What A Husband Should Be
Previously...from part 10
What seemed like just a few seconds later, Clark was distracted from his conversation by screeching of tires. He looked around and did not see Lois coming back. Other people seemed to hear the screeching, too. Clark slowly jogged towards the parking calling, “Lois…Lois…” His calling was interrupted by the sound of a screeching halt and something flying onto maybe the hood of a car. Clark had gotten close enough to the parking lot that he could see a big white Suburban speeding away. Then he slowly looked away from the speeding truck to the ground and almost went limp. Lois had been hit by the speeding Suburban.
Clark sprinted to Lois and got down on the ground by her side.
“Lois…Lois, sweetheart…wake up! Somebody call an ambulance!” Clark yelled frantically.
Mr. And Mrs. Sanders had come to Clark’s side by then. Just as Mr. Sanders laid his hand on Clark’s shoulder, there was another loud boom and in the distance Mr. Sanders reported that the Suburban still going much too fast lost control and hit several parked cars and an electrical post.
Clark seemed to be oblivious to anything but Lois as he held her bloody hand she laid there fighting for her life.
And Now...
What A Husband Should Be 11/?
Continued
The cops and the paramedics were on the scene in just a few minutes.
Lois had blood everywhere. The pearls from her hair were rolling in the streets and her wedding gown was torn. She was missing one shoe and her stockings had runs in both legs. She was not responsive. She had a pulse and very irregular and shallow breathing. Clark couldn’t tell where her injuries were. All he could do while the paramedics worked on her was to hold her hand and tell her how much he loved her as he fought to contain his emotions. There he had finally won more than partnership with Lois and it was all but taken back by the evil doings of fate and probably Lex Luthor.
Right before the ambulance pulled off with Lois and Clark at her side, it was said by one of the other policemen that the Suburban was driven by an Englishman, identified as Nigel St. John and that he was dead on impact. A sourness rose up into Clark’s chest as he thought, <Luthor, you bastard!>.
Once the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the paramedics ran the gurney into the ER with Lois on it. Clark ran to keep up but the ER nurse stopped him at the door of the exam room.
In his most flawless Japanese tongue, “Please, I want to be with her”, Clark insisted to the nurse. “She’s my wife.”
In Japanese, the nurse empathetically responded, “Sir, I need some information from you. Then you can be with her. But the doctors need time and space to do their jobs.”
“Okay…” Clark resigned.
”What’s the patient’s name?”
“My name is Clark Kent. She’s my wife, Lois Lane Kent. We just got married…today. This happened right after our wedding.”
Clark put his face in his hands and proceeded to tell the nurse what she needed to know and what happened. When he was done with the nurse, he went to call his parents and Perry to tell them the unfolding of events. Perry assured him that he would try to contact Lois’ parents and offered up resources if needed. Clark also told Perry who was driving the Suburban. Perry assured Clark that he would relay the series of events to the Metropolis PD, Henderson, to try and link this to Lex Luthor, try to add this to his list of charges. There was no doubt that Luthor was behind this attempted assassination. Clark cut his conversation with Perry short when two doctors approached him.
“Mr. Kent, I’m Dr. Madayoshi and this is Dr. Hito. We have been working on your wife. She’s got lots of injuries and her condition is critical, however, we think she’s going to be okay. She’s on a ventilator, to breathe for her. We were afraid that she would quit breathing. She has a small subdural hematoma and still has not awakened, but once we evacuate that by way of a craniotomy, she has an excellent chance of recovering. She has a broken right femur and an open left tib/fib fracture. She’s got three broken ribs and what looks like a small bowel laceration. We’ll need your consent to fix her, starting with the subdural hematoma. We have a neurosurgeon on call to take care of that, an orthopedist for her leg. He’ll take her to the OR and fix that with rods and pins. We can place and external fixator on the femur but the tibia and fibula have to be fixed now because it’s an open fracture. Dr. Hito and I will fix her small bowel. She’s got some cuts in her face around her hairline that we’ll stitch up. But, over all, she’s a lucky gal. It was reported that she attempted to jump out of the way but the SUV was just going too fast. Had it hit her dead center…well…I don’t know. That would have surely killed her.”
“Can I see her”, Clark finally breathed out, with some relief. His eyes had glazed over while listening to the dissertation of Lois‘ injuries. “I’ll sign wherever you need.”
“Sure, briefly. We have to get her to surgery. She looks a lot worse than she is, so don’t be frightened,” Dr. Hito said as he patted Clark on the shoulder. “Right this way Mr. Kent.”
Clark saw Lois and his insides began to tighten up with anger, fright, rage and a few other emotions. He went and sat in a chair next to her stretcher and very delicately picked up her hand and kissed it. Then he started to talk to her as if she were awake and listening.
“Lois, Honey, you’re going to be okay. You just have to wake up. I talked to my parents and Perry. Perry is trying to reach your parents. One of Luthor’s henchmen…remember Nigel St. John? Well he did this to you. The Tokyo police is working with the Metropolis police department, mainly Henderson, to stick this to Luthor and add it to his list of charges. Nigel St. John is dead so they can’t do anything to him”.
Clark just stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. As he held Lois’ hand and stroked it he felt a need to tell her again what he was feeling.
“Lois, I love you more than anything else in this world. You have to wake up, come out of this. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You were so beautiful today…your gown, your hair. And then we kissed and it was so... magical,” Clark said in a hoarse whisper. “I knew in that moment that I would love you no matter what. I knew in that particular moment, when we shared that kiss that I wanted to have lots of babies with you, grow old and gray with you. I knew that I never wanted to let you go. And I knew that you felt something, too. Honey, I…”
“Mr. Kent, we’re sorry. We have to get Mrs. Kent to surgery,” the OR nurse said as she came with the anaesthesiologist to get Lois.
Clark stood up, still holding Lois’ hand, but reluctantly let it go after a kiss on her knuckles. “I love you, Lois. Please, come back to me.”
The nurse slid Lois’ rings off of her finger and handed them to Clark. Clark then got a look of fear on his face.
“For safe keeping Mr. Kent,” The OR nurse assured Clark as she and the anaesthesiologist started towards the OR with Lois.
Clark stood and watched the OR nurse and the anaesthesiologist roll away with Lois. It took all he had to not break down until they were out of sight. Once the doors closed behind them, Clark went to the waiting room, sat down in a chair and just sobbed. He couldn’t understand why he was able to finally be happy, get the woman of his dreams and it all be halted, just like that.
Clark had been sitting in that same chair for…a while. It was now 1540. Clark held Lois’ tiny wedding rings in his big hands and just looked at them as if her were examining them. As soon as he saw her again, he would place them back on her finger. He just wanted everyone to know that Lois was his wife and he wanted so badly to be married in every way.
Lois had been in surgery since about 1325. Clark had been informed by the nurse that they were looking at about six to eight hours of surgery. They would call out periodically to update Clark on Lois’ surgical progress.
A while later Clark got up to walk and saw Mr. and Mrs. Sanders coming down the hall. He walked toward them. They were the closest thing to family or friends that he and Lois had here in Tokyo. Clark was so grateful that they came by to check on Lois.
“Clark…how is she? Is she going to be okay?”
“I’m praying. She has lots of injuries, Mr. Sanders. They’re talking about six to eight hours of surgery. She’s been in about two hours so far,” Clark forced out. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Sand…”, Clark started as his voice started to crack again.
“Clark, is there anything Christine and I can do? Just say it,” Mr. Sanders pleaded. Oh, and here…here are your car keys. You left them on the ground…next to where you…well…” fumbled Mr. Sanders. “Christine and I drove the car over so that you could go home if you needed to, for changing clothes or a shower or whatever. I know you wont be leaving soon, though.”
“Thank you. I just want to be here when she gets out of surgery.”
“I know, son, I know,” Mr. Sanders replied.
“Just pray,” Clark responded solemnly.
“Christine and I have been doing just that.”
Mr. and Mrs. Sanders sat for another hour or so with Clark, until the next update came. The subdural hematoma had been evacuated and now the general surgeons were going to fix Lois’ perforated bowel. The orthopedists would go last. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders left after that update and assured Clark that they would check back. Again Clark was alone.
Clark must have fallen off asleep because he was awakened by someone shaking his shoulder as he was slumped down forward in the chair.
“Mr. Kent…”
“Dr. Hito! Is Lois okay…what’s wrong?”
“Mr. Kent, everything is fine. Mrs. Kent is stable but still guarded. She went through surgery well. She’s in recovery right now. She still is not awake but you may see her. She still has the breathing tube. We didn’t try to take that out because we want her to rest and regain her strength. She still has some sedation on board. We have her on a drug called Mannitol to keep the brain swelling minimized. She’s also on a steroid called dexamethasone to keep down inflammation. We started her on antibiotic prophylaxis. And of course she has pain medication ordered to keep her comfortable. She doesn’t seem to have suffered any permanent damage, physically. The small area of hair that we shaved off of her head will grow back in no time. We’ll eventually send her up to the Neuro Intensive Care Unit after her recovery period. We just like to recover critical patients for at least an hour before we haul them up to the units. We are pretty hopeful that she will wake up soon,” Dr. Hito concluded.
Clark thanked Dr. Hito and his colleagues, shook their hands and then proceeded to the recovery room to be with Lois.
Lois was the only patient in the recovery room when Clark got to the door. The nurse looked up, saw Clark and beckoned for him to come over. Clark came over and pulled up the chair next to Lois’ bed. The nurse continued what she was doing with Lois’ IV’s.
Clark gently took Lois’ hand and held it. His eyes started to glaze over with unshed tears as he began to talk to Lois as if she was awake.
“Lois, honey, you came through surgery fighting in that Lois Lane fashion.” Clark had to smile to himself at that image. “The doctors say that you’re going to be fine. We have a lot of living to do, so hurry and get better. I love you more than you’ll ever know. In sickness and in health…I will be with you through this…you don’t even need to wonder about that.”
Emotions overtook Clark and he put his face down in Lois’ covers, continuing to hold her hand. He silently prayed for a sign that Lois was going to be okay. Almost simultaneously Clark felt Lois squeeze his hand. He looked up in her face. Though her eyes were still closed, they were moving. Then he noted a tear fall from Lois‘ closed eyes. Clark then stood, leaned over and kissed Lois on the lips. Her hand tightened around his as if to ask him not to leave.
“Oh, God…thank you….for my prayer…for answering my prayer,” Clark choked out. “Honey, don’t worry…I’m not going anywhere…I’m not going to leave you.”
Suddenly that little pesky detail of getting back to the US wasn’t so important.
tbc...
