Happy Post-Christmas, everyone. I hope you all had a good time while I was gone!

Thank you so much for the reviews. I tell you honestly, they made me just as excited as any real gift I got to open. So you'd still make my day if you kept up the reviewing and made it a tradition of a sort... wink

Anyway, hope you all have a great day. Enjoy,

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Chapter 25: I’m Out of My Mind

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Jonathan was tired, but he refused to let them stay—threatening in his thin voice to call security to drag them out, if he needed to. Martha was run down and near the breaking point from all the stress, and the last thing Clark needed was to stay up at the side of an old man. He needed a good meal, sleep, and something to keep his mind busy.

So they obeyed, though it was evening by the time they got home. Clark noticed the phone light blinking that he had a missed call—Lois. But there was no message. He bit his lip. Surely she wasn’t in trouble. She was just calling after her junior partner—her slightly annoying, very naïve, and innocent partner who had a somewhat annoying and very obvious crush on her—to make sure he was all right. He called back, but there was no answer. He left a short message that he had noticed she called and forced himself not to worry. Forced himself to not run out and stop the first taxi he saw and go to her house, throw open her door and see her. To see her face, to let her hold him. To hold her back.

He forced himself not to think of her.

It didn’t work very well.

Martha fixed up a simple meal of pasta—clearly trying to fix something that might cheer Clark up—and they ate in mostly silence.

After dinner, Clark went and stood under the last of the day’s light until it faded into the night, his dark, deep eyes moving over the streets as far as he could see, and beyond, as the sunlight lit fire in his eyes like coals. For he had seen this city in its fullness, and he knew it. He could practically hear the sirens, the screams, the cries for help, even without his superhearing. But there was nothing he could do.

He returned inside, looking better but for the grim expression on his face. He turned on the TV and watched the news, his expression turning darker at each report of a crime, an accident, and especially at the news that a young girl had been kidnapped at gunpoint and the kidnapper had vanished.

Pain. White. Dark. Red. He saw it on the television. He had felt the fullness of the pain, the fear, the terror. He didn't want anyone to ever have to face it like he did. He wanted to end it. He needed to end it.

And he was the only one that could. Just not now.

Martha dragged him away from it. He hardly needed more dark thoughts to plague his dreams.

Clark typed up a quick outline of an article, unveiling the few facts that Clark Kent may have discovered during his supposed imprisonment. It wasn’t much, but after he was done he sent it to Perry, then shut down his laptop, resolved not to think about it any more tonight.

Clark got ready for bed—pulling on some old, long pajamas that would fully hide both his leg and his arm and were actually too large for his frame at the moment—and offered to let his mom use the bed, but she said she’d be fine on the couch. It was more comfortable than the hospital beds, at least.

For all the good it did, for they hardly got an hour into the night before Clark woke up from a nightmare, crying for release from the pain and searching, searching, searching for Lois. But Lois wasn’t there. His mother held him while he broke down weeping, calling Lois’s name pleadingly.

She spent the rest of the night by his side, waking whenever Clark’s frequent nightmares disrupted their sleep.

They both woke up early, unable to sleep any longer. Clark’s mom waved him to the patio as she stumbled a bit blurrily over to the bathroom to shower. He took his thick, awkward glasses from the table beside the bed and put them on as he limped to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker, then stepped outside, sitting back on one of the chairs as the sun rose over Metropolis.

He left the door open so he could hear the shower turn on. He actually wasn’t feeling as tired as he had been, and as he should have felt after the restless night, if he were a human. It looked like things were getting going back to normal. For him.

He closed his eyes, drinking in the sunlight and trying not to think about how very different that made him.

Sunlight for breakfast.

Sunshine cereal.

Good morning, sunshine.

For some reason that seemed strangely hilarious, after the long night, and Clark’s lips actually curved in a slight smile to himself as he looked over the city.

It was quiet. The city was just waking up. He could hear the distant honking of some angry taxi, but it was over there, somewhere.

He felt more disconnected than…ever.

And the sun greeted him.

He’d always loved the sun. When he was young he used to sit and stare at it. His mom had tried to tell him that he was going to burn his eyes out, that he’d go blind.

He’d spent so much of his childhood outdoors. Laughing, working, playing…with his dad…all under the sun.

It was appropriate that it would be the sun, out of everything, that would give him his strength. At least it wasn’t…slugs. Or something equally disgusting.

He knew so little about himself.

He rose, his limp considerably less pronounced as he went to his closet and pulled open the hidden compartment there. He paused to look at the spare suits hanging there, feeling almost like an intruder, then reached beyond them to the globe that lay nestled on a hidden shelf.

It was warm in his hand, as it always had been, and a faint, tickling thrumming coming from the heart of it.

Clark looked over it carefully, as he had often done since finding it in Bureau 39’s warehouse. But he found nothing—the surface was smooth, with no outward functions other than changing to show the map of Krypton.

A baby’s toy, perhaps? Some advanced alien type of rattle?

Just for the heck of it, he shook it gently, holding it up to his ear as if listening for something. There was nothing.

He lowered it slowly, feeling a bit ridiculous but disappointed nonetheless. He wished he knew where his spaceship had got to. He wanted answers. He needed answers. Answers to who he was—what he was; answers to why he was here, and whether he could ever be human enough to be human again.

Someone knocked at the door. A short, quick, firm rap that sounded clearly throughout the quiet apartment.

Clark froze like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar—but no kid ever had that look of struggling and faint firmness and almost overwhelming fear in his eyes.

The knocking came again—impatient, and more insistent this time. Clark blinked, almost dropping the globe as he realized how incriminating it would be if someone were to walk in and see him holding it, especially with the suits hanging right before him. He fumbled with it, pushing it back into the closet and shutting the secret compartment tightly.

He stared at the door. Whoever was on the other side was knocking again—almost pounding, at this point. But he doubted that anyone coming to take him away again would have knocked in the first place, let alone this long.

He glanced towards the bathroom, where the shower was still running, and then moved slowly to the door, checking for the presence of his glasses and running a hand through his hair.

His eyes darkened and he straightened himself up, and even with the glasses it was recognizable as the classic Superman stance, though it seemed slightly less bold than before, and his hand shook slightly. He stared at the door strongly enough that one might wonder if he were seeing right through it, even without his superpowers.

He was in control.

He began to shrink, it seemed. His shoulders hunched slightly, his expression softened and his eyes widened with what might seem to be constant farm boy innocence.

Superman disappeared.

He was calm. He was Clark Kent—small town farm boy. He was a nerd, a geek, a bumbling fool. Let whoever was on the door think so.

He could do this.

With a deep breath, he adjusted his glasses, checked the looseness of the pajamas he wore, and moved forward to open the door.

Lois Lane stood on the doorstep, looking very, very impatient.

“Finally, Kent!” she snapped, brushing past him and inside. “I mean, what’s wrong with you? It’s not that early. I thought you farm boys prided themselves on their early mornings. You should be up. There’s work to be done.”

Clark blinked, taken aback by the tornado that was Lois Lane. He glanced at the clock. It was just before six in the morning.

Lois was standing rod-straight, looking around the apartment as if searching for something. She turned sharply and pointed a finger at him.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Clark opened his mouth and shut it again, without saying anything. He glanced over at his phone, remembering her call the night before. The message light was blinking again, and Clark figured his mother must have taken it off the hook sometime during the night.

The hesitation was good for Clark Kent, even if it wasn't necessarily intentional.

“S-sorry,” he murmured. “I—”

“I called you last night twice and you didn’t answer. I stopped by and waited for an hour and you weren’t here. Well?”

“Well, Lois, I—”

“I don’t care,” Lois cut him off, leaning close to him. “I want to know where Superman is, and what in the world you’ve done with him.” Her voice actually cracked on the last word, and Clark realized through his still somewhat sleep-muddled and slightly-more-than-a-little-confused thoughts that Lois looked like she’d hardly gotten a minute of sleep. She looked about to crack, and was trembling slightly.

“I—I told Perry,” Clark said, his own voice cracking, . “He…Superman just…he got me out and then…left.”

It was so much harder lying to Lois than to Perry. But he could do it. And if he stuttered that was all right. He was Clark Kent.

“That’s impossible!” Lois said, her voice turning more desperate. “He could hardly walk, let alone fly. And he wouldn’t have just—” She cut off sharply, staring at Clark through narrowed eyes. He wouldn’t have just left like that, she wanted to say, but if Clark truly hadn’t known that Superman had been with her, then there was no need to tell him.

“Golly, Lois, I—” Clark grimaced. Golly? Where in the world did that come from?

“'Golly,' Kent?” Lois reflected his thoughts exactly.

“Uh…” He managed a small, embarrassed smile.

“Well? Spit it out!”

“I—I haven’t seen Superman, Lois. Not since…well, I told Perry. I mean, he didn’t look his best, but…yeah. He didn’t say much, and…and…” Clark shrugged helplessly, words getting the better of him.

Suddenly Lois stopped, growing still as if noticing something for the first time. An odd light glimmered in her eye.

“Who is in the shower?” she demanded.

“S-sorry?”

“The shower, Kent. Unless it’s usual random strangers to just walk in and help themselves to your bathroom, you know who is in there.”

Clark blinked. Oh. She thought Superman might be in his shower.

“My mom,” he said.

“Your mom,” Lois repeated dubiously.

“S-she’s been staying in Metropolis and—”

The light vanished from Lois’s eye. Of course. Clark had been missing too, and of course his old-town parents would have come to try and find him, pointless as it was. The bristling tiger returned.

“Very well,” Lois interrupted him. “Now tell me about Superman.”

“Lois, I—I—”

She looked at him, and Clark felt like she was looking at a slug stuck on the bottom of her foot.

“You wouldn’t ever betray Superman, would you, Clark?” she asked, her voice now calm, but somehow ever more terrifying. Clark pushed his glasses farther up on his nose nervously.

“Of…of course not, Lois,” he stuttered, and it was not so much of an act. She was suspecting him, of all people, surely…

She was suspecting Clark Kent of betraying Superman. Did she really think so little of him?

Lois stared at him. And kept staring at him. Clark felt like he was under a microscope, and he felt the walls closing in around him.

But this was Lois. He wanted to reach out, to grab her hand. He wanted to let her hold him. He wanted to tell her about his father, that he was Superman…

White panic rose at that thought, threatening to pull both Clark and Superman into a void, and he scrambled away mentally, his eyes fixing on Lois’s. Her eyes anchored him, as always. He breathed.

“I suppose I was a fool to think you might do something like that,” Lois said, her shoulders slumping. She looked exhausted. “But… Clark, you know Superman. Where does he go? You know, when he’s hurt?”

Clark stopped, caught like a deer in the headlights again. “Well, ah, Lois. You know, the man of steel and all. He…he doesn’t get hurt all that often. And you know, I didn’t even know him that well. Where…” He gave a nervous chuckle, pushing up his glasses. “Where did you get an idea like that?”

Lois’s eyes narrowed again. “That’s right. You’re afraid. I knew I shouldn’t have believed him when he said it was his idea to break off your friendship. You really are a coward.”

Clark stood there awkwardly, not meeting her eyes. Yes, he was. But he couldn’t risk telling her. He couldn’t make her carry that burden. He couldn’t risk losing her.

“You don’t look half that bad.”

Clark blinked out of his thoughts. “Sorry?”

“I believe Jimmy’s exact words were, ‘death warmed over,’” Lois said, making the quote signs in the air. “You look bad, but not that bad.”

Clark blinked and adjusted his glasses. “Uh. Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Lois said. She gave a heavy sigh, and for a moment Clark saw how tired she really was.

His fault.

He couldn’t tell her.

Coward.

He shuddered. He couldn’t deny it.

He looked at her and realized that she was giving him an intense look. Immediately jumping out of his thoughts, he stumbled down the stairs from his door, being extra careful not to limp. His leg was more stiff after waking up, before his morning sunbathe.

You’re a freak.

He couldn’t deny that either.

“C-can I get you some coffee?” he asked, hoping to ignore the condemning voice in his head.

“Sure,” Lois said, looking noncommittal and too tired to care. She looked ready to collapse, and she walked over and lowered herself down to his table carefully.

She had come straight to Clark’s apartment after finding Superman missing, though it had taken considerably longer thanks to an accident that looked like one that Lois was sure Superman would be at, if he even possibly could. The apartment had been empty and dark, and Lois had waited for over an hour until she had lost it and gone back to her apartment, hoping that maybe Superman had come back, if only to tell her goodbye in person.

But either he couldn’t, or he wouldn’t. Neither possibility made her feel much better than the other.

So she had paced, called around to Henderson, Perry, and even tracked down Bobby Bigmouth in an attempt to find of some sighting of the superhero. When that came up fruitless, she had looked up everything she could on one General McPheron, who Perry had said had raided the compound in Kansas.

She had fallen asleep for maybe an hour over a list of McPheron’s work, though there was little on him to go off on. Vietnam veteran, two-star general, done some work in the Middle East before coming home and putting a hand in homeland security. But there was no answer to any of her calls—probably because of the hour—and in the end she had just typed up a perfunctory article telling the barest details of her kidnapping (leaving out any mention of Superman’s presence), then sent it to Perry with a note telling him that she would get Clark’s side and get it ready for the morning edition.

She had gone outside and wandered under the night sky—she couldn’t see any stars, due to the smog, and had even stopped at central park to call for Superman again, but to no avail. She moved on quickly before someone sent the cops to check for any trouble. She had come to herself as the morning began to break. She had come straight to Clark’s apartment, and now here she was, exhausted both physically and emotionally.

Clark poured the coffee, trying to keep his hands from shaking too much. He could practically feel Lois’s gaze on his back, measuring him up, finding the similarities. He was expecting a sudden screech any second now—an angry realization, a fury like the hottest flame. Surely she could see right through him.

The shower stopped, and Clark turned around slowly with the cups of coffee. He set one in front of Lois, but stayed standing himself, his large hands awkward around his own cup.

He tried not to stare at her—to keep his eyes on his glass, or on the table, or…elsewhere. But his eyes were drawn to her. He kept stealing glances, only to quickly look away again.

If Lois caught sight of one of them, surely she’d just blame it on Clark’s “obvious, ridiculous crush.”

She wasn’t looking at him anymore, but stared out the window as she sipped at her drink.

She was beautiful. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed her, even after less than a day.

She was right. She really was way out of his league. Even she didn’t realize how far out he was from her, no matter how hard he prayed, wished, hoped, tried…

It broke his heart.

“Where’s your dad, Clark?” Lois asked suddenly, having noticed the absence. “Your mom didn’t come up alone, did she?”

Clark sat down now, even more carefully than Lois had. He set the glass on the table before him as if afraid he might break it.

“He—he’s in the hospital,” Clark said, his voice intentionally higher than usual.

Lois’s brow furrowed. “What happened?” she asked, reaching forward automatically to touch his arm—right below that ragged tear in his skin, which was hidden only by a thin cotton, loose but long-sleeved pajama shirt. Clark managed not to flinch, but pulled away from her and managed to make it look less like a recoiling. If she noticed that there would be no more hiding.

He didn’t know if that last thought was longing or terrified.

“He, uh…had a heart attack,” Clark said softly, looking away from her as he remembered his father the night before. His body seemed little more than a shell now—a feeble little shell housing his too-strong spirit. Clark shook his head slightly to banish the thoughts and took a deep drink of his coffee.

It was hot. It burned his tongue and he almost spat it out, and even though he managed to avoid doing that, his eyes watered as he swallowed and he choked, sputtering.

He stood, coughing, and Lois looked away, feeling her heart wrench.

She remembered Superman, choking on sobs, on tears, on anguish.

But this was Clark, for heaven sakes. He was choking on a bit of coffee. Was everything going to remind her of him for the rest of her life?

Where was he?

“S-Sorry.”

Lois suddenly had a mind to stand up and hit the man over the head. How dare he sound so much like Superman? How dare he apologize so much like him!?

She did stand, but she did not go so far as to actually strike the man.

She was going crazy. She just knew it. She looked around, and she felt him. She could practically feel his skin on hers. She could see his face before hers, and none others.

As she had been talking to Perry, as she had been talking to Bobby Bigmouth…as she had been walking the street alone, it was only him that she could see, feel, hear…

He was the only thing that was real to her.

Even Clark Kent, who was now and standing in his pajamas and now trying to dab at a spot of spilled coffee on his shirt, his cup forgotten on the table beside him. Even he seemed to take a shade of the man of steel as he stood there, and he looked even geekier than she even remembered—though that might just be because she hadn’t seen him in a week, and he just seemed that way beside the superhero. Or maybe it was because of the early hour, and he hadn’t had time to de-geekify himself yet. Or it could just be the new glasses. He must have lost his others, or maybe he broke them. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all, but his own experience with Bureau 39—he looked a lot more nervous than before, too, and a bit pale. But then, that might just be in her mind.

She was beginning to doubt everything around her, at this point.

“So, what did they do to you?” Lois demanded, folding her arms. “I need to know everything. Superman’s still missing, and I’m going to find him.”

Clark looked at her. His tongue hurt. How did everyone usually drink their coffee? He felt like his tongue and the back of his throat had been burned right through with acid.

No wonder why they always took so long to drink their coffee.

They. Them. Humans. People. His parents. Lois.

Not him. Well, usually not.

Was this usual? He thought back, trying to remember if he had ever burned himself drinking something when he was younger. Maybe a little bit, but not like this. He couldn’t remember.

“I burned my tongue,” Clark stated, wincing at the odd numbed/burning feeling.

Lois rolled her eyes. “Then get a drink of water. I mean, it’s not normal for a man to try to chug his half-boiling coffee in one go.” Clark nodded and pulled himself a new cup from the cupboard, then got a drink from the faucet obediently.

Lois watched him, noting how carefully he held the cup. He was really quite pale. She couldn’t see through his thick glasses very well, but he looked tired. She suddenly felt bad for barging in on him like this.

And to come back and find that his father is in the hospital…Lois might not have cared too much, but Clark’s parents had seemed like such nice people, even in the short time she had known them. And after all, they did raise the oldest Boy Scout in America.

“I’m sorry about your father. Will he…will he be all right?”

Clark took only a small sip of the cold water, winced, and then set the cup down next to his still-steaming coffee. He sat down slowly, and Lois followed suit.

“I…I don’t know,” he said, not letting the despair into his voice. He consciously lifted his voice higher, made the stutter more nervous than the deep emotions that shook his heart.

He wanted her to hold him.

“Clark? Honey? Who’s there with you?”

Martha stepped out of the bathroom, dressed but with her hair still wet. She stopped as she saw Lois, looking between the two of them.

Clark stood, almost knocking the chair down behind him.

“Uh. Hi, mom.”

“Mrs. Kent.”

“Lois,” Martha’s eyebrows shot up and she looked at Clark, who gave a minute shake of his head. She didn’t know.

“Sorry to come in so early,” Lois said, glancing at the clock on the wall and blinking slightly as she realized how early it really was. “I just came to find out what happened with Clark and Bureau 39.”

“There’s really not much to tell,” Clark said, with a deliberate shrug. “They asked me what I knew about Superman, but…well…”

Nerdy. Clark Kent the small-town farm boy. No fear. No pain. No white rooms.

Innocent.

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t have anything to tell,” Lois interrupted, irritated again. “Look, Clark, you can drop the act. I know that you traveled the world with Superman before coming to the Planet. I should have figured it out on my own. Where else would a farm boy get the guts and money to travel so much on his own?”

Martha’s eyebrows were threatening to lift right from her brow. “Superman told you this?” she said. Clark looked away.

“Yeah,” she ran a hand through her hair. “I…I’m just…I can’t help but worry that something happened to him. Are you sure he looked all right when he saved you, Clark?”

Clark pushed his glasses up as she turned to look at him. He didn’t meet her eyes, for fear of her seeing inside of him. Seeing and knowing him.

She really was worried about Superman. Perhaps he should have left a better sign that he was all right—but then, what sign would have been good enough?

Coward.

“He looked…tired,” Clark said, finally looking up to her. “That’s…it’s odd to see him look like that…” Her perfect eyes were looking at him, he was drowning in them. He looked away, blinking. “Did…did something happen?”

Lois looked at him carefully. Despite his nervousness, the man was so completely sincere. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to doubt his words.

And maybe she didn’t have a need to. She didn’t know how Superman’s powers came back. Maybe they had returned suddenly, and Kal-El hadn’t given a second thought before flying off to save Clark.

Maybe he had dropped Clark off, and then his powers had failed him again…leaving him stranded, somewhere…

But the note…clearly he hadn’t meant to come back.

How could he leave her like that?

The phone rang, and Martha moved to get it, though she kept an eye on Lois and Clark as she did. But as soon as she answered it her eyes went unfocused as she stared unseeing at the wall. Clark saw the change and took a step forward.

“Okay. Okay. Thank you. We’ll be down there as soon as we can.” She hung up the phone with a shaking hand. She looked at her son numbly.

“Clark, that was the hospital,” she said, her voice small. She suddenly looked all of her age and more. “Jonathan…he…he just passed into a coma.”

Lois stood up. She hadn’t realized how bad Clark’s father’s condition really was.

Clark looked about ready to fall over, and he caught himself on the edge of the table. His face was pale, his eyes wide behind those thick panes…

She couldn’t help but see Kal-El. See his fear, see his pain.

She wanted to go to his side, hold him, and never ever ever let him go.

But this was Clark. Clark Kent, not Superman.

She was going crazy.

“I’m sorry,” Lois said, taking her purse. “I—I didn’t realize…” Neither Martha or Clark looked at her, caught in a silent cold world of the news. “I’m sorry, I’ll just go. I—I hope he…gets better.”

Clark looked at her then, his dark eyes anguished. He didn’t want her to go. He needed her, now more than ever.

He couldn’t do that to her. He loved her too much, and his own love was too selfish for him to give himself to it.

“Thank you, Lois,” he said softly.

Lois stopped in the middle of reaching for the doorknob.

Kal-El.

“You know, for…uh…stopping by, and all,” Clark finished nervously, pushing up his glasses. “And…I’m sure Superman will…I’m sure he’s okay.”

No. His voice was too high. And this was Clark.

She really was going crazy.

Lois shook herself and turned around with a very fake, though small, smile on her face, but not for lack of trying. “Don’t get used to it, Kent,” she said, putting her hand on the doorknob. The smile dropped from her face as she looked at Clark, standing there in too-big pajamas and looking for all the world like an oversized 5-year-old. “Sorry.”

She opened the door and left, feeling even more miserable than before, alone, and no closer to finding where Superman was.

TBC...