Ah! A new day. Lovely, lovely.
Thanks for all the well-wishes and all. I just got out of my last class, and am feeling considerably better. My cold all but vanished overnight, and with all my papers done and the finals not for a whole day...I am feeling quite nice right now. Tomorrow I may be freaking out again, but for now...life is good.
So here's a nice, longer chapter for all my very friendly readers and reviewers.
Thanks for all the reviews, everyone! Keep it up! I'll be reading through them throughout the day tomorrow to keep from drowning in the reviews for all my tests.
Enjoy,
Chapter 17: Healing Light
Superman was a much deeper sleeper than Lois would have thought, even with his injuries. After he fell asleep he didn’t even stir when Lois pulled away from his embrace. She went into the kitchen to stir up some creamy cereal (luckily one of the few things she knew how to “cook,” and even more luck was with her enough that she was able to do that without burning it…much). She grimaced at the dry and unlikely looking assortment of food in her fridge before pulling out a carton of chocolate ice cream and a spoon.
She walked back into her bedroom and sat down in a chair there, eating the ice cream slowly as she stared at the sleeping man, who had turned slightly on his side. His unwashed hair stuck up at odd angles, and his mouth was open slightly. If not for his pale coloring and the circles under his eyes, he would have looked positively childlike.
Superman.
In her bed.
It was most unreal.
She took another bite of ice cream, but though the rich chocolate was vivid for her taste, after so many days of bland nothing, she felt it like a dream. She was sitting, in her room, eating chocolate ice cream after hardly eating anything in days. And there was Superman.
Kal-El.
He had almost died this morning.
She knew it. She had felt it—like she could feel the strings of his spirit floating above hers and threatening to take off. The slightest bit more and it would have been too much for the both of them.
He was doing much better, now. His recovery even so soon was astonishing, though if anyone else were to see him they would wonder what recovery she was thinking about. He still didn’t even look like a shadow of the man—of the hero—that America knew him as.
But Lois knew. She knew that there was no way that he should have been able to attempt to stand even as much as he did, even before his latest exposure to kryptonite. There was no way Lois could have carried him up the stairs without the strength that Superman had used to help them both up to her apartment. Yes, it had been weak and pitiful, but it had been
there.
She took another bite and slowly set the carton on the dresser. She stood, her eyes not leaving the lump of Superman’s slightly curled-up frame beneath her thick comforter.
Moving to the windows, she opened the blinds, allowing the afternoon sunlight to stream in and set the soft brown colors of the blankets alight.
Superman shifted, even in his sleep, as the light brushed him, letting out a sigh that would have been one of pure pleasure if it had been a little stronger. Now it just sounded relieved—like the kind of sigh a man makes who had been dying of thirst and finally found a pool of cool, clean water to drink from.
Lois looked at him, to the window, and back to him.
She didn’t know. But it was as good a try as anything.
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Lois ate the whole carton of ice cream, though afterwards she regretted it quite well with the sick churning of her stomach. Almost a full half a gallon of ice cream was not a good thing to eat on an empty stomach, especially one as empty as hers was.
She washed down the ice cream with water and a peanut butter sandwich with milk—a childish flashback, perhaps, and again not very filling, but she didn’t feel like calling take-out. For the moment, she just wanted to be in her apartment, without any strangers, and try to feel like she was coming back to life.
Lois hardly let Superman out of her sight for a moment. She cleaned up the glass from her entry, duct-taped the hole in the window closed, and after taking a quick peek in at Superman before jumping in the shower. She wanted to relax and enjoy the feel of the hot water pouring down her filthy skin, but as soon as she stepped under the running water she pictured Superman laying there, hopeless and terrified in the white room. She showered in record speed and staggered back into her room half-dressed, her heart pounding away like a mad thing.
Superman hadn’t moved, but for a slight shifting that moved him farther into the fading sunlight. Still, Lois’s heart didn’t calm until she put a still-damp and shaking hand on his forehead and heard his steady breaths.
She let out a long sigh. He was okay.
She cooked frozen pizza for dinner and sat eating it by Superman’s side, staring at the superhero for a good half an hour without moving. She wanted to get him out of his suit beneath the t-shirt and sweats that she had pulled over it, but she didn’t want to bother him. Not right now.
She didn’t want to leave his side at all, but Lois took the time to run down the stairs to remove the license plates from her car and bring them inside to hide under her mattress along with the stolen radio. She retrieved Superman’s cape from where it had been dropped on the car floor: she didn’t want
any sign of Superman being found here, and a soiled and wrinkled cape would not be little news, she thought.
Especially since he had been missing for over a week, now. No doubt the news was having a hey-day.
Lois grimaced. Her head hurt and she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to curl up on her bed—next to Superman—and just sleep. But she should call somebody—her parents, maybe? Perry, at least. No doubt he was looking for her. Not the police, though they were probably helping in the search. No. She did not want to see the police.
She glanced over at the door, making sure all six of her locks were bolted firmly.
They would hold long enough for her to get to the phone, if need arose.
But she didn’t want to talk to anyone now. So she curled up on the couch—angling it so she could see Superman’s form in her darkening room as she turned on the TV and watched it on ‘mute.’
There seemed to be nothing on, at first, but after only a few minutes that normal hubbub of Metropolis city life broke way to pictures of Superman. Lois shivered as a picture of him came onto the screen. It was blurred and not entirely in focus, but he was smiling in it, his hand lifted in a slight wave as he lifted off.
His eyes were so innocent.
She turned it off right then. She couldn’t bear the sight of the change in his eyes—not now. She needed to remember the victory, not what they had lost.
So she helped herself to another piece of pizza, brushed her teeth, and crawled into bed, reaching over to rest a hand on Superman’s broad back as it faced her.
And there, she fell asleep.
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Lois Lane was known for thinking outside the box. For going where no man had gone before. For jumping off cliffs without looking what was on the other side, or how far the drop was to the bottom.
But over the next few days Lois was quite content to remain very nicely boxed in her apartment, with no outside contact but with Kal-El himself.
Their first night back was not a peaceful night. Between both of their numerous nightmares, Lois doubted that either of them rested very much at all, so they ended up sleeping until late in the morning the next day. Clark woke up the last time screaming, disoriented and terrified. He hadn’t recognized where he was, and upon the first panicked glance around the room he hadn’t seen Lois.
Lois had shot out of bed so fast to quiet him that she was almost moving at superspeed. Clark went quiet, clinging to Lois and crying as he recognized her presence, her touch. She was there. His frazzled mind clung onto that thought. Lois was there. Everything would be all right.
He came to himself slowly. He apologized weakly and lay back in bed, exhausted despite the fact that he just woke up from a very long nap.
Once he seemed recovered Lois looked at him critically—taking in the soiled suit beneath the too-small white shirt. The famed “S”-shield showed out boldly through the thin white cotton. She decided it was time to get to work.
With no little struggle they managed to get him out of the suit—letting him change into the more comfortable sweats and shirts instead. Lois actually had to use scissors more than once to get the suit off—despite the fact that it seemed noticeably looser on him— and afterwards she shoved the remnants of the blood-spattered and torn primary-covered uniform in a black garbage sack with his cape and stuck it in the deepest corner of her closet, to either get rid of later or give back to him, if he really wanted it.
She was afraid of breaking open his injuries, so she didn’t touch the casts. She had come too close to losing him, and since he didn’t show any signs of fever or further swelling from infection, she decided—
hoped—that that would be all right, for now.
The following change of clothes would have embarrassed Clark, but his mind was too content just to float in nothingness, after the fearful waking. He felt surprisingly--well, not
good, but not terrible, either--despite the lingering pain, and he didn’t need to think beyond that. He wasn’t in the white room any more. He was alive. Lois was there. He was content, for now, just to drift.
It was funny, a vague thought floated through his mind. He couldn’t fly, but right now he felt like the first time he had woken up to find himself drifting a few inches above the ceiling. Weightless.
He was actually able to eat a slight breakfast of cereal and water, though he grimaced at the memory of their recent captivity.
Once he got home, he was never going to eat creamy cereal again.
Speaking of home…
Clark wanted to call his parents, but even considering getting up to walk to the phone (in the rare occasion that Lois left his side for more than a minute) was a ridiculous thought. Even though he was feeling surprisingly better, and his swollen fingers beneath the cast of his broken arm were gaining some movement back into them, though he still couldn’t turn his wrist without sharp, intense pain that left him breathless and pale.
He didn’t know what had happened, but for the first time in over a week he was getting better.
Had he gotten so bad that he was beginning to imagine that he was just getting better, when in reality it was the numbness of something far worse? Or had the last kryptonite exposure done something to him?
He shuddered, his toes curling in memory of the terrible pain. He couldn’t see how something like that could be
helpful in any way.
Lois returned to his side after taking away their breakfast dishes, and he managed to find a voice to speak.
“Thank you, Lois.”
Of course those would be the first words from his mouth, Lois thought, a little perturbed.
“Don’t thank me. I just got us out of there. Anyone would have if they had found the chance.”
Clark could argue that. He could go on for hours about her bravery, her intelligence, her steadfastness…but he was already feeling tired and it still hurt to talk. “What…what happened?”
So Lois told him, briefly, her voice shaking at certain parts, and Clark reached over and took her hand in his. After the short tale, Lois started and suddenly grabbed his hand with both of hers.
“Kal-El! I figured out where your energy comes from.”
Clark jumped at the sudden movement—taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm after the somber finish of her tale, and also (though he was ashamed by the admittance, even to himself), afraid by the quick motion she had made towards him. His heart rate had jumped to a mile a minute, and now he had trouble swallowing before he answered.
“S-Sorry?” he stuttered, trying to calm himself again.
“You know—your energy,” Lois repeated. “You said you never got hungry before, and your cells were failing because of lack of energy, and all that…I figured it out.”
Clark blinked at her.
Lois waited, as if expecting him to make a guess, or something. Finally, she gestured to the open window where sunlight was streaming inwards. “
Sunlight, Superman.”
Clark looked at her, at the open window, and then back at her. “
What?” Had Lois finally gone mad?
“It’s the sunlight,” Lois repeated. “You weren’t doing very well at all, but as soon as we stepped out of the compound into the sun, you started breathing easier. And while we were driving away, I went back to block the sun where it was shining on your face, but…that bump on your head was so much healed already. It all makes sense!”
“Sunlight.” It was ridiculous. He was a…well, if not a human, then at least a mammal. Or, if not a mammal, then at least an
animal, even if that meager thought hardly made him feel any better. But he wasn’t some sort of…grass, or…or weed that soaked up energy from the sun.
Lois nodded.
“Wouldn’t the…
they…” Clark swallowed. “Wouldn’t they have…found something? You know, like…like…chlorophyll, or something? In…in my blood.”
“Perhaps,” Lois said, looking uneasy at the reminder of the blood tests. “But…you know, they weren’t telling us very much there…”
Seeing his continuingly dubious expression her own expression was beginning to sour. “Don’t give
me that look! I just figured it out. And you’re very welcome, too.”
She stood abruptly, striding stiffly to open the window further. “So soak it up, little daisy. I want you flying by next week.”
Clark didn’t know what to say. But the sunlight
did feel good, after all of those days locked up with only the artificial whiteness. This light was different. It was full, warm, gentle…
He’d put up with Lois’s insanity in hopes that her mind might return after a little while. It was the least he could do, after everything she’d done for him. Not that he was in any condition to go anywhere right now, even if he wanted to.
He slept most of that first day. For most of the morning and into the afternoon, they just lay on Lois’s bed, hardly moving, dozing off now and then or just looking out the window, or at the walls, or just sitting with their eyes closed. It was enough to be together—to feel human presence without the fear of impending pain and blood and tears…
As the afternoon began to wane Clark fell into a deep sleep, and Lois untangled herself from his arms and managed to sneak out of the house, disguised with sunglasses and an old hideous coat that Lucy had left during her stay at her apartment. She stocked up with the basic necessities at the local grocer—coffee, ice cream, more ice cream, a large box of chocolate bars…oh! And of course another couple shirts and sweats for Superman, with some other things he might need. She even grabbed a razor for him, and was determined to ask how he usually shaved once she got back.
Halfway through the checkout line she saw a police car drive past the front of the store. She froze, her heart thundering like doom itself, and couldn’t get through the line fast enough.
She literally ran back to her apartment and up the stairs—not bothering with the elevator.
She opened the many locks to her apartment with practiced speed despite her many burdens, and opened the door to find Superman on the floor, literally dragging himself with his good arm and leg towards where the phone sat on the coffee table. He was pale and sweating, and he looked up sharply at the sound of her entrance.
“Lois!” he gasped.
“Kal-El!” Lois was torn between exasperation at him and utter relief to see that he was still there—that he was not dying somewhere, alone. “What are you doing?” Lois dropped the bags she held on the ground and moved quickly to his side.
“You…you were gone,” Clark said in a small voice as she knelt down and helped pull him into a sitting position against her.
Lois felt her heart crack in two. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I should have told you, but…you were asleep, and…”
Clark took a deep, shaking breath. “It’s okay. I—I’m sorry, I just…” He felt embarrassed. Embarrassment had been a luxury he could not afford in the hands of Bureau 39. But…he was a grown man. Or, at least, a grown alien that felt like a man. Or he thought he was a grown alien, and he thought he felt like a man. He couldn’t really know for either things.
Anyway, he was Superman. He shouldn’t be found crawling on the floor.
But when he had woken up, and found himself alone…
“What have I told you about apologizing?” Lois said, but it was not sharp.
“You st-started it,” Clark said with a shaking attempt at a smile. It failed miserably.
“That’s my prerogative,” Lois said with a firm nod, though her hands wrapped around his shoulders. His very presence seemed to calm her still-frazzled nerves. “What in the world were you trying to do?”
“Um. Call the police?” Clark said. In truth he hadn’t really gotten that far. He had just woken up from a nightmare, and while he had been able to begin to calm down on his own, he had suddenly realized what it meant that Lois had not come to his side yet. He hadn’t been able to hear her moving around in the kitchen, and he had suddenly felt so terribly, horribly alone. The apartment was cold and silent, and he could just
feel that Lois wasn’t there. He had called her name, then in a shaking panic had struggled from the bed, falling ungracefully after the first shaking steps. Panic hadn’t really let him think clearly after that.
Lois looked at him incredulously. “The police.” Goodness, Superman really was naïve and trusting, even now.
“Maybe not,” he said. Of course, it was ridiculous. No doubt Clark Kent was known missing, as well as Lois Lane, and if by chance an officer came in and recognized him—not for Superman, but for
Clark…that would open a can of worms that he did not want to think about right now—the very thought made him feel ill. And besides, Bureau 39 had been with the government. Who knew who else might be out there, looking for him…? Clark paled a further shade.
“Are you okay?” Lois asked softly, seeing the sudden stillness of his face.
“Y-yeah,” Clark said, swallowing. “S-sorry.”
Lois resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The man was hopeless. Who would have thought that the man of steel would be so cursedly…
apologetic? He probably spent as much time obsessing about the things that he couldn’t do anything to fix in the world as he did trying to save it, if not more.
She helped him up, cutting off yet another apology with exasperation as he leaned on her heavily. She helped him back to her room slowly and helped him lay back down on the bed. He did so carefully, his brow furrowing slightly in pain, and she noticed it.
“Are you okay?”
Clark nodded slowly. “I…I’m fine.”
Lois snorted.
“I could have told you that, flyboy,” she said, pushing his hair back from his eyes so it somewhat resembled his usual Superman style, though it was considerably more tussled. “No need to get so full of yourself.”
Clark blushed. It made Lois grin.
The man of steel. In her bed. Blushing.
Who would believe it?
Not anyone she knew. And if Lois had her way, no one would ever find out.
No one would ever know that Superman and her even cared about each other any more. It was too dangerous. For him.
She knew he would never be able to resist coming to rescue her if another madman held her at gunpoint in an attempt to capture the man of steel again. Kal-El…that was just who he was. Even now, after what he had gone through.
The rest of the day they spent trying to return to some form of normalcy. Clark tried to convince Lois that he could bathe on his own, but Lois was emphatic—he wasn’t leaving her sight, especially in the dangerous area of a tub full of water. He could relapse and drown, or something equally horrible, and Lois wasn’t going to risk that. Still, to save his dignity she allowed him a few seconds alone to struggle into the single pair of boxers that she had been unable to resist buying—with the Superman ‘S’ shield printed boldly on the front. As for the rest, she figured he was a briefs kind of guy.
So she went in and sat by him as he washed, helping him sit up against the side of the tub and wash his hair without getting the bandages on his thigh and right arm wet.
It was surreal. It was ridiculous. It was like one of those crazy dreams that you wake up from and wonder, ‘where in the world did
that come from?’ But it was real, Lois kept reminding herself as she helped Superman back to her bed.
The reminder was certainly necessary. Half of the time she wondered if the whole past week had been nothing but one dark dream. Sometimes she wondered if their escape was a dream, or if she had just finally cracked and this was all some elaborate delusion. Or maybe the life before this was a dream, and now only
now was real.
She helped Superman to a can of warmed (not burned) bowl of Campbell chicken noodle soup and some white bread. She dragged a couch into her room and stuck it full in the sunlight, then all-but dragged him over and lay him down.
Clark winced as he settled back into the too-short couch, his injured leg propped up against the couch arm.
“Are you okay?” Lois questioned, concerned. “I know it’s a bit small, but you need all the sunlight you can get…”
“It’s fine, Lois,” Clark said, leaning back and closing his eyes. He felt wonderful, despite the aches and pains throughout his body. His mind was still floating in a world of vague fog, but this was so much better—warm, and soft. Even with the highly uncomfortable couch that he was laying on.
Maybe Lois was right about the sunlight. Clark wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Grateful, certainly. But beyond that, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Lois grunted. She stood and turned away, yawning herself despite the short hours she had been awake. The stress and lack of sleep of the week was going to take some time to get over.
“You…you’re supposed to say, ‘you’re welcome.’’
Lois paused in the middle of stretching and looked back at him.
“What?”
“It’s polite, Lois.” Was that humor in his tone? Lois thought so, and it lifted her spirit. His voice most of the time today had been soft, grateful, apologetic…but he had spoken little beyond what he deemed necessary to be polite. Too often she had seen dark shadows and fear cross his face, and his eyes shoot open quickly as if expecting to find himself back in the white room. This was the closest to a sincere smile she had heard in his voice all day.
“Whatever, Kal-El.”
She crawled onto her bed, foregoing the covers. It was warm enough without them. She lay on her side, but all she could see of Superman was the mop of his dark hair sticking out from one side of the couch, and his feet hanging over the other end.
She smiled and let herself relax.
TBC...
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