Hello, all! Thanks for the reviews everyone was so generous to bestow upon me and this story. They are, as always, most appreciated.
Enjoy,
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Chapter 11: Life is but a Waking Dream
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Superman slept, too exhausted and weak to even dream.
Lois didn’t feel much better. Her eyes were heavy, but every time her eyelids slid shut the images would come back to her. She would wake up with a start, her heart beating away frantically as she looked around, but there was nothing but the white room, and on the bed, a sleeping Superman. Or maybe he had lapsed into unconsciousness. From the shallow, hoarse sound of his breath she couldn’t tell.
She must have dozed off eventually, however, because she was awoken from the rising horror of a nightmare from the beeping of the door as it opened.
Lois was on her feet before she knew it—standing between Superman and the door as she leaped from one nightmare to another.
Oh, no. Not again. Not so soon. Lois’s watch showed only a few bare hours had passed—it was close to six in the evening. Behind her Superman had frozen. He had been laying there for some time floating between waking and sleep in a white void of thoughtlessness, watching Lois sleep. He had wanted to move to wake her when he had seen her begin to flinch in the beginnings of a nightmare, but she was out of his good arm’s reach, and he lacked the present strength to rise and go to her.
When the guard had come in everything had flown out the open door faster than even his normal super-speed. Panic settled in like a white cloud, and he lay there, petrified.
A guard moved in slightly, carrying the tray holding their supper. The man looked at her, looked at Superman, shook his head, and left the tray without a word.
Lois let her shoulder’s fall. She let her hands unclench, let herself feel the trembling of her arms. Superman began to breathe again behind her. Even as she relaxed, the door opened again and Logram stepped in.
Lois froze stock-still, and Superman went completely still in mid-breath.
He glanced at Superman, then actually smiled at Lois. “Ah. Good afternoon.” He pulled in a cart after him, and Lois stepped back as she saw the clean needle lying on the metal surface. Lois felt as if her heart might explode in her chest.
Logram looked at them again, seemingly realized that neither of them had breathed since he entered the room. He smiled again, even as he gestured two guards to follow him in, as if either of the room’s occupants was in the position to put up a fight. Though Lois looked ready to try.
Logram took another step and Lois jerked forward, planting herself directly in his path with a stance that shouted, ‘I am not moving,’ though her face was pale and her small frame looked laughable before the three large men.
The doctor actually looked tired. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “Gentlemen, if you could please help Miss Lane to the side. This is getting…bothersome.”
Of course, shouldn’t take two men to take the little lady. After shrugging at each other one of the soldiers stepped forward. Lois was sick and tired of being the helpless bystander; she didn’t wait before swinging her leg up for a hefty kick, and though the man blocked it she was already springing in with her fists and teeth ready to fight—to the death, if it could keep these men away from Superman…Kal-El.
She heard a satisfying grunt as she butted her head against the man’s face, making blood spring from his nose like a broken faucet. A heavy fist struck Lois on the side of the head and the lights flashed. She hit the ground hard, but even before she had a chance to register the new bruises hard fingers dug into her arm and lifted her, holding her in a body-bind despite her fruitless struggles.
She swore at them. “You monsters! Don’t touch him! Superman! Kal-El!”
Superman was laying there, too weak to move, but his eyes grew wide in sheer terror as he watched Logram step forward. The doctor leaned down, calmly took hold of Superman’s good arm and twisted it to clean the inside of his elbow again. Superman flinched away from his touch, his breath growing more frantic, but Logram’s grip was unyielding.
He sank the needle into Superman’s arm, then perfunctorily drew the syringe full of blood and set it aside. He drew two more before pulling off his white gloves and pushing the cart back towards the door.
He glanced back at Lois, who was still straining, and then at Superman.
“See? That wasn’t so bad was it?” He gave a crooked smile. The guard holding Lois pushed her roughly away from the door and followed Logram and his injured co-soldier out.
The door locked with a beep.
Lois had fallen to the floor with the last shove, but she stood up quickly, glancing at the drops of the guard’s blood that had fallen on the white floor, further tarnishing their clean habitat.
She moved to Superman’s side and looked down on him, taking his hand automatically.
“Kal-El?”
He looked faintly green. “I—I think I’m going to be s-sick,” he said, his voice strained.
Lois looked about frantically, her eyes quickly settling on the bowls that held the newest mixture of liquid and lumps. She grabbed one bowl, dumped it clean over the other one so that it overflowed and the broth slopped over the side and onto the tray. She whirled around, holding the bowl beside Superman just in time.
It wasn’t pretty. Superman didn’t have much to lose—he hadn’t eaten much lunch, and his appetite had been steadily dwindling meal-by-meal, but still he heaved and lost whatever little he had managed to keep in his stomach thus far. He continued to heave even once that was gone, and Lois held him up, rubbing her hand along his shaking shoulders—over the red cape that had become so well known.
She vaguely noticed the zipper she could feel beneath the red fabric, and was surprised to find that it was a much rougher material than she would have thought. Of course, she didn’t really know what she had expected—some sort of invincible material, or something, but this just felt…normal. Like some polyester or nylon mix. The kind you can pick up at the fabric store across the street from the grocery store.
Lois shook her head at herself. Her mind was tired—frantic, and exhausted from the constant state of adrenaline and fear—and seemed to be running off on even more tangents than usual.
Superman seemed finished—he hung limply in her arms like a dead fish, but quivering, and Lois gently helped turn him so he was lying back down.
“S-sorry,” Clark gasped, shaking from the exertion.
He didn’t look like he could hold up under a Mad-Dog glare, and Lois honestly didn’t feel like giving one right then. She just stood up, flushed the bowls contents down the drain, washed her hands, and then came back with a cup of water.
“Here,” she said, sitting down and beginning to lift his head again.
“I-I’m all right,” Clark murmured, licking his lips.
“Be quiet,” Lois said, softly, but still Clark flinched slightly. She didn’t have the energy to deal with this right now. Her own hands were shaking. “Just drink it.”
He did, albeit it was only a little bit. Lois soothed his brow with the tear from her pant leg that she had used to bring down his fever…was it only two nights ago? It felt like a lifetime ago. Now his forehead was just cold, despite the sweat that had broken out in the wake of his fear.
She was surprised to find that his head wound had broken open again, and dried blood ran thick down the back of his head, so the white sheets of the bed were stained a dark red, fading out to a pink like a tie-dyed shirt from the eighties. She dabbed at it gently, brushing his hair from his eyes as he seemed insistent on doing, though it seemed to pain him…even with his good arm, she noted, having noticed a flinch earlier when he had reached up his left arm to try and plaster his hair back.
Suspicious, she reached down, turning his good arm slowly to see the inside of his elbow. Her stomach clenched as she saw the mottled bruises from the needles there—little red pin-pricks surrounded by a small yet angry circle of deep blue-black from the sharp metal’s cruel intrusion. Some of the bruises were so close that they overlapped. Logram had not been gentle, and the three newest bruises we leaking small drops of blood.
She wiped at those, wincing with Superman as she brushed gently against the bruises. She noted that the arm cast was near half-soaked with blood now—a good deal of it new—and it was leaving a faint stain across Superman’s suit where his arm rested. But there was nothing to be done about that.
The kryptonite must have done it, Lois realized. The effect of the crystal must have caused the wounds to break right open. By all that’s good, she thought. What did it do to him?
He was even paler than before, and Lois was increasingly concerned about loss of blood. She didn’t feel hungry, but nonetheless she lifted the tray and filled one of the spoons with some broth.
“Kal-El?”
Clark winced slightly at the use of his birth name. He wanted to tell her the truth. She deserved the truth. But he couldn’t. Not here, not now.
He didn’t feel hungry. He felt…weak. Sapped of his strength beyond even the power of kryptonite. He felt ill, but even the rolling of his stomach felt sluggish.
“I’m not very hungry right now, Lois,” he said, his voice a rough, painful rumble.
“I don’t think either of us is,” Lois said. Then, hesitantly, “Come on, Kal. You need it.”
He acquiesced only in hopes of soothing the dark worry in Lois’s eyes. His stomach could only bear so much, however. Lois set aside the bowl, taking none for herself. Clark noted this.
“What about you?”
Lois gave a slight shrug. “I’m not hungry either, but I—I don’t have anything to recover from.”
Superman’s expression wasn’t satisfied. In fact, he looked like he was about to try and feed her himself, if she didn’t change her mind, even though his breathing was labored just laying there, as he was. Lois rolled her eyes, picked up the bowl, and put a spoonful of the soup in her mouth.
“There, happy?”
Clark managed the smallest smile, just for her.
TBC...
