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From Part 11:The cellphone rang. He gave her a brief smile of apology as he drew it out of his pocket. “Kent.”
As he listened, she saw his expression change, from the awful grimness she hated to a look she’d thought she’d never see again. Lightness. Joy. Relief. He muttered something before ending the call.
“Clark? What is it?”
“Get in the Jeep. We’re going back to the hospital.” Suppressed excitement laced his voice.
“What’s happened?” She allowed him to hustle her out to the car - well, actually, she didn’t have a lot of choice. Her feet weren’t even touching the ground.
“Dr Sutton called the Planet. The latest lab tests have just come back. They’ve got a positive ID on the poison!”
*********
Now read on...She was going to be okay. After all his doubts about Sutton’s competence, the man had come through. Or maybe it was Professor Leek who’d come through. Or Jorgensen, the poisons expert.
What did it matter? They’d found the poison. Now they could administer an antidote.
Lois was going to be okay.
There was no time to waste. He glanced around. There was no-one in the vicinity. He ducked behind the Jeep and changed his clothes then, winking at Lois through the window, picked up the car and flew it, with its precious passenger, to the hospital.
Seconds after getting the phone call from Perry, he set the car down in an alley a couple of blocks from the hospital. One quick switch back to his normal clothes later, and then he was climbing into the driver’s seat. Within a few minutes, he was parking in the ER area.
“Wow!” Lois’s eyes were wide as he helped her out of the car. “You don’t mess around.”
“At a time like this? No way.”
“This is really happening?” She slid her arm around his waist, and he did the same, holding her against him as they walked. “He really knows what it is?”
“So Perry said.” She was really going to be fine. She was going to live.
Of course, they still didn’t know who had done this to her, but that didn’t matter for now. Now, they had all the time in the world to catch him. He’d probably try again, but that wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t going to let Lois out of his sight until the guy was caught and in police custody.
“I’m really not going to die.” She sounded lost in wonder.
“No, you’re not.” He hugged her as they walked.
“Clark.”
Something in her voice made him pause. “What is it?”
“Now’s not the time - I know I’m not at my best and I’m still feeling woozy and dizzy and confused - but I want you to know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me today.”
“Hey, you’re welcome.”
It was so tempting just to dip his head and drop a kiss on her forehead. Or, better still, to brush his lips across hers. But something was making him hesitate. What if she didn’t want it? Okay, they’d kissed a couple of times today, but those had been in moments of heightened emotion. Now that she knew she wasn’t going to die after all, she’d revert to seeing him as just good old Clark.
Though, of course, with the added extra that she knew he was Superman. Oddly, though, her Superman crush seemed to have disappeared. He should feel glad about that. He really should...
She was speaking again. “Later, when all this is over... let’s talk, okay?”
“Talk? Sure.” And there was a lot of talking to do. A lot he wanted to do, anyway. Even if he never told her that he loved her.
He went straight up to the ER desk and asked the receptionist for Dr Sutton. As soon as he gave Lois’s name, they were told to go straight through.
A nurse directed them to a cubicle, and he had no sooner helped Lois onto the gurney than the curtains were hastily parted and Dr Sutton came in, followed by a nurse. “Ms Lane. Mr Kent.”
“What’s happening, Doctor?” Lois asked immediately.
“Well, as I told the person I spoke to at the Daily Planet, we’ve had a positive result on one of the tests I had run - the spinal tap, in fact. That’s why I needed to see you as soon as possible.”
Yes! He just managed to restrain himself from saying it aloud. He grasped Lois’s hand. “Is it ricin?”
Sutton shook his head. “No. Actually, it’s something I wouldn’t have thought to test for. It was Jorgensen who recommended running the Guillain-Barré test.”
“Ghee-what?” Lois just managed to say it first.
“Guillain-Barré syndrome. It is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. To be specific, it attacks the myelin around the nerve cells - both motor and sensory - and it leads to progressive paralysis and loss of sensation. Initial symptoms would be weakness in the limbs, and subsequently tingling. If undetected, it will progress to paralysis and inability to breathe, which is, of course, fatal.”
“I’ve been getting tingling for the last couple of hours...” Lois pointed out. “Actually, maybe even since before I was last here.”
“That certainly fits,” Sutton said. “Of course, the probably is that you don’t actually have Guillain-Barré, as such, Ms Lane. It’s highly unlikely that your attacker could have injected you with something to cause it. More likely that this is something which mimics the symptoms - in fact, since it’s having exactly the same effect, that’s clearly what he’s done. So, because the symptoms are the same and the test result shows the precise kind of effect, we’re going to behave as if it’s GB.”
“So what’s the antidote?” Clark asked, barely restraining his impatience. “Do you have it here?”
Sutton turned to him. “There’s no cure for Guillain-Barré, as such, Mr Kent.”
“What?” Fear gripped him again. “Are you saying you can’t do anything?”
Lois’s fingers tightened around his. She was ghostly pale again.
“No, I’m not. Let me explain. We treat the symptoms and slow down the progress of the... well, we don’t call it a disease, as such. Therapy can assist recovery, so I’ll be sending Ms Lane for physical therapy over the next couple of weeks to help her regain full sensation in her limbs. We’ve caught this early, so the damage is not yet severe. Guillain-Barré doesn’t progress to dangerous stages until paralysis and respiratory failure set in.”
“How long does that take?” No cure... assist recovery... slow down progress... Was Lois actually going to make it through this? Was she still going to die anyway?
“Normally, it takes about two to three weeks for the worst of the symptoms to manifest themselves. So, as I said, we’ve caught this at an extremely early stage. As I mentioned, I wouldn’t even have thought to test for this, given that it’s far from the kind of disorder which can cause death within a 24-hour period.”
Two to three weeks... So what was all that about twenty-four hours? Some sick joke?
“Medical science doesn’t even know what causes Guillain-Barré,” Sutton continued. “It can occur spontaneously in people who have had respiratory or gastro-intestinal infections. So Dr Leek and I believe that the person who did this to Ms Lane must have somehow produced an antibody to target the myelin in the nervous system - so we’re obviously looking at someone with advanced chemistry training or very good contacts with a medical or laboratory facility.”
The doctor stopped, looking very pleased with himself. Though he had just given them some very useful profiling information, even if it did just confirm what they’d already suspected about the would-be killer.
“What can you actually do?” Lois asked. “You said you can slow down the progress...”
“You can actually recover, provided it’s caught early. If this was diagnosed later, you could still recover, but you might have some lingering symptoms for a while - for some years, even. Now, what we’re going to do is to administer some human immunoglobulin. So I’ll want you to change into this gown...”
He picked up a hospital gown and handed it to her. “And then I’ll come back and set up the IV. We’ll need to admit you and keep you at least overnight to observe your progress. But I think you’re going to be fine.”
Breath whooshed out of him. Lois really was going to be fine.
She squeezed his fingers again and, as he looked at her, she smiled at him. She met his gaze, her eyes shining, hope radiating from her expression.
Though she couldn’t feel any happier than he did right now.
He was barely aware of Sutton leaving. Wasn’t aware of anything except Lois until she raised an eyebrow and coughed lightly.
“What?”
“I need to get changed...” She looked meaningfully at him, and then at the gown in her lap.
Oh. Of course! “Uh... sorry.” He felt himself blushing. “I’ll see you later, okay? I’ll just... uh, I’ll call Perry and give him the good news.”
“Yeah.” She smiled again, her whole expression lighting up. “You do that. But don’t forget to come back, right?”
“I won’t.” He refused to look away from her as he backed towards the curtains, only turning around once he was outside the cubicle.
She was going to be all right. They knew what it was. He wasn’t going to lose her.
Suddenly, his glasses were misty and an unfamiliar lump resided in his throat. But it was all good. Lois was safe.
**********
Her head felt so light all of a sudden... she was swaying...
A strong arm - not the right one, though - was around her shoulders. A gentle voice - not the right one - was saying, “Take it easy. It’s just shock, that’s all. Let’s help you into that gown and then you can lie down.”
She blinked, trying to clear her head, and refocused on the nurse standing next to her. “I just... felt dizzy...”
“That’s understandable. It must be such a relief.” The nurse patted her shoulder. “I’m Abby, by the way.”
“Lois.”
“Okay, Lois. Can you undress yourself, or do you need help?”
She allowed the nurse to unfasten buttons and undo zips. It wasn’t as if she had the energy to do it for herself, or if her fingers would have obeyed her instructions, in any case.
It was a relief when she could just lie flat on the gurney and let them transport her up to a ward. As they wheeled her, she looked around, but couldn’t see Clark anywhere. Somehow, even though she knew that she was going to live after all, it all felt much more scary without him to hold her hand.
Clark...
It wasn’t too late after all. She had all the time in the world to work out what he meant to her. What they could have together. There was no hurry... on the other hand, there was no reason to wait. After all, if today had taught her anything, it was that there wasn’t always a tomorrow. Putting things off sometimes meant you never got to do them at all.
The next half-hour or so was a complete blur. She was installed in a bed in a private room, drips and tubes were set up and she was attached to monitors. Medical staff bustled in and out, checking equipment, taking readings, jabbing and pulling her about.
She still ached. Her stomach still hurt. Her fingers and toes still tingled.
None of that mattered. She was going to be all right. She was going to
live.
She’d get to go to the Meriwether Awards ceremony with Clark. And they would
win. She still had a chance at that Pulitzer. She’d catch the bastard who’d tried to kill her, and she’d look him in the eye and make him tell her
why.
And she’d have a chance to find out what there could be between her and Clark.
Those thoughts she’d had in the taxi on the way back to her apartment earlier - the regrets for things she hadn’t done... She’d learned something very important today.
If she wanted things out of life, she had to fight for them. Not dream and sigh and hope that some day they would come along. If she wanted to explore the world’s most beautiful places, she had to get off her butt and do it.
If she wanted a special man to share her life with... she had to stop ignoring the best thing that had ever happened to her. She had to take a leap of faith and grasp what - or rather, who - was right under her nose and had been all along.
It shouldn’t have taken a near-death experience to make her be honest with herself. But it wasn’t surprising either. She had a problem trusting men. Superman had been easy - he wasn’t exactly a normal man in any way. He was superhuman, so it made sense that he wouldn’t play games or betray her the way normal men would.
But it hadn’t just been finding out that Clark was Superman which had changed her opinion of him, allowed her to let down her guard and trust him. It was
him. Clark. The way he’d dropped everything to be there for her. The way his quiet strength supported her, the way it had on countless times before. The way he’d held her and told her that he wasn’t going to let her die.
With a death sentence hanging over her, the scales had fallen and she’d admitted it. Clark wasn’t just any other guy. He wasn’t just her friend.
And now they had time to do something about that. To explore what the possibilities were. If he was interested, of course. Some of the things he’d said to her today suggested that he might be.
She had been given a second chance - something that wasn’t granted to everyone. She was incredibly lucky. And this time she wasn’t going to waste her opportunity.
Later. She’d talk to Clark later... when she wasn’t so tired...
*********
Clark paced outside the door to Lois’s room, waiting for the nurse to return and let him know if he had permission to go in. She was sleeping, Nurse Lacey had told him. That was hardly surprising. She had to be exhausted. Even apart from what she’d been through today, she’d had very little sleep last night.
He glanced at his watch. Just after six-thirty. After everything they’d feared, the medics had identified the poison with a little under nine hours to go. A very comfortable margin of error. He owed Sutton an apology for doubting his competence.
He’d been away from Lois for almost an hour. And he was hoping that she was still okay. That she was recovering well and that nothing else had happened. At least she was in the hospital, and being taken good care of.
Had she missed him? Had she noticed his absence? He’d had things to do, and Sutton had made it clear that he wouldn’t be able to be with Lois for a while. So he’d gone back to the Planet and updated Perry and Henderson on developments, filling Henderson in on what Sutton had said about the would-be assassin’s scientific competence.
Henderson’d had some news too. They’d checked out the mall close to the harbour; one of the payphones there had been used for a call to the Planet. His officers had got hold of the security tapes but hadn’t so far managed to see anyone actually using the phone. But they were going to keep looking, and keep interviewing mall employees to see if anyone had seen anything.
Before Clark had left, the detective had actually asked him to tell Lois that he was happy she was going to live.
He’d also said something else. He’d warned Clark to keep a close eye on Lois, that having failed once someone as determined as that would try again.
In that second, he’d felt as if he’d stepped into a shower of iced water. He’d thought it was all over, that Lois was going to be fine. But of course the bastard would try again!
And then he’d heard the emergency broadcast.
He’d ignored every other call for Superman’s assistance today. He’d been lucky - it had been a fairly ordinary day. The only calls he’d heard hadn’t been especially serious: a mugging victim here, a bank robbery there, a car crash with victims trapped. Nothing the police couldn’t handle. Nothing life-threatening and no major disasters.
But this had been different. Three kids trapped in a condemned building which was unstable and could collapse if emergency personnel went inside. He’d had to go - with Lois in the hospital, surrounded by medical personnel and the poison identified, he couldn’t ignore this one.
It was just as well that he hadn’t had to make that choice earlier. Would he have gone if this had happened while they’d been in the Slum asking questions?
He couldn’t have left Lois. But he couldn’t have ignored those trapped kids, either.
He’d probably have ended up bringing her with him.
Unless, of course, she was in a situation where she just couldn’t leave. Then... what?
Actually, when it came down to it, the choice was simple. There was a saying he’d heard during his travels.
To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world.And that was it. Whatever way he looked at it, Lois was his world. And if it came down to a choice between saving the rest of the world or saving Lois... There was no choice.
Before leaving to help, he’d drawn Henderson aside and explained what he needed to do, and asked the detective to alert security staff at the hospital and any police officers in the area to make sure that no-one unauthorised had access to Lois.
Rescuing the kids had taken almost half an hour; he’d had to move very carefully, assessing the building’s structure to determine the most unstable parts before shifting anything out of the way. The children had somehow got into a section with enormous slabs and pieces of debris all around them, and one of them was trapped underneath a massive girder. He’d got them out safe and sound, of course, but it had all taken longer than he’d wanted.
Still, now he was back and he was going to see Lois.
She wouldn’t be better, of course. Not immediately. Dr Sutton had said the treatment she was getting would prevent the symptoms from developing any further. They would recede over time, especially with physiotherapy to strengthen the muscles in her limbs.
She would recover. This nightmare of a day was over.
Not that everything had been bad... In fact, there were parts of the day he couldn’t bring himself to regret, however treasonous a thought that might be. He and Lois were closer than they’d ever been. And, as long as he could stop her retreating behind her protective shield again, that would continue.
Those kisses they’d shared...
Okay, they’d come out of desperation. Each of them needing to be close, to be held, to be reassured when no reassurance was available. But the kisses had still happened. And they showed that Lois was by no means indifferent to him.
There was definitely hope for a chance to make their relationship closer still. Proceeding carefully was the key. Telling her he loved her straight out would be a mistake, but that wasn’t the only option available. One thing they had now was time. So he’d begin by asking her out; not immediately, but in a few days. Maybe a week.
The other change, of course, was Lois knowing about Superman. No regrets there. Her reaction had been better than he’d ever dared hope. Okay, the circumstances meant that she’d hardly throw a fit and refuse to speak to him, or fawn all over him because suddenly he was the hero she’d had a crush on from the moment she’d laid eyes on him.
She seemed to see him as Clark first and foremost, with the powers very definitely coming second. She hadn’t once called him Superman since finding out, other than when they were with others. Even in the Suit, he was Clark. That was an incredibly positive sign.
And there were all sorts of advantages to her knowing the secret, not least of which was that the cape would no longer come between them. He could be fully himself with her.
“Mr Kent?” Nurse Lacey was back, interrupting his thoughts. “You can go in now.”
At first, all he could see was equipment. Tubes. Drips. Monitors. And then there was Lois, lying motionless in the bed, her silky hair disordered on the pillow. She was asleep, as he’d been told. He pulled up a chair and sat beside her; after a moment’s hesitation, he reached for her hand, which lay on top of the sheet.
As his fingers folded around hers, she stirred and blinked. The dark eyes he knew so well focused on him. “Clark? You came back...”
“Of course I came back.” A goofy smile that he just couldn’t help spread over his face. “You couldn’t keep me away if you tried.”
“Missed you...”
She still sounded as if she was having trouble concentrating. Or perhaps it was just that she wasn’t properly awake yet. That didn’t matter. The important thing was that she was going to get better.
“I missed you too.” Sudden impulse took over, and he leaned across and brushed his lips across her cheek. “I had to go and tell Perry and Henderson what’s going on. And Superman had to help someone. But I’m not going anywhere now.”
“Good...” And her eyes drifted shut again.
Cradling her hand in both of his, Clark sat, happy just to watch her sleep. They had all the time in the world for other things.
*********
...tbc
