“Do you have medical supplies?” Clark asked quickly.
“Basic first-aid,” Dr. Weeks said, taking off his bucket hat to run a hand anxiously through his hair.
“Great,” she said. “These scrapes are starting to sting.”
But Clark asked, “Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“Hospital!?” she asked, with the clear opinion that he was overreacting.
“Luxor,” Dr. Weeks supplied. “Luxor General is right across the river.”
“How do we–”
“We have a truck.”
“Get it,” Clark said in a voice with a surprising amount of command. “I’ll bring her.”
“Clark, I’m fine,” she tried again, but she was too tired to inject much demand into it, which she belatedly realized only worried him more.
He put one arm tenderly under her knees and another around her back. “Hold on,” he told her gently.
She automatically moved to put her arms around his neck, but realized that her hands were bleeding. She looked at them skeptically and he nudged her with his shoulder. “Go ahead,” he encouraged.
She frowned, but he smiled reassuringly at her and she put her arms around his shoulders, finding something somehow familiar and soothing about the motion.
He rose steadily with her, though it looked like he was concentrating, and once he was standing, he lightly readjusted her.
“I think I can walk with help. My leg’s just asleep,” she said, already straightening her good leg to try and hop down.
But he held her tighter. “I’ve got you,” he promised.
He had promised her this already, she realized, when they’d been down beneath the rocks.
Someone to rely on.
Someone to have her back.
And since she’d accepted it then, she accepted it now. So she settled herself in, tucking her head into his shoulder in a cozier version of her position beneath the rocks and let him carry her up out of the perpetual night of the tomb and into the fresh, clear air and the brightness of day.*****
She stepped out of the shower, grateful that her hair wasn’t still so thick with dust. She didn’t want to think what else might have been in that ancient dust besides sand and crushed limestone. But hopefully it was nothing that had once been preserved in Bashir’s beloved canopic jars. She shuddered at the idea, towel drying her hair with her fingers, careful to avoid using her scraped and exposed palms.
Once dry, she slipped the hotel robe around her and sat down at the little desk, beginning the process of rewrapping several large bandages. She started with her shins, which were covered in long gashes up to her knees. They looked bad enough that she hoped they’d heal without scarring, and it pushed her to reach for the antibiotic ointment to go along with the bandages.
The hotel felt like a different world. She couldn’t have been happier that their reservations were still in place. The receptionist in the lobby had been happy to provide them with new room keys, even though they’d both looked like they’d walked out of a disaster movie.
Which, she supposed, they pretty much had.
Clark had been beside himself at the hospital until they’d examined her, in spite of her telling him that she was just fine over and over again. Though it must have sunken in because he eventually started to relax.
They hadn’t had much time to talk there, with the busy waiting room and the staff whirling around them and then Clark translating between everyone, which just cemented in her mind exactly how fluent he was, despite his earlier claims otherwise.
She moved on from her shins to her forearms, careful not to hold her upper left too tightly against her body, since she had one heck of a bruise forming. She didn’t remember even getting hit there, but it matched the swollen black lump on her knee from that stray rock falling on her, so she assumed some other debris had done it.
She’d finally shooed him off to get looked at himself, but she ended up missing him while he was gone.
What he’d offered her down in the collapsed tomb was exactly what she’d always wanted; she’d just begun to sincerely believe that it didn’t really exist out there. But then it was like he’d spoken it into reality.
It hadn't sounded like something someone said just because they thought they might die. And she’d been in that situation often enough to know. It had sounded thorough and, not exactly rehearsed, but like he’d been thinking about it for a while…possibly as long as he’d known her. Just like he’d said.
She liked the idea. But…she wasn’t exactly sure what came next.
She’d never dated a friend before.
Were they just a couple now?
How did
that work?
A knock at her door pulled her out of her wool-gathering, and she realized that the answer to her questions was likely on the other side of it.
Tucking the last bandage into itself, she crossed her room toward the door, realizing that her knee was hurting again and wishing she’d taken another ice pack from the hospital. Pulling it open, she felt a flutter of nerves in her chest.
“Hi,” she said, too shyly for her own taste.
“Hey,” Clark said with a warm smile.
She stepped back and he came in.
“Feeling any better?”
“It’s amazing what scrubbing off three-thousand year old dirt can do,” she quipped.
“The wonders of a shower,” he joked back. The air between them turned more awkward than usual, and he seemed to realize that he’d come to her room but was just staring at her. “I, um, I thought we should come up with a plan.”
“Well, I think Carnahan is still our top suspect. Was he even in the tomb when we got out?”
“I didn’t see him,” Clark confirmed.
“And then Bashir,” she went on.
“He
was there,” Clark said.
“I didn’t see him.”
“Well, we were out of there pretty quickly. But he was in the back, mixing cement with another guy from the crew. They’d been planning to pour another track to stabilize the rock if our tunnel didn’t work.”
Her ears perked up. “He was mixing cement?”
“We already knew he had a lot of familiarity with it, Lois,” he said, seeing where she was going. “Everyone on the dig did. He looked
really worried.”
“Worried that we didn’t die or worried that we did?” she asked.
Clark swallowed, his eyes dipping to her bandaged arms. “I think he was worried
for us,” he said.
She almost let the moment go by, but instead touched one hand lightly to her forearm bandage. “Clark, I’m fine.”
His eyes crashed into hers, and she saw that he was still really upset about this.
“When that floor fell out from under us, I just– I didn’t even know what to do. I just couldn’t lose you, Lois,” he said, his voice tight.
She followed her impulse and closed the distance between them to hug him. His arms came up around her, avoiding all of the places that she was hurting, even that unsourced bruise on her upper arm, and squeezed her gently.
He let out a ragged breath, and she felt his shoulders relax a little.
Pulling back, she looked at him seriously. “You didn’t lose me. I’m pretty sure you
saved me.”
His hand came up to cradle her cheek again, just the way it had in their little pocket before he’d nearly kissed her.
Turning her face into his palm, she placed her hand over his.
And flinched.
She’d forgotten that the skin was so damaged there.
His eyes had followed hers, and he was looking at her hands with concern.
“Why don’t I bandage those for you?” he offered softly.
She nodded her agreement with a sigh and moved back to the desk and all of her supplies. She handed him a fresh bandage, and started applying a thick dollop of the antibiotic ointment. They’d impressed upon her that her wounds were susceptible to infection at the hospital, and while she’d normally blow them off, the thoughts of the contents of Bashir’s beloved canopic jars—containing both the body parts and whatever germs they’d held-–made her take it seriously. Pressing a thick pad to her palm, she held out her hand for Clark to wrap.
His hands were gentle and light.
“We should call Perry,” she said after a moment, just staring at Clark’s hands manipulating hers.
“He’ll probably be hassling the team to put the paper to bed,” Clark remarked, apparently calculating the time zone with ease.
“He’ll pick up. He always picks up.”
Clark tied off the first bandage. She treated her other palm with the antibiotic ointment and then palmed another thick, sterile pad, holding her hand out to Clark. He started to methodically wrap her second hand.
It was late in Luxor, but midday in Metropolis. She did the time zone calculation that Clark had already done and figured it was nearly four-thirty in the afternoon at home. Perry probably
would be tied to his desk, marking up a hardcopy proof of the next morning’s edition.
She fingered their boss’ office number into the phone’s keypad with her wrapped hand and waited while it rang.
And rang again.
The phone rang a third time and she nearly hung up.
“Hello?”
“Chief, hi.”
“Lois?”
“Yeah, it’s me. And Clark’s here, too.”
His eyes flicked up at her and she turned sideways in the chair to give him a chance to hear through the phone’s speaker. He moved a little closer to do so, and she felt her heart skip.
“How’s everything going out there?”
“Uh, good,” she said, watching Clark’s eyebrows raise in response to her answer.
She heard him talking to whoever was in his office camped out and waiting for his marked-up proof. When he came back on the line, Perry’s voice had dropped to a low, already exasperated sound. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” she instantly defended, and Clark quietly snickered.
“Lois,” Perry growled.
“We just got a little caught up in a teeny tiny cave-in. It’s fine. We’re fine,” she said quickly.
“Cave-in?!”
She hurried on, trying to sound casual, “Dr. Weeks said it happens practically all the time out here. But listen, we wanted to ask about your friend Carnahan.”
“Rupert?” Perry’s voice shifted to a nostalgic joy. “How is that old so-and-so? You know, the last time I saw Rupert, now mind you, we’d had a coupl’a drinks, and he ended up with one foot in– well, hey, maybe I’d better not tell that story. Ruin the man’s credibility as a serious academic!” he said laughing.
But Lois didn’t laugh along with him.
“Well, Chief, actually, that’s what I wanted to ask about.”
“How’s that now?”
“Is it possible that he got himself into something he shouldn’t have out here?’
“Like what?” Perry asked.
“Like sabotage? Maybe kidnapping? Attempted murder?”
“Lois, the man’s got a bum knee. How in the world could he do all that?”
“So the limp is real?” she followed up.
“‘Course it’s real! Didn’t I just say that he had one foot practically in–”
She cut him off, not wanting to hear an anecdote about the good old days, even if this one probably
didn’t end with Elvis. “Look, I don’t know if he’d be the one doing it exactly, but if he had a partner or something, he’d probably be co-signing everything.”
She locked eyes with Clark and he nodded emphatically, his meaning clear. You stood for whatever your partner stood for. Clark tied off the bandage on the back of her second hand and gave it a reassuring pat, signaling he was done. She shot him a grateful smile.
“Rupert would never do that,” Perry said staunchly, reclaiming her attention.
“Perry, I know you two are old friends, but–”
“It wouldn’t matter if he were my worst enemy. He still wouldn’t do any of that.”
“So, you’d trust him?” she asked.
“Yes,” Perry said without hesitation.
“With your life?” she pressed. “With mine?”
“Say, you sure you’re okay, darlin’?”
She shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, just a little banged up. Better than usual, actually.”
“Clark’s there with you?” Perry confirmed.
Her eyes lifted from her newly bandaged hands to Clark. “Yeah,” she said softly. “He’s been here the whole time.”
“She’s alright, Chief,” Clark said, leaning in toward the mouthpiece. “Just some scrapes and bruises. The hospital cleared her.”
“Hospital?!”
Shooting Clark an irritated look, she tried to get hold of the conversation again. “Chief, Carnahan?”
“I’d–” he started, but then paused before saying with certainty, “Yeah. I’d trust my life to Rupert. And yours. And Clark’s, too. And on top of that, I’d stake my life for
his if he ever did get into a jam he couldn’t get out of.”
“Then we’ll do the same thing,” she said, looking at Clark again, who nodded in agreement. “We’ve got to get back to the excavation site, Chief. But thanks.”
“Stay safe, darlin’,” he said.
And she hung up the phone.
“I need to get dressed,” she said, standing.
“Where are we going?” Clark asked.
“We need to get back to the site, talk to Carnahan,” she said, examining the scrubs that the hospital had given her after her blood-soaked, shredded pants had been discarded. They looked fine. Her shirt was still a disaster, especially with the sleeves torn up, but at least it would cover her.
“He might not even be awake,” Clark warned.
“Then we’ll wake him up,” she said with narrowed eyes. “Give me ten minutes to dry my hair,” she said and then walked back into the bathroom, and looked back at him, leaning lightly on the doorframe. “Then maybe you can help with my other bandages?”
“I’ll be right here,” he said.
She nearly let herself indulge in the promise in the warmth of his voice.
But they had a mummy to chase and suspects to investigate and a whole archeological dig to save.
So she smiled in thanks and went in search of the hotel room’s hair dryer.
*****
Forty minutes later, Lois stepped straight into Carnahan’s tent without warning. “Dr. Carnahan?”
Not able to see well in the dark, she pulled the tent back to reveal Clark, who’d been just a few steps behind her, along with a wide swath of moonlight that lit the space in front of her. “Hold this,” she said quietly, draping the tent flap across his arm. Now able to see in front of her, she navigated the inside of the tent.
“Dr. Carnahan?” she tried again as she neared the mosquito net-covered mat at the far side of the tent. But even as she spoke, she could see that he wasn’t there.
“It’s empty,” she reported back to Clark, who was still standing at the doorway. She started to walk back to him, but looking around, had a second idea. “As long as he’s not here, do you think we should take the opportunity to search his tent?”
“If Perry vouched for him, what’s the point?” Clark asked, shrugging.
She bent to rub her knee, which had started hurting again after their trek across the desert. Clark had offered to carry her about five times, and she’d finally told him to stop asking.
It was just that she wasn’t sure he had come out of the cave-in totally unscathed, in spite of his assurances that he was fine. She’d been worried about him after they had gotten out from underneath their little landslide, because he’d seemed unsteady. But he’d ridden in the bed of the truck on the way to the hospital, and it seemed like the fresh air had done him some good. Or maybe the wind had just blown enough dust from his skin that he didn’t look so impossibly pale anymore. Looking at him now, though, casually leaning on the tent flap he was holding taut in the bright moonlight, he looked fully recovered. She grudgingly realized she could have taken him up on a lift for at least part of the way.
“You might be right,” she conceded, looking around the tent piled with mostly ancient-looking books with ancient-sounding titles on their spines. “What do you think we should do next?”
He obviously couldn’t conceal the surprise that overtook his features. “Are you asking me what I think our next step should be?”
She folded her arms over her chest, feeling defensive after she felt like she’d offered him something. “I said that we would find ways to make our work partnership more equal. I didn't change my mind just because of…the other things we talked about.”
“I’m glad,” he said tentatively, inclining his head. “I just…wasn’t expecting it. Sorry.”
She nodded, and he looked at her with a knowing expression.
“You probably want to head down into the tomb to see if there’s anything happening while everyone’s asleep.”
“Do you think there will be?”
“I don’t know,” Clark said. “But I think we have to assume that if whoever’s doing this is part of the Project, then they spent their afternoon digging us out. They might even be hiding injuries of their own. If it were me, I’d take a break tonight. And I think we should, too. Getting some sleep tonight might be the best thing we can do for the investigation in the morning.”
She wanted to disagree, purely out of habit. Pushing though exhaustion and injury was how she’d gotten more scoops than she could count. But even as he was drawing his point, she was covering her mouth to hide a yawn. And now, she felt herself swaying on her feet as her tiredness worked its way through every muscle. Plus her knee was really starting to throb.
“Okay,” she agreed, shuffling toward him.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, really.”
“I'm sorry, I was talking to Lois Lane? You might know her, she was standing here just a second ago…” he joked.
Moving past him, she whacked his arm, and he dropped the tent flap back into place. “I’m tired. And I can’t run after that mummy again tomorrow if I don’t give this knee a rest tonight.”
She’d expected him to grin and offer to carry her back to the tent, but instead his eyes turned worried.
“I want you to promise me something,” he said seriously.
“What is it?” she asked, not willing to make a blind promise, even to Clark.
“If the mummy appears again, if
anything shows up that you feel the need to chase–”
“I’m still going after it,” she said hotly, her hands going to her hips to square off with him. “Just because we’re dating or a couple or whatever–whatever
this is–doesn’t mean you can tell me how to do my job.”
“Okay,” he said, looking slightly taken aback. He put his palms up in a gesture of surrender. “I– I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Oh,” she said, her anger plateauing.
“I was just going to ask that you wait up for me, just a little. So if something else happens, at least we’re in it together.”
“Oh,” she said again dumbly, as her anger deflated entirely.
“If someone carved that statue to look like you, it means you have their attention. They might not stop with the cave-in. They might still be after you.”
“I guess it’s possible,” she allowed.
“I just– I can’t imagine how today would have gone if I hadn't been in the same chamber with you, if I hadn’t known where you were, if I hadn’t been able to get to you.” His voice had that fear-bound, choked sound to it again.
He seemed so sincere.
But so had Paul. So had Claude. So had Lex.
Now that she knew Clark wanted to date her, she was starting to examine the motives behind everything he was saying.
“Are you trying to guilt me?” she asked earnestly, trying to sort between her past and her present.
“No,” Clark said. “I mean, not intentionally. I’m just worried. I’m not– I’m not trying to manipulate you.”
Until he proved her wrong, she would take him at his word.
It was rare that she offered someone the benefit of the doubt.
But the last year and a half was evidence enough that she could rely on the man standing in front of her.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” she confirmed.
“Okay, you believe I’m not trying to manipulate you?”
“Okay, I’ll make sure that you aren’t that far behind when I enter a new room. We’ll go in together.”
“Thank you, Lois,” he said, on a relieved exhalation. “I can’t tell you how much–”
“But the minute we’re back in Metropolis, you’re going running with me. At least three times a week,” she stipulated. “I’m not going to fall behind because you can’t keep up.”
His head tilted, and a smile tugged at his mouth. “It’s a date.”
He’d surprised her. That hadn’t been what she’d meant. She didn’t exactly mind… but she felt like he was somehow winning this conversation.
But instead of waiting for her retort, he slung an arm gently around her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get back to our own tent.”
They started walking toward it, and she felt anxiety take root. So if they were dating, did that mean that Clark had
expectations now? Their mats were right next to one another’s, a situation she’d been aggrieved by last night.
It seemed like he was taking things slow. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her back at the hotel.
But, as she’d learned from
all of her previous relationships, you never could really tell. At least, not until it was too late.
Still, this was
Clark. Her partner. Her best friend. He’d made it that far into her world for a reason. And so far, he was exactly on par with her expectations. On the ferry ride back over to this side of the river, he’d rested her hand in his, cupping it gently to not upset her bandages or the wounds beneath them. He’d given her a happy smile and sat back in his chair beside her, staring out over the water, seemingly happy just to be next to her. He hadn’t pushed things any further.
She’d offer him the benefit of the doubt until he proved her wrong about this, too.
But they probably ought to talk about it, or at least about
some of it. Talking through things in the tomb had helped them get this far.
Clark leaned his head briefly against hers. “Penny for your thoughts?”
But she chickened out immediately.
“Just wondering where Carnahan is,” she said instead.
“Maybe he snuck into Luxor again?” Clark suggested.
“The whole team could still be in the tombs, for all we know, cleaning up that mess,” she said, but Clark didn’t seem to have a reply to that.
Arriving at their tent a moment later, Clark tilted his head and he disengaged from her to reach for the tent flap, sparing her hands. “I have a feeling he’ll pop up where we’d least expect it.”
Raising an eyebrow at that sardonic comment, she stepped into the tent and found Carnahan sitting on Clark’s mat, staring at the entryway.
“What are you–”
“Keep your voice down,” he said quietly, standing to greet them. “I’m so glad to see you’re alright.”
“We’re glad to see you, too,” Clark said, matching his tone.
“What are you doing here?” Lois asked.
“I was worried about you both,” Carnahan admitted.
Lois took another step into the tent and wished again that she’d let Clark carry her. She rubbed her aching knee.
Clark immediately noticed, of course, as he had every time she’d given any indication she was in pain.
“Why don’t we sit?” he suggested, crouching down and offering up his arm for her to lean on.
She took it gratefully and tried not to overreact to his kind smile in front of a major source for their story.
Carnahan watched her as she lowered herself gingerly to the sand, favoring her injured knee.
“Where were you this afternoon?” she asked pointedly.
“I hadn’t heard that the chamber collapsed on you until this evening,” he sighed. “I was looking for a specific reference to a hieroglyphic and had to work through three libraries to find it.”
“At least that explains why we didn’t see you helping to dig out the cave with the others.”
“I assure you that if I’d known, I would have been–” Then he paused, and she could see him connecting the pieces. “You suspect
me. You suspect me of everything that’s been going on.”
“We
did,” she confirmed.
“But we don’t anymore,” Clark assured him.
“It is
not me,” Carnahan informed them.
“We know that now,” Clark said reassuringly.
“But why have you been acting so distant these last few days?”
Carnahan sighed. “The hieroglyphic. It's been driving me crazy. It looks like something that would be a major deviation from how they used those icons at that time. It could just be damage to the original painting. Or it could be a major key to unlocking some icons that we don’t yet fully understand. The viper placed in that position in relation to the loaf should mean–” He seemed to realize that he’d gotten off the subject. “I’m sorry. I’ve been consumed by the variance. You know us academics.”
She shot a righteous look at Clark, which he tamely received.
“But what changed your mind?” Carnahan asked. “Surely it couldn’t have helped that I was absent all afternoon, just as all this had befallen you.”
“Perry,” Lois confessed. “We called Perry and asked if he trusted you.”
“My old friend,” Carnahan said warmly, shaking his head. “I imagine he told you that he did.”
“He told us that he’d put his life in your hands.”
Carnahan pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Yes, I expect he did,” he said somberly. Then he cleared his throat and looked up at them. “Which is exactly why I think you should go home.”
“Go home?!” Lois exclaimed, remembering at the last moment to lower her voice. “Why in the world would we go home?! We’re finally getting somewhere.”
“As much affection as Perry has for me, I equally reserve for him. When I asked him for help, he sent me his best. But now, the way this has turned…I could rob him of you. This is getting too dangerous.”
“I’m not worried,” she tossed back cavalierly.
“I
am,” Carnahan insisted.
“That’s because you’re not used to this,” she said plainly. “You’re an academic. You study the things that already happened. But we make things happen right now in the present day. This is the kind of danger we live in. This is who we are. This is what we
do.”
“If it makes a difference,” Clark interjected, “I’m worried, too.”
She turned her head swiftly toward him with a look fit to accuse a traitor, but he gave her a look back that clearly asked him to trust her, so she extended the benefit of her doubt one more time.
“I’m worried,” Clark continued, “but we’ve seen this pattern before. If we go home, whoever is doing this won’t stop hurting other people. If we stop investigating, we may never find Wahid and Gamal. The Project could shut down. But if we
keep investigating them, we might be able to stop them from hurting anyone else and save the Project.”
Carnahan still looked torn.
Lois rolled her eyes. “Look, if we really get into trouble, we can call in back-up to get us out of a jam in a hurry. Really, you don’t have to worry about us.”
“You mean Superman?” Carnahan said astutely.
She shrugged, neither confirming or denying their ability to summon the hero. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure that he’d hear her across all this distance. But Clark had seemed so sure.
“You think he’d come back?”
“Back?” she asked, caught entirely off guard.
“He was here this evening,” Carnahan said.
“What?!”
“He stabilized the tomb. He cleared out the rubble from the cave-in. That would have taken us weeks, but he did it in minutes.”
“Wow,” she said, wholly surprised that Superman would show up in Egypt. “I’m sorry I missed him.”
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Clark adjust his glasses, and she shifted uncomfortably, realizing her new—boyfriend? Friend with benefits? Girl Friday?—might not appreciate her saying she missed her old crush.
“He also found the paper from the dynamite stick that sent the whole place down on you,” Carnahan continued.
“Dynamite? Really?” She looked at Clark fully. “You were right.” Then she looked back at Carnahan. “Where would they be able to get dynamite around here?”
Carnahan cringed. “It would be very easy, I’m afraid. We have it on-site in case we need to blast through bedrock. But we rarely use it. And in fact, we only use tiny portions of it, which is what was used on you.”
“So another thing where everyone knows how to use it and anyone who really wants access can get it,” she summarized.
“Unfortunately, so,” Carnahan agreed.
Rubbing her knee absently, she exchanged a look with Clark, who seemed to commiserate that they were at square one on that clue, too.
“I should let you rest,” Carnahan said, moving to stand. It seemed awkward enough for him to get up off the floor that she would have believed his injury was real after seeing him now, even without Perry’s confirmation.
“Good night, my friends. I”ll see you in the morning," he said, exiting the tent.
When he’d left, she looked at Clark and groaned, “Well, now what?”
“Now…sleep?” he suggested.
“First,” she said, “who do we have left as suspects?” Even so she carefully stood and all but limped over to her suitcase to dig out pajamas. She was more than ready to get out of the stained, torn, dusty shirt she was still wearing.
“Well, Dr. Weeks would still have had the most knowledge, opportunity, and access to do most of these things.”
She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense that he would sabotage his own project. Maybe I’m just biased because he pulled us out of that tomb, but he seemed so earnestly worried about us. I think he was about to crawl over me to dig you out when that pocket collapsed.” She bit her lip, her mind rejecting that memory. “He just doesn’t seem like a liar.”
“You also thought it might be Bashir.”
She sighed, not liking that option either. “He still makes sense as someone who has a lot of access and freedom. No one would question him except Dr. Weeks. He hasn’t been around every time we’ve seen the mummy. And earlier today you said he was mixing cement. Plus, if he’s from around here, maybe he has local accomplices.”
“That might depend on your definition of ‘around here’. He’s from Cairo, not Luxor,” Clark pointed out.
“He’s been in Luxor for seven years; that’s not enough time to make friends?”
“I guess so,” Clark said, nodding but not agreeing.
She pressed her fingers over her eyes. “They’re all bad suspects. We’re missing something. We need more information.”
“Do you want to search people's tents in the morning? Everyone would believe me if I said you needed to rest.”
That wasn’t the worst idea, but–
She looked up at him, surprised.
“You were going to suggest it anyway,” he said with a shrug.
“But I didn’t expect
you to suggest it.”
“We’re partners. Whatever one of us does, the other signs off on, right? I don’t know if it matters which one of us
suggests it.”
She recognized the reference to their conversation with Perry, but didn’t understand where this was coming from.
“What are you doing?” she asked a little sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Suggesting we sneak into other people’s tents; that’s not you. That’s
me.”
‘“I know. But, well, we usually end up doing it anyway, so why not just plan for it together?”
“So you’re giving up your boy scout ways?” she asked skeptically.
“No,” he said clearly. “But in the last year and a half, I think you’ve proven that a certain amount of deception, especially if it doesn’t hurt anyone, and if we don’t take anything unrelated to the investigation and if we don’t do much damage, well, it seems like it comes with the territory of stopping the bad guys.”
“Really?” she asked disbelievingly.
“Look, you said that you would try to find ways to give me more of a voice in this partnership, so I’m trying to find ways to make it easier for you, too. I know it makes you crazy when I argue about things like that because once we do it, we always find what we’re looking for.”
She felt slightly mollified by that…until he ran his hand through his hair and said, “Plus, I guess I just think that we can pick our battles better.”
“What does
that mean?” she asked defensively.
“I mean that we argue. We bicker
a lot. And a lot of the time it’s fun and honestly, I love fighting with you about something that we’re both passionate about. But sometimes it makes it hard to know what’s a real fight about something that matters and what’s a silly fight about something that doesn’t matter in the long run. So if we’re going to do this—to be work partners and also be… outside-of-work partners…” He cringed at his wording. “I’ll work on that. But, I think, maybe, I can try to start focusing on the really big stuff, like whether we want to tell people at the
Planet that we’re, you know, dating, and the little stuff, like, whether Double Fudge Crunch Bars or malted milk balls are better, but cut out more of the middle stuff.”
“Double Fudge Crunch Bars,” she judged without thinking about it, still sifting through the rest of what he’d said. “So you want to argue less?”
“I want to communicate
better.”
She nodded slowly, her mind still rolling all that over. It sounded like compromise. But it didn’t sound like she was the one making it. He was the one that had proposed it in the first place and didn’t seem to mind it.
“You want to tell people at the
Planet?” she asked, her eyebrows knit together.
“I want to tell
everyone,” he said, his voice dropping low and tentative, even though she could see joy spark behind his eyes.
It made her feel warm all over–but it also made her shift her weight back on her heels.
She didn’t want to tell
anyone, especially at work. At least he knew her well enough that he knew this would be one of the big fights.
“What would we tell them?” she asked cautiously.
“We can tell them whatever you want to tell them. That we’re dating. That we’re together. That we finally figured it out,” he chuckled.
But she didn’t feel like she had figured it out. She felt like they had agreed that they’d both wanted
something down in the dark, but now it felt as undefinable as the answer to their investigation.
“Lois?” His voice had turned gentle and probing.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, wringing her hands, and instantly regretting it. “Ouch!’
He got up off the sand and moved toward her, taking her bandaged hands delicately in his. “You’re Lois Lane. I think you can pretty much do anything.”
She shook her head. “I’m not good at
this.”
“At what?”
“At
relationships,” she said, saying the word as if it was a painful chore. “I usually go on a few dates with someone I can easily blow off just to satisfy my mother’s nagging or to have someone around in case I need a plus one for a work thing.”
“What about Luthor?” he asked, a tick activating in his jaw. “You were engaged.”
“That was almost
less like a real relationship somehow. He was wooing me like it was a project, like there was a script. I didn’t have to do anything. And we never really…” She felt herself blush, rooting around for the words for this. “We never really got…that…close,” she said hesitatingly.
His thumbs moved soothingly along the back of her hands. “Lois, I don’t think we should…rush into anything.”
“I don’t mean that,” she said quickly. “I mean, I don’t know how
this part works. We haven’t even
kissed yet–I mean, not really, not for real; the times in the airplane and the honeymoon suite and with the pheromones don’t count. And I don’t want to tell people at work because I don’t need to be looking over my shoulder for their gossip while we
are figuring this out, because I don’t think we’ve done that. Are we ‘together’? Are we just dating around? Are we exclusive?” She finally drew breath, feeling like that had gotten away from her. But her anxiety had had time to build between the hospital and the hotel and finding their way back on-site.
“I’d like to be,” Clark said sweetly.
But she had to mentally backtrack to what she’d actually just said to catch up with him.
“You’d like to be exclusive?" she asked, finally looking up at him.
He was smiling at her, the look in his eyes tender. “Yeah, I’d like to be exclusive, officially together, boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever you want to call it. If that’s what you want,” he amended.
“I– That sounds…good,” she finished dumbly.
“And as for the other thing, I think maybe we just need to get a little more comfortable,” he said, one of his hands moving up to cup her cheek.
Her mind flashed back to when he’d done that in the tomb, and she realized, with baited breath, nerves fluttering in her chest, that he was about to kiss her.
He leaned in, and her eyes fluttered shut.
She felt him kiss her temple with painstaking gentleness.
And she exhaled in relief, leaning into him, her nerves settling.
Pulling a few inches away, he said, “We can just…”
He leaned in again and kissed her eyelid on the opposite side of her face.
“...get to know each other…”
His kiss moved lightly back again to her other cheek.
“...all over again.”
And his lips trailed down to the corner of her mouth, just millimeters away from her own lips.
Leaning his forehead against hers, he said, “We can take our time.”
But as her nerves dissolved away under his tender touch, her anticipation built. They might have all the time in the world, but she didn’t want to wait.
She raised her face up, her nose nuzzling his, a mirror of the way he’d caressed her in the tomb.
“I’ve never been very patient,” she heard herself say, in a voice so breathy it didn’t even sound like hers.
She wasn’t sure if he’d kissed her or if she’d kissed him or if they’d both moved together, her asking and him instinctively acquiescing to her fervent request.
Time stilled as they connected.
And thank goodness for that, because this was the first time she hadn’t been actively working on denying any ideas about kissing Clark while she’d been doing it, and the way they fit together, the molds of their mouths complementing each other's to create an addictive unity, was just about undoing her.
He shifted, slanting his mouth tenderly against hers as he willingly gave in to her impatience. And she realized that he must have been holding back all those other times he’d kissed her. Because the way he moved against her was so gentle, but the intent behind it was bordering on combustible—surely that was why she felt warm all over?
His other hand came up to her cheek, his palms framing her face, and he slowly, agonizingly, pulled away.
And when they finally pulled back, they were both smiling.
“More comfortable?” he asked.
“Yeah. Much,” she grinned. “Now what?”
He rolled his eyes at the callback to her asking the same question earlier.
“Finally, sleep,” he said.
“Sleep,” she agreed, fighting another yawn.
Going back to her suitcase to finally uncover her pajamas, her eye caught on the double mats that for all intents and purposes formed a single bed. And she felt her pulse spike again. After that kiss, she couldn’t say that she wasn’t at least interested. But it felt like way too soon for a lot more to happen. Even Clark had said they needed to get to know each other all over again.
But Clark already knew her pretty well, it seemed.
He called her name, pulling her attention from the waiting mats.
“You are just as safe with me as you were last night,” he said sincerely. “I promise.”
She believed him.
She nodded and he headed out of the tent, heading to the left and most likely toward the limited facilities.
Reassured, she changed into her own clean, soft, not-at-all-torn-or-dusty pajamas, and crawled beneath the light coverlet on her thick mat. Closing her eyes, she reached for unconsciousness.
*****
Following the pattern of this entire foray into the desert, though, sleep did not come easily.
If she lay on her stomach, her battered legs screamed at her; the position put her knee at a bad angle.
If she lay on her side, the enormous bruise that she couldn’t even remember getting inside her upper arm throbbed.
If she lay on her back, her back and chest hurt. While she hadn’t fully fractured her ribs, she’d certainly bruised them in the original fall. Apparently, lying supine made them angry.
She gingerly flopped back over to her other side and hoped for the best.
Her knee started to throb.
Followed by her ribs.
And finally her arm.
She was going to scream.
Instead, she let out an exhausted sigh and tried to stretch out her arm so that it didn’t touch anything while keeping her top half rolled on its side and pressing her hips flat into the ground.
Everything still hurt.
“Can’t sleep?”
Opening her eyes, she looked over at him,
He was lying on his back, watching her with sympathy written across his face.
“Everything hurts all of a sudden,” she grumbled.
“Did you take the pain medication they prescri–”
“Yes, and it’s not doing anything,” she snapped with frustration, bending her knee in a pathetic bid to elevate it.
“Come here,” he said, pulling back his coverlet.
She looked at him, feeling her eyebrows go up.
“Just trust me,” he said.
Even fighting off a potential advance, especially from one of the nicest guys in the world, had to be better than lying here and rolling over and over into exhaustion but never getting to rest.
So she slid closer, and he rolled on his side, carefully pulling her in against his chest. He stretched out his arm beneath her, pillowing her head on his shoulder, and slid his knee beneath hers.
She felt her anxiety rise, in a flash that this was too much, before she realized that none of her injuries were hurting nearly as much as they had been.
Exhaling a breath, she took a moment to take stock: her ribs, arm, and knee had all fallen quiet. Her arm and knee were both slightly elevated, and her ribs were supported by Clark’s broad chest. His arms were tenderly encircling her, and she could feel the steady rise and fall of his breath against her back. No, she realized, she wasn’t uncomfortable
at all. The overwhelmed feeling fell away, surprise and gratitude rushing in.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“I translated for you at the hospital. I know everywhere it hurts. I just took the pressure off all those points,” he said, his voice somewhere between sleep and something that sounded suspiciously close to bliss. Then he leaned forward a little and kissed her temple again before falling back into position. “Goodnight, Lois.”
Feeling herself relax fully into him, she replied, “Goodnight, Clark.”
She chastised herself for doubting him. Honestly, what was she expecting, a scene from
Ivory Tower? She tallied another point in Clark’s favor as evidence of his deserving the benefit of her doubts. In the tomb, with stone crumbling around them, he’d told her she knew him better than anyone else. And she was starting to feel like she really did.
Assuming she’d be too distracted at their proximity to really sleep, she started recounting mentally where everyone was during the mummy sightings.
But she hadn’t even gotten past Dr. Weeks’ whereabouts when she drifted into a peaceful, deep, healing sleep.
