WHOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!!! dance

Haha! Well, I don't know if any of you have been up with the news, so I'll just briefly say sorry for the extremely long wait, and for the fact that I completely dropped off the planet without a word. I guess RL just went crazy on me, and once I'd stopped writing for a month or so time just slipped by and before I knew it . . . it's the end of July.

I hope you all haven't abandoned me, and I hope this chapter keeps up with everything I've had in the past.

Thanks for everyone who didn't give up on me!

Now onto the chapter . . .

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Chapter 43: Viper's Nest

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Clark was watching her again, despite the fact that he was easily maneuvering though thick morning traffic. “A-are you all right, Lois?” Did he ever stop watching—making sure she was all right—Lois wondered?

She turned her attention back to him. Or, rather, she turned her eyes back to him. Her thoughts hadn’t drifted from him for a moment. How could they?

Kal-El’s dark eyes watched her with some nervousness, perhaps hiding some dark fear lurking behind the shields of his glasses—bracing himself for a torrential outburst from the insensitive Lois Lane, even while that ridiculous farm boy, hopeful crush shone out of his eyes.

How could someone’s eyes hold so much?

How could she have looked into them and seen so little?

No. Wait. He was looking at her. He could read her, too. She had to pull herself together.

Clark. What would she say to Clark?

She couldn’t remember. Everything was too messed up.

“I’m okay. A bit tired,” she admitted, looking away and out the window.

Clark was silent—perhaps guiltily silent, and Lois could just imagine him beating himself up for keeping her from getting a full night’s rest once again.

Serves him right.

Serves him right for keeping her in the dark all this time. If he had just told her . . .

No. She’d been through this a million times already. Yes, things would have been easier if he had just told her, but he hadn’t, for various reasons. Now they just had to deal with now.
As quickly as it came, the flash of righteous vindication vanished and guilt took its place for her brief pleasure in his pain.

Darn it.

Guilt. She shouldn’t feel guilty, either.

She glanced at him to see him staring at the road, but his eyes were far, far away.
Was he just staring at the air, like most people did, or was there something deep, deep down under the hard black road that he found so deeply distracting? Molten lava bubbles or something?

Well, she wanted to distract him, now.

But what could she say?

Even if you did keep me up, Kal-El . . . Really, it was the greatest night of my life . . . ever.

Thank you, Superman.

I love you . . .

Clark?

Lois’s brow furrowed. She sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window.

Still so confused.

Ignore it, then. Two can dance the dance.

“I-it’s all right, Clark,” she said at last. “I—I probably slept better than I have for weeks”—Darn. Guilt again in his eyes. She spoke faster—“P-probably than I have for a long time before that, too.”

He looked at her—perhaps a hair too sharply—trying to read what she meant behind the words.

“T-that’s good, Lois,” he said noncommittally at last.

What a mess they made. Two stuttering fools, both hiding, both afraid. Both dancing.

The silence grew loud. Lois’s conscience grew louder.

She wanted Clark to come clean. Today.

But she had pushed him away, time after time. What if he had already given up?

Unfair as it was—guilty as they both were—Lois realized she couldn’t wait for him to make the first step. She wouldn’t.

She knew what she should say. She knew what she needed to say. She needed to come clean.

No matter how sick it made her feel to think what he might think.

“A-are you sure you’re okay?” Clark asked again hesitantly, as if half-expecting her to explode in his face.

Just like she had time and time again, before she had known.

“I . . . I don’t know, Clark,” Lois said, looking away and fingering the locking buttons on the side of the door.

Come on! She had decided she needed to do this. There was nothing else she could do, to try to make what she had done right. She was going to do this.

She had to.

How could she expect him to trust her if she didn’t trust him?

Trust him.

He needed her as much as she needed him. She had to hold onto that.

They needed each other.

At her words Clark had suddenly become very intent indeed, and perfectly serious. There was very little nervous farm boy left, but even it was put aside as he paid full attention to her.

Somehow he still stayed on the road. Perhaps she had misjudged his driving abilities.

“What is it?”

Lois took a deep breath and spoke quickly in a rush of air, as if afraid that if she said it too slowly she wouldn’t be brave enough to say it.

“Clark, I—I have to tell you—” She had to tell him. “I-I broke into your apartment yesterday.”

Clark was so surprised at the confession, that he blinked and flat-out stared at her for a second. It was a good thing that they had turned onto a less busy street, and so the second didn’t result in a wreck. He blinked, and it seemed to register that the car was drifting into the other lane. He quickly adjusted, jerking the wheel unsteadily so they were back on the right side of the road.

“I—I’m sorry,” Lois said quickly, not looking at him and staring at her white hands clasped on her lap. “I—I know I shouldn’t have, but . . . but I was curious about w-where you’d gone off to, and why S-s-superman was your friend, and . . . ”

His expression had hardly changed. Lois’s bumbling apology trailed off as she braced herself enough to look at him—and recognized something as Clark sat back as he stopped at the next stoplight, his dark eyes studying her carefully.

He wasn’t surprised. There was no hurt or shock in his eyes. He was just watching her. Thinking.

He had already known. Perhaps he had even flown overhead and seen her in the act of such breaching of privacy.

So that was why he had looked at her so closely the night before, hovering outside her window before coming in from the rain. He had known that she had invaded his private space, and hadn’t known what to do about it.

“Y-you’re not angry,” Lois observed hesitantly, both relieved and left feeling almost light-headed from relief at the lack of hurt in his eyes.

She had been afraid . . . so afraid . . .

Clark blushed and ducked his head. “Uh. . . ” Now what was he supposed to say? That he had been flying overhead and had seen her snooping around? He had been surprised and a bit hurt at first, but after that just openly curious about what in the world she was looking for. “I—I guess n-not. I—I’m just wondering . . . Why?”

A loud, long honk behind her started Lois from her stunned relief and deflated feeling of lost fear, and seemed to surprise Clark as well so that he pressed on the gas pedal a little too hard, shooting them off the line and forward with an uncomfortable jerk.

He flushed, embarrassed, and got his driving back under control with a soft apology. Lois was too distracted to even think that perhaps she should have driven after all.

How was she supposed to tell him that she was looking for something that had been sitting in the front of her mind for weeks on end? That she was looking for something that was watching her so closely at that very moment. “I . . . I don’t know,” she admitted. She really didn’t know. No matter what sort of suspicions she had had, nothing could really explain why she had been driven there.

He gave her a crooked half-grin, but Lois saw a trace of hesitation and a shadow beneath that, and as he spoke it faltered and failed. “I g-guess you didn’t find anything of worth about a farm boy from S-smallville, USA.”

How much she had dismissed him to his face, again and again. And here he was, bracing for it once again and trying to make light of it.

Honesty. She could be honest with him. And she wanted to be.

It was so easy to be honest with him, with his dark eyes watching her. Ready to move the world for her.

“It’s a long story,” she sighed. She tapped her finger against plastic lock buttons. “See, K-” She caught herself and continued more carefully. “Cclllark, the first day I went back to the office after getting away from them I, well, I sort of . . . attacked Jimmy. Almost knocked him clean out.” She chuckled ruefully. “The kid’s still nervous to come up behind me, you know?”

Clark smiled at her hesitantly. “Y-you know, I almost did the same thing, in Smallville, when he came down for . . . ”

For his father’s funeral.

Lois turned to him. “Jimmy was in Smallville?”

Clark nodded and shrugged. “He’s a good kid.” He looked out the window, his hair falling over his eyes so he had to brush it back a bit, and he smiled slightly to himself. “Scared to death of the chickens, though.”

“I can imagine,” she said dryly. “Too bad you didn’t get pictures.”

Clark didn’t answer, but kept looking out the window.

“Ah,” Lois caught him. He might not lie, but he was a master at hiding truths. “Of course. Jimmy was with you, so he’ll have plenty of pictures to go around.” No reaction. “I’ll be seeing those, Clark, with all the plaid and farm boy glory.”

Still no answer.

Where was the easy bantering? Where were the returning jokes, the returning teasing? Instead, he was looking out the window, biting his lip and looking far away in thought, and not happy thought at that.

In fact, his hands were shaking slightly on the wheel, though he moved his right hand and clasped his forearm as if he felt her gaze on him, his left over the right, almost protectively despite its deceptive casualness.

Over his right arm, that had been injured not so many weeks before.

Did it still hurt him?

Lois had no doubt that it did, no matter how healed the scars were.

“L-Lois, I—I . . . .”

Lois, I’m Superman.

Lois’s heart leaped into her throat and she felt she couldn’t breathe.

It was coming.

Both hands returned to the wheel, gripping it so tight Lois was surprised she didn’t see it bending right at that moment. It was like a knife was tearing in Lois’s own heart.

P-please d-don’t leave me.

She wanted to take him in her arms. She wanted to hold his hand. She wanted to tell him that it was all right, that she knew, and she didn’t care.

Not now. Maybe later. But right now, she didn’t care about that at all.

But he had to do this. He had to do this, for himself.

But Clark looked away, out the front window, and swallowed. “We-we’re here,” he whispered.

Darn it! The man was right. There was no way that Lois could pretend to be lost and drive around the block another time—not with Clark driving (perhaps she should have driven, after all). They pulled in front of the carefully-manicured lawn and turned off the car.

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The air was quiet, but not oppressively so. An American robin sang from somewhere down the street and the soft rumble of a passing car hummed by. The air was warming, but was still cool and fresh from the rain, and smelled of wet asphalt, grass, and damp dirt. Clark got out of the car and paused, taking a breath and letting his eyes drift down the white side fence and the line of wetly glimmering trees to the home nestled comfortably in the center of the deep green lawn.

A purple tricycle with a hand bell and little tassels hanging from the handles lay toppled on the front lawn near the front steps, and a baseball bat shone with metallic dew amidst the grass.

It was a positively lovely suburban home—very similar to one that Clark had imagined might some day be a place where he would be comfortable to settle down. But there were some signs of neglect against the picture-perfect lawns and houses on either side. The grass was just-too-long to be considered neat, the paint on the white fence was flaking and showing water-logged wood underneath, and the front porch was cluttered with the scatterings of half-rotted, half-dust, half-muddied leaves and withered blossoms from the fall and more recent spring, streaks of dust and remnants of spider hotels, and a once-red wagon with a thin lining of still, rusty water on its bottom,

And there, on the mailbox, stood the bold yet gracefully written name that had haunted his dreams for far too long.

Logram.

Lois and Clark looked at each other—almost automatically, before both reaching for the car doors and stepping out. Clark waited on the sidewalk, practically hovering as he waited for her to come around the car to stand beside him.

Though not quite, though Lois had to admit that she did sneak a peek towards his shoes, which were firmly planted on the ground.

How in the world did he fly anyway? Was it like some Peter Pan thing? Did he have some sort of happy thought that carried him into the skies?

No. That was ridiculous. But something inside him made it work. Made him more free than the rest of the world could ever be . . .

Something inside of him that Logram had been so eager to find.

“It’s so . . . ” Clark began, but trailed off as the robin made itself visible from the depths of one of the trees and flitted over his head with three calls. He watched it as it crossed the street, perched upon the peak of a neighbor’s home, and continued its song.

“Normal?” Lois finished for him, likewise looking bleakly at the home.

“Y-yeah. It’s . . . weird, you know?”

He didn’t know what he had expected, but he had not expected this. To think of Logram here, tending to the yard, the fence, walking up this sidewalk day after day after work . . .

He couldn’t do it.

Lois touched his arm gently, and Clark realized that he had gone completely stiff and still. He relaxed slightly at her touch and turned his head to the side as he heard it.

“Julia, get down here right now or I’m going to tell Mom!”

Clark lowered his glasses slightly and a peered through the house to the other side, where a young boy and girl were standing at the base of a fair-sized tree.

“No! I need to get Zupie!”

The answering hero was a small Hispanic girl, who had somehow made it onto one of the lower branches of the tree and was now making her way up towards a very unhappy looking cat perched a fair few feet above her.

Clark blinked. A blue cat?

“Julia!” it was the boy that shouted this time, and he looked annoyed despite his worry. “It’s just a stupid cat. He’ll come down when he gets hungry.”

“No! Go away, Mike!” the little rescuer said, sounding close to tears as she reached for another branch just out of her reach. “Zupie, come here, kitty.” The cat gripped the bark beneath its claws and made absolutely no move towards her.

“What is it?” Lois asked.

Clark jumped, both at the proximity of her voice and the fact that he’d been caught staring seemingly blankly at the unmoving house before them. He fumbled, quickly pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I—Uh . . . what if they’re in the backyard, Lois? How about we check?” And he started forward to do just that.

“Okay,” Lois said, somewhat surprised at his haste but not complaining as she stepped quickly to keep up with his long strides.

They came around the side of the house and Lois blinked at the sight of the children, the girl in the tree who was now standing precariously on the next-higher branch as she gripped another to her chest. Her hands were shaking, and she was staring down at her companions with wide, frozen eyes.

“Julia, come on down, now.”

“I can’t! I have to get Z-zupie!” the girl cried, sounding horribly close to tears.

“Hey, who are you?” the boy—Mike—demanded, glaring down at both of them.

Clark slipped out of his coat so quickly that Lois decided he must practice in his spare time, and when he looked around for a place to set it she took it from him. He gave a brief smile and started forward, easily catching hold of the lowest branch, which only came to about his shoulders.

“It’s all right, I’ll get you,” Clark said, easy lifting himself up to the branches. It took him only a couple seconds to climb up to the girl and reach her at her precarious perch. “Whew,” he said, feigning tiredness. “You’re a good little tree-climber, to get up here all alone,” he said, sitting beside her on the thin branch that Lois was sure should have long since broken beneath his weight, if . . . “Want to come on down with me now?” he gave an easy, comforting smile.

Superman’s smile. Lois had seen it a thousand times—seen it coax terrified victims from cliffs, from burning buildings, from shattered vehicles . . . and had never recognized it on her partner’s face.

He was in his element. There was no sign of the bumbling, awkward reporter right now.

The girl stared at him out of big black eyes, her two short black braids quivering slightly. Lois was sure that, charm or not, Big Blue was just about to get rejected.

Then, without warning, the little girl let go of the branch and eased herself into Clark’s waiting arms, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Lois didn’t scowl. Really—she didn’t! She’d been wrong before, after all.

“Okay,” Clark said, bringing one arm around the girl. “Hold on, okay?”

He took his time climbing down, and in a minute his feet were set carefully on the grass and he was setting a very reluctant girl down on the ground.

“Z-zupie,” the girl said, looking back up the tree that now looked impossibly tall to her small height.

“Just a second,” Clark said, and though he didn’t actually climb the tree in a second like Lois knew he could, he carefully made his way up the tree, now and then standing on branches that she knew couldn’t possibly bear his whole weight—215 pounds as it were. The cat growled and hissed at him, but with a little coaxing he took it in an experienced hand and carefully made his way back down again.

“T-thank you!” little Julia said, reaching forward with open arms for her badly colored bright-blue cat, for stripes and patches of white still showed through the job. Considering that the feline was bristling, spitting, and about a third of the girl’s size, Clark moved forward slowly, letting the cat calm down at the scent of his owner before letting the cat down. It purred and rubbed its very blue fur against Julia’s leg.

“Julia! Mike! Jenni! What is going on out here?”

A woman with silver-lined dark hair charged from the back door—a young, freckled boy of five trailing at her heels as she swept forward towards the children.

“Julia climbed the tree, Mom!” Mike piped up.

“Mike colored Zupie again, Mommy!” Julia sniffled, clinging to Zupie, who indeed looked like he had had a very bad coloring job of bright blue.

“I told her not to do it, Mom—” Jenni said with all 11-year old righteousness.

“Oh, Julia!” the woman knelt down next to the young child and took her by the shoulders. “You need to be careful! ”

“I’m all better, Mommy,” Julia insisted, but was not answered.

Mrs. Logram stood slowly, her conditioned mother’s eye doing a quick scan to make sure none of the children was hurt before her gaze swept to the two strangers, and stalled on Lois and immediately chilled.

“Miss Lane. I told you I wasn’t giving interviews.”

“Excuse me, you must be Mrs. L-logram,” Clark said, stepping forward with a smile that was only slightly tremulous. “I am sorry. We wouldn’t have intruded like this, but we heard the children and came through the gate to help.”

“He climbed the tree to save Zupie, mommy!” Julia insisted, bouncing, and the cat that was now half-way in her arms hung with conditioned limpness. “And he saved me too, ‘cause I was going to fall.”

“What have I told you about climbing that tree?”

“S-sorry, mama, but Mike—”

“Ju-lia!” Mike interrupted with a warning glare.

“All right, I want you and your sister to go to your rooms. Now. ”

“Momm-ee!” the pair whined in almost perfect unison.

“But mommy, I want to show the nice man my bunny!”

“To your rooms, you two, now,” Mrs. Logram ordered, her tone brooking no nonsense.
Mike hunched towards the house, stomping heavily on the damp ground. Julia, however, hesitated, looking at Clark. Without warning she moved forward, dropping poor Zupie and wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him with all the strength she could muster. “Thank you, mister . . . ” Her young face reflected confusion. “Wha’s your name?”

“I-I’m Clark,” Clark said. “You’d better head up to your room, like your mom says.”

“But I like you.”

Lois put a hand over her mouth to hide her grin.
Clark gave Mrs. Logram an apologetic look, then bent down and ruffled Julia’s dark hair. “I like you too.”

“Ju-lia,” her mother warned. The girl jumped back.

“Thank you, Mister Clark!” she said, and scampered into the house.

Clark watched her disappear. “S-sorry,” he said, looking back towards Mrs. Logram as if afraid of her wrath.

He needn’t have been afraid. Mrs. Logram looked at him, who was still jacketless, and the vest of his suit was a bit crooked, and though he couldn’t see it a leaf had fallen on his hair during one of his adventures up the tree. He looked so plain guilty and yet innocent-farm boy that despite his height and age, he really did look just like a kid.

“It’s all right,” the woman said. “Jenni, will you take Kevin inside and turn on a movie for him? And keep an eye on him, this time?”

“Yes, Mom,” the eldest said, obediently scooping up the bundle of energy who was busy running around the yard making zooming sounds. All three watched the last of the children close the back door behind them, and at last the yard was silent again.

Mrs. Logram visibly deflated as she looked back to them. “Look, mister . . . ”

“Oh. C-Clark. Clark Kent,” he introduced quickly, reaching forward to shake her hand. “And this is L-Lois Lane.”

“We’ve met,” Mrs. Logram said, her eyes visibly chilling as she turned her eyes to Lois. Clark looked at Lois curiously, who looked close to wringing his jacket which she still held.

“Again, we are sorry for intruding . . . .” Clark apologized again, but Mrs. Logram interrupted him.

“No. Thank you. The four of them have always been a handful, but with the long weekend they’re just bursting to get out—especially Julia, now that . . . well. And I would take them out, but . . . ” She trailed off.

She would, but it was so much harder as a single parent.

A single parent. Had she actually loved Logram?

Clark didn’t know. But she felt like a nice person, at least in first impressions, which didn’t help him know how to feel about this whole situation. She was a bit on the plump side, seeming almost grandmotherly despite the younger age of her children, with open eyes and her graying hair pulled back into a loose ponytail.

“I-I think I understand,” Clark said. “I grew up in K-Kansas on a farm, and my parents’ hair was white by the time I was five from all the times I got into trouble. It must be a real adventure to have four of them around.” He glanced towards the house. “A-are they all yours?”

Lois didn’t know how he did it. For all of her years and experience and smack-down, hard-core reporting talents, she could not figure how he did it. But fifteen minutes later she was sitting in Mrs. Logram’s kitchen, stirring her too-hot cocoa as she watched Clark and the wife of the man who had almost killed him talk like old friends.

Was it the country boy charm? The open, honest smile? Or just the fact that while he sat at the couch and talked with the woman there was such earnestness in his whole attitude as he listened. Even if what they were speaking about was completely irrelevant (and a waste of time, in Lois’s mind) to speak about, Clark cared.

But wasn’t that just so . . . Clark?

Through the course of the conversation it had been discovered that Clark was adopted, like the three youngest of the four Logram children. Now he sat with the smallest boy, Kevin, on his lap, whom he had lured there with a peace offering of lifesavers from an inner jacket in his pocket.

Why did Clark carry lifesavers in his pocket? Why did Superman carry lifesavers in his pocket?

Lois shook her head. She was going stir-crazy.

There was a lapse in the conversation as Clark was distracted with a disjointed and babbled story from the young child, from which Lois recognized little but a slurred “Zupie,” while Clark was nodding and watching the child as if he was fluent in babble along with all his other languages. Lois’s eyes drifted around the too-normal room, her imagination once again trying to picture Logram walking across the clean carpet, sitting at the couch, at the dinner table. . .

She looked back to Mrs. Logram, who had likewise taken the distraction of Clark’s attention and was now watching Lois with an unfriendly look on her face. When their gazes met Mrs. Logram looked away and back to Clark.

“Mr. Kent, you seem like a good person.”

Clark looked up from the in-depth conversation he was having and handed the boy on his lap another lifesaver, quieting the child for a minute. “Th-thank you, Mrs. Logram.”

“I told Mrs. Lane that I didn’t want her coming back. It’s not easy losing a husband, and under these conditions . . . ” Her voice cracked and she stopped, fighting for composure.

“Mrs. L-logram, I assure you we are not looking for anything to cause you or your family any more pain,” Clark said, his words spoken in such a careful way that no one could ever doubt his word.

“Even so,” Mrs. Logram said, looking away and blinking rapidly. She brought a hand to her face. “I . . . I would appreciate it if you would not try and contact me again. I don’t know anything, and I think you may be able to imagine how it is, to have a loved ones memory so . . . destroyed, after he’s passed on.” Clark opened his mouth to speak again, but Mrs. Logram held up a hand. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, just . . . I would like you to leave now. And please, Mr. Kent . . . I just want to forget all of this.”

Clark ducked his head, his eyes thick with guilt, and Lois felt a spike of anger. This woman could be playing his sympathetic and trusting nature, and he should not be feeling guilt for anything involving Logram! Whether Mrs. Logram was involved with Bureau 39 or not, there must be something here to give them a lead.

Clark had helped Kevin from his lap and stood. Lois stood with him and faced the woman across from her boldly.

“Mrs. Logram,” Lois said, folding her arms and meeting the woman’s eyes. “I understand if it may not be the most pleasant thing, finding out your husband is a criminal, but that’s the truth. Hiding from it won’t change what he did, and by not helping us you may aiding the very crimes that he supported!”

Mrs. Logram had gone slightly pale, and her lips were tight as she stood as well. “ Mrs. Lane,” she said tightly. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Didn't you hear what I told you last time we spoke? I don’t know anything.”

Lois’s expression was less than believing.

Mrs. Logram set down her cocoa on the table so hard that it splashed some of the hot liquid out of the glass. “Two weeks ago I got a phone call that told me my husband was dead—poisoned in jail after being arrested for illegal medical research.” The woman’s voice shook with emotion, and her eyes shone with upset tears as she wrapped her arms around her. “That was it. Everything else—everything else! —I read from the paper, or saw on the news, or overheard at the grocery store. I don’t know anything. Not the details of what he was doing, not who he was working for, not why. Not . . . not anything!”

The woman’s tirade was broken by a sob and she lifted a shaking hand to her face. She braced herself against the table with her other hand, as if the earth was unstable beneath her and was likely to give out beneath her uncertain feet.

Lois stood there, stunned. Kevin started crying, just because his mother was.

Clark moved. He took Mrs. Logram’s arm, muttering soft reassurances as he pulled out a chair for her and helped her sit. She did so, and accepted Clark’s handkerchief with a nod of thanks even as she struggled to stop the shuddering tears that shook her motherly frame.

“I—I’m sorry,” Mrs. Logram said at last, her breath hitching from the tears.

“No, we’re sorry,” Clark said, sitting across from her and watching her with guilt-stricken eyes. “We had no idea, Mrs. Logram . . . .”

Mrs. Logram sniffed, wiping tears carefully away with a shaking hand. “I . . . it’s just t-terrible, not knowing. Just hearing . . . whispers.”

“We are on the case,” Lois said. She was awkward in sight of the woman’s tears, but she wasn’t about to sit down like Clark, who was all but patting the woman’s hand for comfort. “Mrs. Logram, like I said before, we are not dirt-diggers. We are seeking for”—her gaze flickered towards Clark—“truth. Justice. We have suspicions about who is responsible for this. All of it—from your husband’s crimes to his murder, and who is responsible for all of this. We’ve hit a dead end, but if we can find anything—anything from your husband’s work, business . . . we could bring it all to light.”

Mrs. Logram’s lips tightened as she listened, but it was not in anger this time. It was determination. She wiped at the last of her tears and nodded, swallowing thickly.

“Mike was a good man. We . . . we always wanted children of our own. Jenni . . . was a miracle. After the doctors said we couldn’t have any others, we turned to adoption. Michael, Julia, and Kevin were our little blessings.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and dabbed at her eyes again. “He was a good man. I . . . I met him in college. We were in the same medical program, and kept in touch while I went into nursing and he into hematology.” Her voice shook. “He . . . he was . . . quiet—never really liked people, but he was handsome and brilliant—a doctor more of behind the scenes than the foreground. I fell in love with him.” She turned slightly, looking out the window into the backyard. “He was here often enough. Not always really . . . cheerful, but he was someone the kids could depend on, even if they didn’t play with their Daddy all the time. You . . . you could tell he loved them.”

She paused, holding Kevin close to her heart as she rocked slightly.

“Six months ago Julia was diagnosed with Leukemia.

We did everything we could. In his work, Mike was among the best, and he had connections. We took her to experts—the best in the field, and in the world of medicine but they all said the same thing: her case was terminal, and there was n-nothing they could do for her.”

“We watched our little daughter waste away. She . . . she was so small . . . so weak. Just a little child, who should have . . . been worrying about nothing but . . . flowers. Rain. Sunshine. But . . . there was nothing we could do but watch her . . . die.” The last word was in a bare whisper.

She stopped, trying to compose herself slightly again. She gave a valiant attempt at a smile. “That’s actually when we got Supes.”

Lois and Clark both went dead-still. Lois felt as if her heart frozen in mid-beat.

“What?” she demanded.

“I suppose you know him better as Zupie,” Mrs. Logram said, her smile coming easier. “Kevin named the poor cat, but couldn’t say the name right. It just kind of . . . stuck.” She sighed softly. “Of course, Mike never . . . well, he didn’t really like . . . .” She trailed off, clearing her throat.

Clark swallowed, trying to wet his dry throat. He looked down at his hands.

“Mike . . . he dedicated his life to finding a cure,” Mrs. Logram continued. “Spent less time at home. N-near the end, he said he was working on a project that would heal her. He . . . he seemed so determined I . . . I just prayed he would be right. That it would work. ”

“And it did,” Clark whispered, remembering the active, lively and healthy child he had rescued from the tree only a few minutes before. “It did work.”

Mrs. Logram nodded tearfully. “He . . . he disappeared, three weeks ago. He just didn’t come home from work. It wasn’t too unusual. I just thought he couldn’t bear to watch . . . little Julia. And he was working himself to death trying to save her. And she was so close, then. We were keeping her at home. We both knew the equipment, and . . . we wanted her to . . . be at home, when the time came.” She shifted Kevin on her lap and rubbed his back absently. “He came back on Wednesday—I remember it clearly, because it was the . . . the last time I saw him. He looked so tired . . . so exhausted. Almost . . . cold,” she whispered. “But . . . he slipped something into Julia’s IV before he left again—he said he couldn’t stay. He just . . . left a vial, and told me to give it to her in twelve hours. Whatever it was . . . it hurt my little baby. She was sick with fever, pain . . . but . . . the next morning she woke up and . . . it was over. The doctors could find no sign of cancer, and you can see her now, just two weeks later. It . . . it was a miracle.”

She looked at them intently through her red-rimmed eyes. “How can we condemn this? Whatever he was doing—he saved a little girl’s life. Even if it was . . . funded, or supported by some crazy government group . . . Isn’t a little . . . illegal medical research worth that? Isn’t it worth the life of my little girl?”

Clark looked away, and Lois could see his hands pale and clench. He didn’t—perhaps he couldn’t—answer.

TBC . . .


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