From the Dark (2/?)
by Catherine Bruce
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence, and perhaps some sexual situations later on. It all depends on how badly I blush while attempting to write… those scenes.
Summary: Here, Lois has been missing for over a year. When she comes back, she and Clark have to fix some issues. There, Lois is trying to come to terms with a world without a Clark Kent and somehow survive a war-torn Metropolis.
Disclaimer: I don't own "Lois and Clark." That joy and privilege falls to those that do.
Author's Notes: This is set a year after the events of "Tempus, Anyone?" Despite what it says in the first couple of parts, this is not a deathfic, even if some people start out dead. They get better, honest!
Please Note: The timeline of this story is slightly confusing at first. It starts out Here, which is in a modern day Metropolis, and flip-flops back and forth to There, which starts out a year prior and takes place in an alternate alternate Metropolis.
Special Thanks: To my Beta Type Peoples! Without the proddings of one Psychofurball, this would never have gotten past the second part. Thanks also to LaraMoon for the quick but thorough beta (all those poor commas, thrown to the curb!), and to KSaraSara, Saskia, and anyone else I may have forgotten that I have pestered with this.
***
From Part One
~*Here*~
The last thing he heard before losing all consciousness was her voice, surprisingly loud and clear against his ear.
"What if you find me dead?"
Clark was jarred awake by the harsh trill of the phone. For a moment, disoriented, he was unsure where he was. The glare of the fish tank made him believe for a brief moment that he was somehow in Lois' apartment, but then he saw the rest of the room.
The phone rang again, and a third time, before the annoying sound forced him from his seat. "Clark Kent."
"Mr. Kent, this is Avril Dunninger from the Metropolis Hart Morgue. A Jane Doe came through a couple of hours ago, and we need you to ID the body."
"Why?" He refused to allow the dread that threatened to overwhelm him.
On the other end, Dunninger paused for a moment before reluctantly continuing. "She matches the description of Lois Lane."
***
~*There*~
Ignoring his disbelief, she trudged on, “-thinking about getting home to Clark, and our wedding, and- Oh my god.” In the midst of her tirade she had brought up her hand to examine her engagement ring, only to find her left hand completely barren. “Oh god, no, where is it?” Tears stung her eyes as she frantically searched the gravel around her before turned to look pleadingly at her companion. “Perry?”
“Don’t you remember? If you’re caught with any precious jewelry, they confiscate it-“
“No!” The dam broke, and all the frustrations that she’d been feeling since the first time Tempus tore her from her home as she watched Clark make it just a fraction of a second to late poured out of her in great heaving sobs. “Please, no, I can’t lose it, I-I-“
Startled, Perry pulled her towards him and attempted to soothe her.
***
Part Two
***
~*Here
The hospital that housed the morgue was only a handful of blocks away from his apartment, but the walk took Clark twice as long as it would have taken even a normal man. More than once he’d had to stop, because if he took one more step without catching his breath or allowing his heart to slow down, he was certain that he would suffer a heart attack. Or worse.
When he finally made it to the morgue, following the directions from the late shift nurse, he had to again take a moment to compose himself. His chest constricted tightly and he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He suddenly realized that he was suffocating, that there wasn’t enough air in the poorly ventilated hallway to get enough oxygen into his system. His tie clung tightly against his neck, and even after loosening that and clawing at the top button, he could still feel it choking away his life. The hallway began to swim around him and it was even worse than the incident with Baron Sunday.
“Mr. Kent? It’s Dunninger, we spoke on the phone.” Clark’s head shot up to be faced with the kindly eyes of an older gentleman who had come out to join him. How was it he was able to breathe so easily, whereas it took Clark everything he had just to stay standing? “You’re having a panic attack, Mr. Kent.”
He was carefully guided to one of the chairs that lined the walls and brought down to the hard plastic. The older man was speaking, but Clark could hardly concentrate on the words. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple, worn band of gold, gripping it tightly in the palm of his hand.
The wedding ring, which Lois had been only a week away from wearing on her finger, had served to give him strength during the darker times. It had been something tangible to hold onto, to remind him during the bleakest hours exactly why it was that he continued getting up in the morning. Now, though, even as his breathing calmed and his pulse slowed, it served only to remind him of his failure at keeping her safe, and of what he had lost. He may not have seen her yet, but somehow he simply knew that it was over.
Clark had written an article once, during his first months in Metropolis, about how he didn’t believe that Superman was as invulnerable as people believed him to be. This assessment had never felt more accurate than it did at that moment; right now, the man of steel wanted nothing more than to fly as far away from the hospital as he possibly could, to wrap himself in the quilt his mother had made for him when he was just a boy. He wanted to hide away in his childhood room and never come out, almost desperate for the naïve surety he’d always before held, that his parents could make anything better. “I’m not strong enough to do this.”
“Of course you are, son.” Dunninger’s gruff voice caused Clark to start in his seat, not realizing that he had spoken his last thought aloud The man slowly sat down beside him and clapped a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I realize that I cannot even begin to understand the hell that you are going through, but I do know that you’re a strong lad. It’s not every man who would continue to search for their fiancé after the police have given up.”
“How can I not?” He had never understood the way people seemed to be in awe of his refusal to give up. Doing so had never been an option to him. “She’s my life.”
“I know, son. But you need to do this, for her sake if not your own. If, God willing, it’s not her in there, you can continue with the knowledge that she’s still out there somewhere.”
Clark buried his face in his hands, rubbing his weary eyes from beneath the glasses. “And if it is?”
“Then you can at least bring her home.” Dunninger stood as slowly as he had sat and headed for the door before turning to give the young reporter an understanding look. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be at my desk.”
Clark leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and brought the gold band into the light. Its edges had been worn from his continual need to handle it. More than once, he’d had to reshape the metal after holding on too hard and for too long. The last words he remembered from the dream sprung into his mind and he sighed softly before getting up. “It looks like I’m about to find out.”
The morgue was sterile, but still the stench of formaldehyde and death hung heavily in the air. Clark found Dunninger sitting behind a large metal desk, biting into an already half eaten pastrami sandwich. When his presence was noticed, the sandwich went to sit on the wrapper as Dunninger rose to greet him. He shook the offered hand and nodded grimly at the kind, polite smile. “I’m ready.”
***
~*There
It seemed as though she would never stop crying. When the tears finally eased off a bit, she was surprised to find that she felt better, even though her head ached more so than it had before. She pulled away from Perry, slightly ashamed of herself for breaking down in front of him, possible concussion be damned. However, the grief she felt towards losing the ring far outweighed the shame.
The editor gently wiped her face with calloused fingers, the fatherly act nearly causing her to lose it again. “Now, Darlin’, I suppose you needed that cry, even if it was for nothing.”
Nothing? How could he say that? How could he imply that the ring that Clark had given her was nothing but a trivial trinket? She didn’t say any of this to him. After all, he was showing her the same kindness that she had come to expect from Perry White.
However, she could not let the issue lie at rest, she needed that ring now more than she needed his canteen water that tasted like rusty metal, or even his paternal care. “I don’t know what to do without it,” Lois admitted softly, hating the fact that she sounded like a lost child.
Perry sighed and shook his head, bopping her nose gently with the tip of his finger. “And you won’t have to know, Darlin.’ That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Confused hope flared up in her chest and for a moment she wasn’t aware of his movements. She suddenly found herself blushing in horror when the older man began to unbutton her shirt, and moved to stop him. Had her previous knowledge of this man blinded her to the possibility that she didn’t know who he was at all? She pressed herself firmly against the wall and issued out her stern warning. “I may be concussed, old man, but I can still kick your *** .”
For a moment, he stared at her with wide eyes. Then, suddenly, he was leaning off to the side and guffawing as though she had just told him the unabridged ‘Purple Passion’ joke. “Great shades of Elvis, child! I’m old enough to be your father!” His laughter ended with a harsh cough that undoubtedly cleared years of cobwebs from his lungs. That, along with the stern and skeptical look still in her eyes, calmed him down before raising both hands in appeasement. “I’m sorry, honey, I keep forgetting that your personal space is much more than what the others are.”
“That doesn’t explain why you were in my personal space to begin with.”
“Check your delicates.” When her indignation flared even higher, he rolled his eyes. “I’ll turn around, if you’d like, just check your bra!”
He did as he said he would and Lois noticed how he also sat between her and the mouth of the alley. Discreetly, just in case this was still some sort of proposition, Lois slid her fingers in between two buttons and started to feel around. At first she didn’t find anything and was about to kick Perry’s *** for the sheer enjoyment of it. Before she could issue her promise, though, her middle finger brushed against something hard and not really bra-like. She gasped and her fingers clawed over the small cloth pocket that was sewn almost over the wire.
After a couple of seconds, just before she was going to give into temptation and whip the damn thing off right there, she found the opening and pulled out what was inside.
When she saw the small diamond twinkle at her in the moonlight, she felt incredibly relieved. Both for having her ring back, and for the chief not being a lecherous old man, after all. “Oh,” was all she could say as she automatically slipped the ring onto her finger, blinking back even more tears. “Perry!”
At the sound of his name, he turned around and gave her a look that could have killed a normal person, had it not been for the fact that Lois wasn’t a normal person. And the slight smirk he couldn’t hide deflected some of the heat as well.
“Perry, I’m so sorry.” She pressed the stone against her lips almost reverently.
The look vanished and the smirk grew into a full smile. “It’s alright, Darlin’. We’ll let that be your concussion-induced faux pas.” He wagged a finger sternly at her. “But you only get the one, hear?”
She nodded, but was fully immersed with her ring already. The slight twinkle of it caused a ricocheted of memories, all of them involving Clark.
“You sure miss him, don’t you?”
Lois started at his voice. For a moment, she had forgotten where she was, having been transported to another time and another Metropolis. She nodded at him. “Yeah, Perry. I really do.”
He was silent for a couple more minutes as she twisted the band around her finger, watching the play of light in the stone and around the band. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. “You know, even when you first came to us, not even remembering your own name, you knew that there was someone you had to get back to. The others thought that it was just the assumption you had with the ring, but I knew better. I could tell it in your eyes, you know.”
Perry looked down at his shoes for a moment longer before chuckling to himself. “About broke poor Jimmy’s heart when he realized that there was no way he could compete with a guy you couldn’t even remember.” Lois listened to him quietly, hand holding her ringed finger close her chest. “You know that look you got in your eyes just now? I think I still get it sometimes when I think about my Alice.”
He fell silent and she wasn’t sure how to urge him forward, not exactly sure if she wanted him to, as a feeling of dread swept through her for him. Then, when it seemed as though he wasn’t about to go on without her urging, she asked the question. “What happened to her?”
Perry looked back at her through the corner of his eye. “She died in the war.”
***
~*Here*~
A chill hung in the air as they entered the back room where the bodies were kept. On the far side there was a wall of drawers, each one having at one point or another housed the body of somebody’s loved one. Dunninger led Clark to the second drawer up in the third column, at waist level. “Are you ready?”
At the look he received, Avril nodded and pulled out the metal tray.
There was nothing left of Clark’s knees. He was certain of this as the world began to swirl around him. The only thing that kept him from collapsing to the floor altogether was the grip his hands had on the thin slab of metal. He forced his hands to loosen their grip when he felt the tray form like Play-Do under his fingers.
The older man, the sterile room, the pungent smell, all of it swirled into the background until all that existed was her. He brushed away the strands of hair that had fallen across her forehead, stomach roiling when fingertips came in contact with flesh that was too cold, too stiff. Her hair was unbearably coarse and dry, so unlike the softness and shine that she had worked so hard to get. At first, he attributed this to her being…
He had to pause for a moment to force down the bile, unable to even think that word.
She had always taken care of her hair, and her nails, if nothing else. Now, though, the style was haggard and unkempt, just slightly longer than when he had first met her and no longer the pixie cut he had once adoringly teased her for. Her nails too, he noticed as he took a frail hand in his own, were uneven, a few were ragged, and there was even grime beneath them that couldn’t come out from just one washing alone, that had to have built up over time.
There were even more signs that she had had a year even harsher than his own. Her face was gaunt, cheeks more hollow than he remembered them being. He could tell, just from the harsh outline of her clavicle, that she had probably only been able to eat enough food to survive.
And there, above the collarbone and near her right shoulder, an angry scar glared up at him. It was small, round, and looked as though it had been burned.
The world tilted once more, knees almost giving away completely before a pair of strong hands steadied him. Clark tore his eyes away from her face and let out a shuddering breath, focusing on a point just to the left. “It’s her.”
Dunninger nodded grimly. “I have her personal effects in the other room. Take a moment and I’ll have them for you when you’re ready.”
A chair appeared, but Clark ignored it. He wanted to stay standing for as long as possible, because he didn’t trust himself to get up again.
Countless times, he had heard people say how the dead sometimes appeared to be sleeping. Until now he had never believed it, and he had seen more lifeless bodies than any one person should ever have to witness. To him, they had always seemed more like waxen facsimiles of who they once had been, truly empty and devoid of whatever soul, spirit or random firing of neurons had made them whole. He wasn’t sure if it was a human’s natural response to make the pain more bearable or his enhanced senses that had always made him see it this way.
However, staring down at her now, he could see how people could come to that conclusion. Despite her deathly pallor, the unnatural stiffness he could feel in her, or the painfully obvious lack of a heartbeat, she looked as though she were asleep. An irrational part of him wanted to reach out and shake her awake, beg her to come back as he had once before.
Choking back a sob, he pressed his lips against her cold forehead. “I don’t think I can do this alone.”
***
~*There*~
“Perry, I’m so sorry.” It seemed to Lois that she was apologizing way too much to this man, and one of these times he wouldn’t accept. However, this time was different, as she was offering condolences for a situation she didn’t believe that she herself could survive.
Then, something else he had said caught her attention. “Wait. War? What war?”
The old editor gave a heavy sigh as he shifted to join her against the wall. He didn’t look at her, instead opting to look at the wall across the way from them.
“About five years ago,” he started, “The US was attacked by everyone and their mother. No one really knows the real reasons why, or really knows anything except for the outcome.” He waved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture, as though the dingy alley was representative of everything that lay beyond. And a part of her feared that it very well may. “It was hard, it was fast, and the main part was over almost before it had even started. Somehow, they were able to get past all of our defenses.” He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and pulled one out to light it, the gesture surprising Lois. He had quit smoking regularly shortly after she’d started at the Planet and she had only ever seen him enjoy the occasional cigar. She waved him away when he offered her the pack. He didn’t put it away, but placed it on the ground between them, instead. “After the bases fell, they just kept coming. Everyone who was able to fight fought after that.”
Lois found her fingers itching towards the discarded pack as she guessed what was coming next.
“I lost my boys to that damn war.”
The cigarette was out of the pack and lit before she could think twice. She used to steal her mother’s cigarettes as a form of rebellion as a teen; the habit had taken hold and lasted through her freshman year of college. Since quitting, she had been able to ignore the sweet craving, reaching instead for a piece of chocolate. Now, however, the harsh sting of smoke in her lungs and the heady, near euphoric feeling as the nicotine entered her system was worth the harsh cough as her lungs rebelled against the invasion.
She could only listen as Perry related the horrors that had been the war. He didn’t even refer to it by its official name except as a sort of introduction, and as she would come to learn, everybody simply called it ‘the war’ or ‘that war,’ often preceded by a rather colorful explicative or three, because it was really the only war that seemed to hold any credence to today’s way of life. “The War of the Nations Against the United States” seemed to be too much of a mouthful for people to say and was too much of a reminder of what was lost.
Perry told her how, before the turning point and the nation’s laughable salvation, the war had torn apart nearly every single family. Mothers lost sons and daughters, children lost parents, and everybody suffered the loss of comrades and friends alike. The survivors, said with a sneer that told volumes of how inadequate he felt a word that was, were all left with scars, more often physical than emotional. Lois didn’t ask about his own scars, heeding his earlier advice not to ask until he was rather quite drunk.
When all had seemed lost, and when there seemed to be more suicides than casualties from enemy fire, salvation came in a pretty package with a steep cost. A man, who before then had only been an entrepreneur, came forth with the answer to winning an otherwise hopeless conflict. At first, everyone was skeptical at the promises of deliverance from enemy hands, but that was before he unleashed his son, known only as The Enforcer. This seemingly mythical being could be seen single-handedly fighting off battalions of enemy forces, stopping air strikes, and what was even more unbelievable, he flew while doing so.
Lois’ heart soared at the mention of this seemingly god-like being. There could be only one person who had the abilities that Perry described, and if he was here, she felt her spirits lift. But then the old editor went on to explain how, after the war had finally ended and the enemy driven home, the once democratic nation seemed to have become a brutal dictatorship.
The Enforcer, once a beacon of hope, became the object of children’s nightmares as he struck down anyone who would dare go against the new leader. Some of the more grisly accounts seemed so fantastically different from the man she knew, from who she believed he could ever be no matter the circumstances, and she wasn’t able to determine just why or how it came to be that this monster could be anything remotely resembling Clark Kent.
That was until she asked who this dictator was and Perry could only spit out one name with such disdain and hatred that Lois understood only too well.
“Luthor.”
***
-end Part Two
