Ah hah. Chapter 8. Thank you everyone who has reviewed thus far, and hopefully this will get a few more sparks for reviews coming.

<pokes stick into fire to stir up the dying ashes>

SUPER-DUPER MAJOR ANGSTY WHAMMY!

Disclaimer: Still not mine, still not betaed.

Additional disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I am a 19-year-old college student working for a math/English major, have never had to go to the hospital, and have absolutely no experience in a medical field of any kind beyond basic high school physiology. Any mistakes in the medical equipment, etc., is my fault. Any abnormalities in any reaction is defended by the fact that Superman is, indeed, an alien, so I have a certain range of freedom.

(Continue at your own risk)...

Er...Enjoy?

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Chapter 8: White, Red, and Green are not Happy Christmas Colors…

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Superman dragged himself backwards as best could, then wrapped his arms wrapping around his torso to try to shield himself as a guard stepped in, gun at the ready. Logram followed with the rolling metal table. Clark couldn’t see the dreaded green crystal, but its presence coursed through him and he shivered against the white wall as if trying to huddle into it and disappear. Lois stood up, her own face paling.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, stepping protectively in front of Superman and staring down at the gathering of large men before her. “He’s not ready. He can hardly walk.”

“He doesn’t need to walk, Miss Lane,” Logram said, stepping forward calmly. “We just need a few more samples, that’s all.”

Superman gasped, shuddering terribly and pushing himself even farther away. He looked up at the doctor with shadowed eyes.

“L-logram,” he forced out. “Y-you must have some s-shred of hum-humanity in you. D-don’t do this.”

Logram blinked at him, as if surprised to find that his alien specimen could talk—though Lois knew he had to have already known, considering the camera.

“Come on. We don’t want him to become too weakened,” a second, short doctor spoke from behind him. He peeked out at Lois with slightly frightened, watery eyes behind thick-framed glasses. He looked like a thin rodent.

The guard stepped forward, warning Lois away as two of his fellows came forward to take him. Superman struggled as their hands took hold of his shoulders, but he was already weak and the presence of kryptonite made him completely helpless as they pulled him forward.

Lois couldn’t just stand there. She jumped forward, but even as she began to dive in to fight tooth and nails, one of the guards turned sharply, hitting the side of her face with the butt of his rifle. The force of the blow sent her sprawling, and for a second she struggled to stand, disoriented while the white lights of the room seemed to flash before her vision. Clutching her head, she staggered back to her feet. The guard grabbed her, keeping her from getting to Superman as they lay him down on the table and secured his arms and legs with strong cloth bindings.

“Lois!” Superman’s voice was close to frantic as he struggled to look up and see her. He had heard the hit of metal on flesh and Lois’s following cry, and it struck even through the present coursing fear, chasing away even the terrifying feel of their hands on him, of the kryptonite’s burning fire boiling his blood, of the cold metal beneath him, and the pain as they wrenched his injured to bind it firm.

“No! Logram, let me stay with him,” Lois said, not caring if she was pleading as she strained against the guard that held her. Panic seized her chest so she could hardly breathe—her voice was desperate. She just knew she couldn’t let him out of her sight again. She couldn’t leave him alone. If he had to suffer, she wanted him to know that there was something beyond this…something real beyond this darkest of dreams.

“From last time, Miss Lane, I have doubts that you have the stomach for it,” Logram said, glancing briefly yet significantly towards the toilet where Lois had been violently ill when she had first been brought here. “Besides, considering your track record, I don’t see why I should risk it.”

Lois hesitated, desperate. “Just let me be there,” she pleaded. She knew it would kill her to stand there and do nothing—but maybe an opportunity would present itself, and she could not miss it. Despite the fact that she wanted nothing more but to quiver into a ball on that too-small bed and forget everything that was happening, she couldn’t. “Please.”

Logram looked at her for a long moment, then turned away. “Fine,” he said. “But one false move, Miss Lane, and you won’t ever see the alien again. Understand?”

She was near petrified at the thought of being separated from Superman in this hole, especially if he was hurt so badly again. Even if she managed to escape, it would be near impossible to save him too if he were locked away somewhere else. She would have to be very, very careful. She nodded slowly.

Logram turned, gesturing for one of the guards to take Lois as the other two pushed Superman out in front of them. Lois pulled forward, wanting to be at his side, but the guard’s grip was firm.

“Let me walk next to him, at least,” Lois snapped at him, though her voice quavered. The guard glanced at Logram, who nodded in a preoccupied manner as he poured over some notes. Lois pulled out of the guard’s handhold and reached forward to grab Superman’s hand, though it was held tight and close to the table, so the grip felt awkward against the cold metal.

Superman was pale as death and sweating already for fear. Lois’s grip on his hand was surely painful, but he just squeezed her hand back, though his fingers quivered. His dark eyes sought up for hers—he could not raise his head, as it was bound down by a restraint about his brow.

“Are you…okay?” he asked, noting the red mark that stained her fear-white face. “D-did they hurt you?” He managed to keep a relatively strong tone in his voice. They had put the kryptonite away, for now, and he needed to be brave for Lois’s sake, no matter that his fear was almost enough to break him down into gibbering, weeping and pleading for help, mercy, anything.

Lois’s own skin was pale, and even slightly green from her own fear even while as they stepped into the hall, the floor cold under her bare feet. Her eyes seemed to be moving constantly over the men around her, the walls, anywhere but at Superman, as if afraid she would break down if she looked at him. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. At his intent question, however, she looked down at him and had to look away quickly to stop the tears that were threatening to flow forth at his selflessness. She nodded, closing her eyes against a sudden burning in her eyes.

They entered the room. The cold grey metal held darker memories and a darker future than even the hated whiteness of their cell. They wheeled Superman to the center of the room, and began hooking him up to the monitors again. He breathed deeply, trying not to show the extent of his fear, though he knew he was trembling. The guard that had been watching Lois like a hawk (from a safe distance), now stepped forward to take her back.

“No,” Lois tightened her grip on Superman’s hand. “Let me stay with him.” She spoke to Logram, who was carefully examining an awfully long, nasty-looking needle. It was clear his word was law, here.

“If you don’t get in the way,” Logram said, not looking at her. “And remember the risk you’re taking, Miss Lane.” Lois nodded.

“Wh—what are you going to do?” she asked, her mouth dry, but she had to ask.

The mousy-looking doctor lifted a needle that was much smaller than the one Logram held and came forward. “More blood tests, for one. Some x-rays, and a bone marrow extract.” At that last thing, Lois turned white.

“B-bone marrow? Why?”

“Bone marrow is where blood cells are created,” the short doctor continued, twitching slightly under her gaze. “At least, in humans that how it works, and we are assuming it is the same in this case. It may be the key to unlocking the secret of his immune system. Excuse me.”

Lois didn’t want to be removed from Superman’s side, so she moved up to his shoulder and put her hand there as the doctor gestured her to the side. He swabbed the inside of Superman’s arm with a disinfectant pad, then felt around before sticking the needle in. Superman looked away, closing his eyes as the vial filled with dark red blood. As the needle was removed and the doctor stepped away, he opened his eyes and looked at Lois.

“Lois,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to have to see this.”

“I don’t care,” Lois replied, softly and tight.

Superman looked at her, his eyes looking deep into hers and seeing her tightly-restrained fear. He cleared his throat.

“Logr—” he began, speaking louder to attract the doctor’s attention. Lois saw the sacrificing look on his face and understood what he was going to do even as he opened his mouth. She slapped her hand over his mouth so quickly that he winced.

“Don’t,” Lois hissed softly, lightning flashing in her eyes. “I am old enough to make my own decisions, Superman. You can’t protect me from this.” She eased her hand away from his mouth and brushed his hair back tenderly. “It would kill me to leave you, now.”

Superman expression was dark, but slowly he let out a long, tense breath. His eyes didn’t leave hers. He wanted to lose himself in them; drowning in those depths would be the best fate he could think of right now.

Lois was forced to step back as they took two more vials of blood and then moved Superman over for the x-ray machines, for which they placed him on a plastic-looking bed covered in a thick sort of black pad and moved a great large panel over various angles of him slowly. Lois stayed hovering as close as she could, catching Superman’s eye whenever she could, but for the most part his expression was becoming more bleak, and he avoided her gaze as they moved him back onto the metal table. Lois stood at his head and gripped his shoulder.

Logram reached for the very large needle and Lois’s breath caught. “Can’t you give him something?” she demanded, albeit more weakly than she would have liked. “So he can’t feel it as much? Or even knock him out?”

Logram looked at her. “All the blood and tissue tests we’ve done so far have proven to have no effect from the basic anesthetics and painkillers,” he said. “And we aren’t going to put something in him that we don’t know the reaction of—it could kill the specimen.”

He was back to ‘the specimen.’ Lois’s stomach was so tense she felt sick. She gripped Superman’s hand as the doctor cut away a square of his bright blue suit in the center of his thigh and cleaned his skin with a swab.

Superman had shut his eyes, but had gone strangely still. His muscles were tense as stone beneath Lois’s hand on his shoulder, and his breathing was tense and tightly controlled.

Logram lifted the needle and came over.

“Superman,” Lois breathed, reaching up to brush his face with a shaking hand. She didn’t want to look. “Just listen to me, Superman. Try not to feel it—just listen to me.”

Logram glanced at her, but must have decided she wasn’t doing any harm. With a glance at the soldier to make sure he was looming within reach of her, he dismissed her presence.

“It’s going to be okay. Just listen to me.” She stopped, because suddenly Superman shuddered and his grip was tightened on her hand—and it would have been painfully so, had he not already been so weakened. Logram had pressed the needle into his thigh and was working it deeper through skin and muscle. Blood welled up around the needle’s hole. Clark gasped, sweat breaking out all over as he pulled instinctively away—straining at the bindings that held him down.

“Superman!” Lois knelt down, gripping his hand back as she leaned close to his face and cupped his tightened jaw. It took all of her willpower and more not to turn around and attack the doctor as he pried around in Superman’s flesh, but she couldn’t. She would lose him, else. Pain so intense it was almost physical lanced through her heart. “It’s going to be over soon. Just hold on.”

He gasped again, letting out a soft cry of pain as he twitched with a violent flinch. Lois grasped his hand tightly, her hand shaking as she ran her fingers gently down his sweating face. He grit his teeth, clearly trying to be strong for Lois’s sake, but a groan set deep in his throat edged it’s way out, ending in another desperate almost-scream as Logram twisted the needle in his leg. Lois couldn’t help it—she looked back at the doctor.

“What’s taking so long?” she asked, her voice shaking at the sight of Superman’s suffering.

“His bone structure is still strangely dense,” Logram murmured, moving the needle as if feeling for something deep within Superman’s leg. Superman choked on something that sounded like a sob. Blood covered Logram’s white gloves, now. He glanced briefly at the mouse-looking doctor, who was hovering nearby with a nervous air. “I’m going to need the kryptonite, I think, Matthews.”

The nervous man nodded and bumbled forward, drawing from a drawer the carefully-wrapped kryptonite.

“No!” Lois cried.

“You want to save him pain, Miss Lane?” Logram snapped. “The kryptonite will only make this easier.” He nodded at Dr. Matthews, who hesitated only a moment before opening the bag and clumsily dropping the glowing stone into his hands.

The change was horrific. Lois had seen the effects of kryptonite on Superman before, but combined with the already-present pain it was too much for him fight, even with Lois beside him.

Superman choked on a scream, straining against the bonds. Blood swelled at the needle’s entry point and began soaking the blue tight leg a dark purple. Logram swore, grabbing some towels and pressing them around his leg to catch the blood flow. He gestured for Matthews. “Hold the crystal close here. And hand me that scalpel.”

Matthews brought the crystal forward, casting a sickly green light over Superman’s bright suit and blood.

Lois leaned forward, slipping her hand from his quivering grip and putting both hands on the sides of his face. Tears dripped from her eyes onto his face, mingling with the sweat of anguish that beaded his brow. His skin was cold, every muscle tight with agony.

“Superman,” Lois whispered as Logram took the scalpel from Matthews. “Superman, hang on. It will be all right. It’s almost over.”

“L-L-Lois…” he gasped out. He inhaled sharply as Matthews rested the kryptonite on his knee burning him through his suit. He swore, breathing out a ragged, broken prayer. “Lo-is…”

“I’m here,” Lois said brokenly. “I’m here, Superman.”

Clark choked as he struggled against the pain and the shaking of his body for air.

Behind her, Logram took the scalpel and cut deep into Superman’s leg.

TBC...

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