Special thanks to Saavikam over at the Planet Forum and Shado/Dandello for suggestions about a certain camera and the issue of Superman’s suit…
Longer chapter today. Enjoy.
Please remember to review!
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Chapter 13: To the End
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“Here,” Lois lifted a spoonful of soup up and held it towards him, her hand more or less steady. Superman lay completely limp and pale on the bed. His skin was clammy and cold, not matter how much Lois tried to warm him. He looked at her bleakly, then turned his face away. It was a day after that visit by Logram, and Superman had only gone downhill, and his spirit along with his ebbing physical strength.
“Lois…I c-can’t.”
“Superman, you have to eat,” Lois urged, still bringing the spoon closer. She actually brushed the warm spoon against his lips, leaving a drop of moisture there, but he didn’t open his mouth. His eyes were half-shut—like a dying animal—though his eyes still followed her face wearily as if it were all that tied him down to reality. His breathing was rough and forced—every gulp of air sounded like a struggle for life itself.
“It—doesn’t matter, Lois. You…you heard Logram.” Superman said in his increasingly weakened voice. Clark shuddered. Despair hung over him like a black cloak in the white room. Just as terrifying as his physical weakness was the increasing mist he was beginning to feel in his mind. Minutes would pass and he wasn’t sure what had happened—or maybe the time was longer. He didn’t have a watch, and wouldn’t have had the strength to check it even if he did. He was half dead already, and he knew it—distantly, surreally, and the irony was that the only thing that told him he was alive and not floating in that veil beyond death was the constant, thrumbing pain. And Lois. Oh, Lois. He would have died already if not for her.
But maybe it was better this way, that it should end this soon. At least it wouldn’t drag out long. “B-ut at least it will be over. You have to promise me, Lois…p-promise me that you’ll…go back to your life. Forget all about m-me, if you need to. Th-this…it’s just a bad d-dream. You need to…to wake up and let it go.” He hated how his words slurred together, like a drunk. But he’d never been drunk. He couldn’t get drunk. He was an alien, and so alcohol didn’t affect him. He shivered.
Lois looked at him for a moment, darkness and the terrible memories that were stored behind her eyes building up like an angry wave. She stood suddenly and threw the bowl of soup at the clean wall with a scream resounding with anger, desperation, and helplessness. She stood there for a moment, quivering with long-suppressed emotion, the only sound in the room the dripping of the soup down the once-white wall to pool on the floor.
Lois’s eyes were anguished and full of tears, but she was too tired and angry to let them fall. She didn’t turn to look at him.
“What do you think I am?” Lois’s voice was heartbreakingly soft. “I have told you that you’re as much of a human as it could possibly matter, but…I am a human too. I can’t just…turn off my heart, erase my mind and say, forget this—it doesn’t matter. Kal-El, it wouldn’t matter if they did let me go…” A single tear fell onto her cheek. “I—I can’t live through this without you. This nightmare has become the only real life I have ever known—everything else has become a dream. You have become my only reality, and if you let go…there won’t be anything left.” She finally turned, tears trailing down her face. “I—I can’t go through this alone. I…I can’t go through this without you.”
“Lois…”
Lois sat down beside him again, gently putting her fingers over his lips to silence him.
“I don’t want any apologies, flyboy. I don’t want any excuses, further explanations, or rationalizations for me to leave if they’ll let me. We’re in this together, no matter what.” She traced his jaw with her fingertips.
“But if…when I die…”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“When I die, Lois,” Clark insisted, his heart heavy. “You must know by now that there’s no chance we’re getting out of here—not both of us, anyway—alive.” He was just sorry it had to be so soon. There was so much he had left to see…so much he had left to do, and his parents…
And his body. No doubt they really would cut it open like a frog, in the end. He swallowed, feeling a weak rise of bile in his throat, and the white wall of terror rising up where he had shoved it behind the white mist in his mind. When Lois spoke it pulled back once again.
“This is something beyond the ‘till death do you part,’ Kal-El,” Lois said. And she knew it. He was expecting death, now. But Lois knew that if he died, it didn’t matter if Logram kept his promise and let her go, she would never be able to go back living. Something had happened. She knew the man behind the suit, now, and she realized she loved him. Loved him so much that the childish fetish she had had with his adopted character—Superman—was like a piece of paper beside a steel wall reinforced a thousand times over. The time here had been horrible, and if she could she would that she could wake up and have this all be a terrible nightmare, but as it were she knew that there was no where she would rather be than here, at Kal-El’s side. For him.
Clark sighed. She didn’t understand. The stress and oppression of this place was as much of a torture for her as it was for him. He could see it in her shadowed, scared eyes, in the dark circles that testified of little restful sleep, of the bruise that now discolored her right cheek from where the guard had struck her. From the careful way she moved he didn’t doubt that she had other bruises from their rough handling.
She was being drawn to him because of that fear and oppression. Everyone in this world felt like the bad guys, and so here she was, overestimating her own dependence on him, because there was no one else, here. She could move on without him. She had to.
He looked over at the smear of soup across the wall. Together with the dark and flaking blood that smattered across the floor from the soldier’s bloody nose the night before, it was the beginning of something beautiful. The Art of Lois Lane’s Fury. No doubt people would come from all corners of the world to see it, if it were ever to be discovered by someone who could let it see the light of day.
“I started working at the Daily Planet when I was 18, Superma—Kal-El,” Lois began. “It consumed my life. Sure, I went on some dates, even had a couple relationships, but…well…the closest I had to a friend these six years was my sister, Lucy, and…we don’t even get along that well.” She moved forward to take his hand—he wasn’t looking at her. “Superman, until you came along…my life was work. I mean, if I disappeared…I suppose my family might notice, and Perry…but that’s it. No one really cared, you know?”
“You’re a good man, Superman. Besides saving my life…a few times…you’re…you’re Superman. You’re selfless, brave, heroic…kind, and….you have a sense of humor even in the worst of times. And without you…there’s nothing. I can’t go back to that.”
Yes you can, Lois, Clark thought, but was wise enough to keep the thought to himself. He knew how strong she was, now more than ever. She could do it. She could live, even after this journey to the boundary of darkness and death. She had to.
-------------------------------------------------
It was a week after their capture. The days blurred after those first few days of pain and terror, fading together like the details of a dream that slips away as one looks back after coming to wakefulness. Superman grew weaker, almost in a comatose state, hardly eating, and sleeping almost all the time. They hooked him up to an IV in hopes of improvement, and it slowed his steady decent into nothingness, but nothing more.
They had continued taking blood samples, but even those had grown fewer and farther between as if the doctors could feel the falling doom upon the room and were hesitant to increase the shadow’s fall. Lois was slowly being driven mad by inactivity and helplessness. She sat on Kal-El’s bedside over most of the days, watching the slow drip, drip, drip of the IV as it marked the passing seconds, minutes, hours, and days.
Yet within this fading dream of existence there were some few moments of clarity. Of Lois, telling Superman about some of her wilder moments as a forward, eldest child—of her first story at the Daily Planet, and the flying moments that had given her the Kerths that she had once kept with such fierce pride. Of Clark, managing a feeble laughing despite himself as he heard tale of one of Lois’s more foolish and stubborn moments, as she got herself into trouble and was able to pull away at the luck of the draw.
Of him, trying to tell some stories of his own. Strange ones and humorous ones to try to cheer her up, but his voice was weak the air oppressive, and even laughter was quickly stifled in the heavy air.
Of Lois, finally getting frustrated and standing to rant and yell at the camera that she needed something more to take care of the superhero—new sheets, washcloths, a basin, and preferably some new clothes for the both of them. They delivered them with the next meal, leaving Lois to struggle to move a pain-weakened Superman onto the floor while she changed the sheets and then back onto them again. However, they didn’t bring the new clothes.
So she had stood in front of the camera and stared at it, feeling like an idiot despite her fury. The spandex suit was filthy and gave Kal-El little warmth. But they didn’t bring that to her after her continued demands, only a brief explanation.
They didn’t want him to be confused as a human. So the suit was staying—to remind him, to remind her, to remind the people behind that soulless camera and to remind the world…that he was an alien, and thus not to be pitied.
Didn’t work for Lois, of course. It just made her angrier.
Lois told him about Claude—about her terrible history with men and her distrust for them in general, which was even increased, now. She assured him he wasn’t included—in that way he was most un-human, because all human men were idiots—and because Lois was sure that no one on Earth could ever be as pure as Kal-El and still live as a man.
Clark told her about the first time he had failed at a rescue—an apartment had been caught up in furious flames, and though he had rushed to the scene as soon as he could, a mother and two small children had been caught inside. By the time he had found them it was too late. He hadn’t even told his parents about how it had felt to carry their limp and charred bodies from the ruin of their home—to see the tearful, broken face of the husband and father, who was now so terribly, awfully alone in the world.
They shared their short tales, shared their sorrow, shared the little gems of connection and calm that glimmered like stars amidst a pitch-black sky and became increasingly more rare. And they drifted in silence, not doing anything, not thinking—no, thinking meant realizing what they had lost, and what more there may be to come. Thinking meant fearing. So they didn’t think, not really. They existed.
It was a week and a day after the first night at the compound when Logram entered in and stayed longer than was usual than his perfunctory visit. Lois was held away from him in usual precaution. Though she had automatically taken the stance between him and Superman when he had entered, she had not fought. There was no use anyway, right now. She was waiting…waiting. Waiting for an opportunity that felt as distant as the moon in a cloud-filtered sky. She couldn’t even tell where it might peek out through the thick clouds, if ever.
Logram checked the IV and changed the wrappings on Superman’s arm and leg.
Lois quivered. There was something more here behind these men’s presences today, though she could say what. The thick white air seemed too cold to breathe—the doctor’s demeanor felt terribly final.
Logram nodded, and one of the guards let go of Lois and went and retrieved the dreaded bed from the hallway. Lois felt faint and struggled weakly against her captor. No—if they took him now, she had little doubt that that would be the last time she would see Kal-El alive.
The guard let her go, pushing her back slightly and moving quickly to help the other lift Clark onto the bed.
Somewhere deep down Clark knew as he felt those arms begin to lift him by his shoulders and feet, that this was it—his last chance to fight to live. Through the panicked haze that had descended upon the first sight of the doctor, he struck out. It was a clumsy punch, but even weakened as he was, the action was strengthened by fear and this terrified realization of his coming end. It overruled his fear for the moment, even his pain.
The soldier fell backwards, dropping Superman’s shoulders, and his weight was too much for the single guard to hold. Clark fell heavily, hitting his shoulders on the bed before slipping and falling onto the floor in a heap. He pulled away, struggling to slide back as best as he could, unaware of the pained and panicked whimpers that escaped his throat as he tried to crawl away.
He was distantly aware through his body’s coursing fear of Lois dropping the guard that had been holding her. That’s my Lois.
A guard’s iron grip caught his shoulder, halting his pitiful and desperate retreat. A moment later Lois was behind him, pushing the guard away and putting her gentle hand on his arm instead.
“Kal-El. Kal-El. Are you all right?”
Clark looked at her, his eyes dilated with the constant pain that his life had become. He felt lightheaded from the fall, but his mind was floating—oddly disconnected from everything. The end was coming.
“I—I’m okay.”
Lois’s expression was one that cannot be described. He lay there, bloodless as death and shaking. His voice was weak—barely even audible—and his injured arm lay limp. Though she couldn’t see it, the slightly weaker shaking of his arm told her that the fall had probably broke the terrible wound open again—the newly changed white linen was yet outwardly clean, but soon she knew she would be able to see the red creep up into sight again.
She looked up at Logram.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she hissed, but her voice was tired and broken. She herself felt as though she were floating in the air above her body—her lips didn’t feel fully connected. The rage, desperation, and grief in her voice and body was someone else’s. “Haven’t you hurt him, stolen from him, degraded him—dehumanized him enough? He’s dying, Logram.”
Logram looked vaguely uncomfortable. “The loss will be…regretful.”
“Regretful.” Lois swore. “You’ll kill him, you realize?” she said. “He won’t recover if you…if you—”
“The x-rays we took didn’t work,” Logram said slowly. “It appears that, even weakened, his molecular density is enough that the x-rays can’t give us a clear picture.”
“So?”
“We’re going to try again.”
Lois felt some life returning back into her body. She felt her hands on Superman’s shoulders—felt the fear again gripping her heart, but it was relaxing the slightest bit. “That’s it?” insisted Lois. The x-rays hadn’t hurt him. Perhaps he could survive one more day…they could creep by beneath the veil of death just one more day…
“And a couple more blood samples.”
Lois wondered distantly—not for the first time this week—if these men weren’t half vampires. She had a sudden, wild urge to make a cross with her fingers just to see what would happen. She resisted.
You’re going insane.
Yes. Perhaps she was. But Kal-El was going to live one more day.
The guards pulled her up, then lifted Superman onto the bed. He was shaking still, but seemed to have spent all his energy on his brief struggle.
Lois stepped forward and latched onto Superman’s arm—a clear signal that she was not moving from his side, but also showing that she wouldn’t attack the cursed men again. Not for now, anyway. The x-rays hadn’t done anything before, and she had learned that some things were more important for than others. Even if Superman’s quivering under her hand made her feel like a low-class traitor for not fighting now.
She walked forward down the hall with them.
“Lois.”
She was surprised. Superman had hardly talked in some hours, and he rarely talked around their captors unless prompted. Lois looked at him.
“What is it, Kal?”
“Thank you, Lois,” his voice was low and soft—almost like the voice of the man he had been before he had come to this place. It was Superman’s voice, but gentle. His shaking had stopped, strangely, and now he looked at her with the most lucid eyes he’d had in days. “Thank you.”
“For what?” The question almost caught in her throat.
“For staying with me. For…not letting me die alone.”
Lois bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. She wanted to shout at him—to rant, to rage at him for giving up, at the world, and whatever fate had brought them there…
But she couldn’t. She slipped her hand into his.
“Y-you’re still alive, Kal-El. Don’t talk like that,” she said softly, but her voice shook.
He just smiled—a shocking thing to see on his face. It was weak, but it was there, for a bare moment of light in the deepening shadows. A smile for her that spoke volumes. He closed his eyes.
I love you, Lois.
TBC...
