Welcome to my first multiple part story - the real test
I've been experimenting with style again, though I didn't venture too far from 'Echo'. Any comments are appreciated
Before I jump into the thanks, and trust me, there’ll be plenty of them, I’ll give you the premise…
What if? What if Lois had said no in The House of Luthor and the cavalry never arrived to save her? What if they’d never tried to arrest Lex? What if he’d never taken a dive off the balcony of the tallest building in Metropolis? What if Lois said no and had to deal with it? What then?Ok, and here it is… The thank you list. The one that’s most definitely too long for a twenty-five page story.
You’d think I was writing an epic with the amount of people I consulted!
Firstly, my most favourite BR, Madam Kraft. Sara, sweet, sweet Sara. Always there to ask me to torture Clark more. To show you some pain. Always there with a comment on the comma. Always there, sleepily reading my scribble and helping me make sense of it. You know I can’t write a word without you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sas, my amazingly amazing Artistic Advisor. My great un-sticker. My great… well, you get it
Thanks for letting me run ideas by you, for gluing my fingers to the keyboard and for smacking me repeatedly.
Sarah, my impromptu BR. For BRing on the fly whenever I was stuck
And thanks, heaps, for rubbing in how many pages you’d written :p (BTW, when do I get to see that story, huh?)
Rachie! Baby! Thanks for being there when this story was a wee lass, telling me that no, it doesn’t suck and yes, I should keep writing
Jackie! For being my sounding board and guinea pig late at night, and most of all thanks for making me feel like I could actually do it, and letting me know that no matter how much I thought it was horrible you loved it
Avia, the official guinea pig! For volunteering to be my crash dummy
The IRCsters. For telling me everything I always knew I never wanted to know about make-up…
And finally Sorcha.
Sorcha, Sara, etc, etc, Darlin’ without whom this story would never have come to pass.
Here it is, good or bad, it’s yours.
Your story. Your chance to gloat. Your moment of glory. I just hope it’s up to par
And for the record - I still think I got the better end of the deal
So without further ado…
All The King’s Horses
By The Artist Formerly Known as IAmNotAWriter aka David“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God and the presence of these witnesses to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
Lois looked around slowly. All those people, the hundreds of faces she didn’t know. Here to watch her marry Lex. To watch them be joined.
The Archbishop continued to speak as she looked at him, smiled nervously and looked away.
‘Speak now,’ he’d said.
Speak now.
Speak.
The little voice at the back of her head was telling her to. To speak, to walk, to run, to flee… while she could.
But she didn’t.
Her decision had been made. Her mind was made up. She had promised to marry this man. All these people were here to watch her marry this man.
The voice was relentless.
‘Run,’ it said, heedless of her decision. Of her made mind. ‘Run, while you still can.’
“Do you, Lex, take this woman to be your wedded bride from this day forward…” The Archbishop continued, unaware of her internal struggle.
‘It’s too late,’ she reminded herself. ‘Too late.’ Her decision had been made.
Lex looked at her, his gaze steady.
Confident.
He didn’t hold her eyes long. His mouth slid into an almost smile.
Shouldn’t she be smiling?
Shouldn’t she be happy?
His answer was directed at the Archbishop.
“I do.”
Simple, strong, confident.
He does.
She’d known what his answer would be.
Her mind was made up.
She was here to marry this man.
She would learn to smile.
She didn’t need to be happy.
All these people were here to witness.
She would marry this man.
Her mind was made up.
“…for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…” The Archbishop was talking again, at her this time. Looking at her. Watching her. They all were. All these witnesses. “…to love and to cherish until death do you part?”
To love.
All these people, here to witness her promise to love Lex. To honour Lex. To cherish Lex. All these strangers, to witness a lie.
“I…” Her mind was made up. All these people. Her mother. “I…”
“Lois?” Lex whispered, concerned. His earlier confidence vanished.
She stood in front of the hundreds of strangers. She stood in the sight of God.
Ready to lie.
Her mind was made up.
--
He lay slumped, curled in on himself and struggling against the pain.
The air was thick with the unearthly green glow.
It was suffocating. He was suffocating.
He groaned weakly.
His body was dying, slowly, painfully in the shadow of his dead world.
The wedding march sliced through his head, cutting through the heavy silence. It was impossible that he was hearing it.
Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he was insane. Delirious from the kryptonite exposure.
Clark shifted, biting his lip against the pain. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
Though, if there’s anything he should have learnt in the last year, it was that impossible was a relative term when it came to Lois Lane.
He ignored the pain soaking into his bones as every fibre of his being combined, screaming out to him as one voice. ‘Stop it,’ they cried.
If he was insane, he was desperately so.
‘Save her,’ they shouted.
His will to survive, to continue, to fight was long gone.
‘Save her,’ they screamed nonetheless. ‘Stop the wedding.’
Clark moved without thinking, tearing the cummerbund into strips, expending precious energy.
He wasn’t too late.
He could save her.
He had to save her.
His lungs burned, the green fire seeping through his skin.
The kryptonite bathed him in the deathly reminder of his home world.
His makeshift rope, supported by a column of air, crept towards the wine barrel. Its progress was agonisingly slow.
The kryptonite burned.
Slowly. Searing. Scarring. Killing him.
The end wrapped around the ring and he pulled desperately as he collapsed into a ball of bone-wracking coughs. The key, finally, thankfully, tumbled to the floor.
‘Save her,’ the voices echoed. ‘Save her.’
The wedding march ended.
~“The Archbishop?”~
Her voice.
~“Yes, I’m sorry. The Pope had a prior engagement.”~
His voice.
Clark sucked in a shaky breath.
~“You look beautiful.”~
*His* voice.
‘Hurry,’ they screamed. ‘Save her.’
He dragged himself towards the edge of the cage slowly, his fingers scraping on the concrete floor beneath him.
Every inch he earned intensified the pain.
He flinched, snapping his hand back as it brushed against one of the bars.
‘Save her.’
He reached again.
~“… If any man knows why this union should not take place…”~
The spandex offered no protection from the sickly radiation as the bars cut into his arm. Searing. Burning. Poisoning.
The pain was tangible, weighing down his limbs, slowing his movements.
He pushed on.
He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
Time was slipping away, and he was suffocating.
‘Save her.’
Too far.
The key was just out of his reach. Too far away.
He grunted as he pulled back, not taking the time to cradle his arm. He stood. Staggered back. And ran into the bars. Everything he had left. One last stand.
‘Save her,’ they cried desperately.
He collapsed.
‘Save her.’
No. No. No.
~”And do you, Lois, take this man…”~
No.
Too late.
The realisation was like a knife to his gut… He was too late.
He rolled over, curling into a foetal position.
Nothing had prepared him for this. This level of pain. This level of agony. Nothing could.
The last of his reserves bled out of him. Abandoning him to his fate.
Clark covered his ears. Desperate. He couldn’t listen. He didn’t want to listen.
But he couldn’t stop.
He was Superman. Invulnerable. Invincible.
Immortal.
Waiting to die.
He’d failed her.
Again.
‘NO!’ the voice screamed. ‘No!’
He’d failed.
He had nothing.
He couldn’t save her. The woman he’d die for.
He had no reason left.
~“I can’t.”~
And then she gave him one. She saved herself.
--
In the end she’d had nobody.
None of her friends had come. Not one.
She’d had nobody, baring a room full of strangers. A room full of shocked strangers.
And her horrified fiance. Ex-fiance.
“Lois, what do you want to do with the dress?”
And her mother.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Her mother could decide what to do with the dress. What to do with the gifts. What to do with the tabloids. She was staying in her apartment. Sitting in her bathroom. And locking the doors. She didn’t need them anyway.
She stared at her reflection.
The little bride that wasn’t.
The veil was gone, the dress… Her hair was a mess. Her make-up ruined.
This was the woman who’d said no.
No, she couldn’t marry him.
The biggest philanthropist in the city.
Him.
The man who loved her.
She couldn’t. Because of *him*.
The man she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Him.
The man who hadn’t cared enough to be there.
“Lois?”
She picked up the wash cloth.
“Are you all right in there?”
“I’m fine,” she called. She was. She would be.
She scrubbed at her face. The bride slowly disappeared.
The bathroom door opened a crack. “Lois?”
Lois turned and smiled weakly. Watery.
“I did the right thing.”
Her mother stepped into the room.
“Didn’t I?”
There was no reason for her to start crying. None at all. She’d done the right thing.
She leant into her mother’s open arms, accepting the comfort she didn’t need.
There was no reason. None.
She’d followed her heart… And it’d led her nowhere.
She was hiding. In her bathroom. Sobbing into her mother’s arms.
And horribly alone.
--
He didn’t spot the bored tabloid reporters skulking around the shadows of her apartment building.
He didn’t see the shocked stares as he stumbled across the street.
He didn’t hear the whispers.
He didn’t care.
All he saw was her door.
--
The knock startled her and she spilt her tea. She ignored the tepid liquid as it soaked into her couch, and looked over at her mother.
Her mother, her unexpectedly invaluable mother, who was already on her feet.
“I’ll get rid of them,” she announced, moving swiftly to the door.
The phone hadn’t stopped ringing after they’d returned.
Scavengers.
In search of the ultimate gossip. The dirtiest rumour.
Her mother had pulled the phone out of the socket after an hour.
Vultures.
Ready to rip her personal life to shreds. Because of what she’d done. To herself. To Lex.
The spotlight would fade and she’d be yesterday’s news.
The woman who’d turned down a billionaire.
The fervour would die soon, she was sure.
Still…
She didn’t want to know who was at the door. What his name was. What her face looked like. Whoever it was, she didn’t want to know.
She shut her eyes. Walked away. Refused to look.
They’d just be a voice. She could ignore a voice.
The Voice knocked again.
“Lois?” it called weakly.
Lois spun around quickly. She knew that voice.
Clark.
He’d come.
“Clark?”
“Lois!” His voice, Clark’s voice, called. Insistent. Desperate.
She held her breath.
Clark had come.
He collapsed, falling forward as her mother opened the door.
She opened her mouth but the words died in her throat.
Clark.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him.
Beaten.
When she saw him, lying there, on her floor.
A tangled heap of broken man, blue spandex, and tattered red cape.
TBC…
