as long as he was still inside the truck! Right, Sue?
Ann
