This part has been the problem part ... mainly because it goes into areas that are definitely not my strength.
So ... I'd like to thank Iolanthe. She beta'ed the entire fic, but this part she looked over at least half a dozen times.
Her commitment to getting it right was amazing.
Also ... I'd like to thank Bob, who answered my calls for help and saved me from posting something completely implausible ... and then provided suggestions to help me get out of the mess I'd written myself into.
Many thanks to both of you
From Part 10 ...
She was interrupted by a loud knock on the cottage door.
“That’ll be Hank,” Lois said. She ran down the stairs and checked through the window.
It wasn’t Hank. It was Bill Henderson.
“Who is it?” Clark asked from behind her.
Lois turned, her heart thumping erratically in her chest. Clark had put on his glasses and was standing, a little unsteadily, at the foot of the stairs. “Henderson,” she whispered.
She saw the colour drain from Clark’s face. “He was there,” he said tightly. “Henderson was at the warehouse. I heard his voice.”
So Daniel had told her some truth.
“Who is with him?” Clark asked.
Lois scanned the garden, as far as the fences. “No one that I can see.” She turned back to Clark, panic engulfing her. “What shall we do?”
Before Clark could answer, the knock sounded again, loud in the silence. “There’s nowhere to hide,” he said. “We have to let him in.”
Lois stepped towards the door.
“Loissss!” Clark hissed.
“What?”
“I’ll do it.” He limped past her and opened the door.
Bill Henderson looked back at them. He was alone, had no gun - not a visible one anyway - but the look on his face was one of urgency. “It’s freezing out here,” he said. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Part 11
Clark shuffled back and Henderson walked in.
Clark fixed his eyes on the inspector, a spiral of unaccustomed emotions eddying through him. Primarily suspicion … but also resentment … and most galling of all … apprehension. Lois stepped very close and slipped her hand into his. Together they faced Henderson.
“What do you want?” Lois said frostily.
Henderson didn’t appear to resent her tone. “To talk,” he replied evenly. “To see how you are. To see if there is anything I can do to help.” Clark watched Henderson’s eyes sweep the length of his body … and saw him cringe with what looked like genuine regret. He slipped off his overcoat and held it towards Clark.
Clark’s gaze lifted from the coat to Henderson’s face.
“Take it,” Henderson urged.
Clark took it and put it on. It probably didn’t look great – two bare and bruised legs sticking out from a coat that was tight across his shoulders and didn’t meet properly at the front – but it beat being more-than-half-naked.
“You should sit down,” Henderson suggested.
Clark hobbled to the sofa with Lois and they sat together, her hand still entrenched in his.
Henderson dragged the chair closer and sat down too. He leant forward, perched his elbows on his knees and stared at his clasped hands. The silence grew heavier.
After what seemed like a long time, Henderson looked up and faced them. “I can guess what you’re thinking,” he said solemnly. “Neither of you has the slightest reason to trust me and I’m not sure anything I say will substantially change that.”
Clark glanced from the police officer to Lois, seeking her reaction. Clark had overheard conversations in the warehouse; conversations that had suggested there was little to distinguish Henderson from Trask in their commitment to the extermination of aliens.
“Then why come?” Lois’s tone had not thawed one jot.
Henderson looked directly at Clark. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make much difference for you at the warehouse, Clark. I couldn’t protest without risking my cover ... and then both of us would have been killed.” His eyes switched to Lois. “And I’m sorry Trask’s man got to you at the police station, Lois. That shouldn’t have happened.”
Clark turned to Lois. “Got to you?” he said tightly.
Lois rested her other hand on his, sandwiching his hand in the softness of both of hers. “They didn’t hurt me,” she assured him with a little smile. She faced Henderson again. “Why did you have me arrested when you *knew* I hadn’t hurt Clark?”
“Hodge told you he had someone feeding out information to him?”
“Yeah.”
“That was me. Although I understand it sounds very convenient now.”
“You *were* working with Trask?” Lois accused coldly.
Henderson nodded. “I’ve been working with him for over a year. Although he was popular and charismatic and had achieved some things against incredible odds, there were people in high places who worried about him. Worried that one day he would go so far past the line, there would be no going back.”
“And yesterday was that day?” Lois said with barbed perception.
“It certainly could have been,” Henderson agreed. “I was asked to monitor him. To ignore the minor violations of procedure and be there to stop the cataclysm.”
“You’re a Metropolis Inspector, he’s a federal agent.” Lois’s tone said she wasn’t necessarily buying this.
“Titles are there because they have to be,” Henderson said. “We’re all *supposed* to be on the same side.”
“Yeah,” she said with biting sarcasm. “Why you? Why would Trask trust you specifically?”
“Precisely because I’m *just* a local cop. Whatever I’ve done has stayed way underground ... even amongst my colleagues.” Henderson leant back in his chair, looking marginally more relaxed. “You probably have a lot of questions,” he said. “I’m here to answer whatever I can.”
Clark’s questions were trying to emerge from the gelatinous mass of his confusion, yet he felt a dragging reluctance to become involved in this conversation. His normal composure, carefully cultivated through years of secrets, had shattered.
“Why don’t we start with the Sewells?” Lois said. Clark could hear her lingering hostility. “It seems to me they’ve caused a lot of trouble.”
Henderson dragged in a big breath, then began. “Max Sewell and his wife, Sheridan worked for EPRAD,” he said. “Their assignment was to apply their expertise in human genetics to the goal of establishing permanent colonies in space.”
“How living long-term in zero gravity would affect us?” Lois asked.
Henderson nodded. “And, by extension, if certain people had a genetic predisposition which would aid or hinder their ability to live in space.”
“How did they go from that to finding a spaceship?” Lois asked, still unconvinced.
“They were supposed to be studying human genetics, but *their* agenda was very different. They had an unshakable belief that aliens existed and had ... or would contact Earth. They were driven by the tantalising prospect of studying non-terrestrial DNA.”
“Still doesn’t get them a spaceship,” Lois noted.
Henderson almost grinned. “They used their access at EPRAD to pore over records, reports and old space tracking data looking for aberrations.”
“Thinking they would find something everyone else missed?” Lois said, her tone falling just short of derision.
“Those were the years of the Cold War,” Henderson said. “Everything was monitored, but if it had nothing to do with the USSR, it wasn’t deemed particularly significant.”
“So they found ... what?” Lois asked. “Exactly?”
“In the tracking data from 1966, they discovered the path of an object that defied the laws of ballistics.”
“Ballistics?”
“How things move in space.”
“So?”
“So because it didn’t follow the laws, they surmised it was powered. It was not an EPRAD project, so they concluded alien life. *Intelligent* alien life. The path of the object terminated in Smallville, Kansas. They went there and found the spaceship.”
Smallville, a spaceship and 1966. Clark’s breathing had become fast and shallow, his mind spinning. His journey to Earth had been *tracked*. He leant a little closer to Lois, not trusting himself to speak, hoping she would ask the questions he couldn’t.
“That’s a big leap,” Lois breathed, almost covering a tinge of respect. “Several big leaps.”
Henderson nodded. “They were lucky. Lucky and obsessed and with a voracious appetite for dusty data.”
“Where did the spaceship come from? Originally?”
Clark’s heart rate rocketed. This was the question he’d lived with his entire life.
“The Sewells say it came from a planet which exploded just after the spaceship’s launch.”
Clark closed his eyes momentarily, grappling with this information. He’d had a home, but it had been destroyed. He’d had a people, a family, but they were almost certainly dead.
“Did the planet have a name?” Lois asked.
“Max and Sheridan called it ‘Krypton’.”
<Krypton> Clark repeated in his mind. Was that really the name of his home, or just something made up by two scientists?
“Why?” Lois asked.
“I don’t know,” Henderson said. “The name was there in all their notes, but without explanation. There was no explanation either for how they knew the planet had been destroyed.”
“Where did the green stuff come from?” she asked offhandedly.
“Apparently, they’re meteorites from Krypton. Possibly they came here in the wake of the spaceship. The Sewells joined the two words and called them kryptonite.”
Lois seemed to be considering that. “So the Sewells took the spaceship home?”
“They didn’t want to share their find, nor have their access to the spaceship limited by EPRAD, so they hastily resigned. They took it and studied it to a minute level and became convinced it had brought an alien to Earth.”
*Superman*.
The word hung between them, unspoken.
“The Sewells had had no income for two years,” Henderson continued. “So they decided they’d try a little blackmail.”
“And through their blackmail attempt, Trask got involved,” Lois said darkly.
“Trask went through everything from the Sewells’ house,” Henderson said. “After talking with them, he was convinced there were other spaceships that had brought other aliens and they lived amongst us, plotting our demise. When Superman appeared, complete with superpowers, Trask lost all rationality; for him it was the final piece of a very terrifying puzzle – the proof that his theory was correct.”
“But Superman appearing did not mean he intended to harm us,” Lois said casually.
“In Trask’s deranged mind, it was enough. He watched the tapes from Luthor’s dungeon – over and over again, driving himself into a manic frenzy of hatred and destruction. I realised Trask was willing to go to any lengths to rid the world of Superman. I knew I needed someone I could trust working on the outside to use the information I had. I contacted Hodge and persuaded him to come out of retirement. Just for this j..job.” Henderson’s voice cracked and he swallowed. “He was a good man.”
Clark glanced at Lois and saw her nod in agreement. He could tell Hodge’s death had affected both of them. He gently squeezed Lois’s hand.
Henderson stared at the floor for long moments, the cottage silent other than the sporadic fire sounds. When he looked up, his attention sought Lois. “When Trask read Superman’s email yesterday, things moved extremely quickly. Scardino was sent to your apartment to track you. When you left to go to the circus, he was ordered to bring you in using any means. I had to get to you first.”
“So you had me arrested,” Lois said, making no attempt to rein in her lingering indignation. “And left me with a rookie.”
“He was all I had,” Henderson said in his own defence. “Superman’s departure hadn’t become public knowledge, but the criminal element had noticed his absence and were testing the waters, so to speak. My intention had been to lock you in a cell, but they were all occupied.”
Lois chose to ignore that particular disclosure. “Surely arresting me would have blown your cover with Trask?”
“It did,” Henderson agreed grimly. “After that, I knew I couldn’t go back to the warehouse.”
Clark understood why and a potent mix of gratitude and relief swept through him. The officer caught his gaze, and a tentative smile passed between them.
“Who’s Daniel?” Lois asked.
“Scardino - one of Trask’s other two lackeys; George Thompson was the other.”
“Is Trask dead?”
“Yes,” Henderson said. “The three of them didn’t stand a chance against Hodge’s bomb.”
“How could Hodge not know about the kryptonite being at the warehouse?” Lois said.
“He never went there.”
“But you did.”
Henderson grimaced at the underlying accusation in her words. “Yes,” he said sadly. “And I will regret for the rest of my life that I didn’t think it was important enough to mention.”
“Was Trask really going to fire the missiles?”
Henderson’s eyes rose slowly from the floor. “He believed you, Lois. He believed Superman wouldn’t come to save you, so he skipped several steps and went straight for the missiles. I didn’t think he would, not so quickly, but Hodge was sure. Thousands of Americans owe him their lives.”
“We do too,” Lois said quietly.
Clark cleared his parched throat. “Missiles?” he said falteringly.
“Trask intended to target some American cities,” Henderson said. “He believed wholesale death and destruction would lure Superman back.”
“To kill him?” Clark asked.
Henderson nodded, then continued, but Clark wasn’t listening anymore. They feared him so much they were willing to sacrifice their own people to be rid of him.
They didn’t know him … yet they feared him.
He’d come as a friend … yet they hated him.
He was completely isolated … the only one of his kind amongst billions of humans.
Lois’s hands tightened around his, and her thumb slid across the fleshy mound between his wrist and his thumb, massaging her love and understanding.
He looked into her face. Her dialogue with Henderson had continued unchecked. But she knew. Somehow she’d sensed his estrangement and had responded.
<You are not alone. I am with you.>
His love for her clambered up his throat and lodged there, hot and fierce. Only Henderson’s presence stopped him clinging to Lois and letting loose the chaotic jangle of his emotions. Clark swallowed furiously and forced his attention back to the conversation.
“Is the spaceship ruined?” Lois asked.
“There’s some damage, nothing that can’t be fixed – superficially at least.”
“What’s going to happen to it?”
“With Superman gone, we thought we’d put it in the Metropolis Museum as a memento of the friend who visited with us for nearly thirty years, but only allowed us to see him as he really was for such a short time.”
“What about the Sewells’ notes?” Lois asked. “And the green rocks?” she added, as if it was an afterthought.
“The notes are water-damaged to a pulp. The green rocks exploded.”
“Not all of them,” Lois said. “There were still some chips on the floor. I saw them when Clark and I were getting out.”
Henderson shrugged. Either he had no idea of the significance of the … kryptonite or he had perfect control of his body language. “Maybe whatever’s left will go to the museum too.”
“Could you make sure it’s all cleaned up?” Lois asked. “I think Superman would hate it if it fell into the wrong hands … you know, people trying to sell it at huge prices, because of its connection with Superman, maybe claiming it had special healing qualities or whatever.”
“I have two of my most reliable men guarding the warehouse now,” Henderson said. “I’ll make sure everything that has any link with Superman is properly dealt with.”
“And the quantum … weapon Trask had?” Lois asked. “The one he thought could kill Superman?”
“It was destroyed by Hodge’s bomb. Along with the manufacturing instructions and the theories behind why it *may* have worked.” Henderson stood and took a cell from the internal pocket of his jacket. “This is yours,” he said, offering it to Lois. “I’ve had the bug removed and charged the battery. I figured you’d have calls to make.”
Lois stood and then turned to help Clark to his feet. As she reached for her phone, a soft knock sounded on the door.
Clark tensed. And felt Lois’s corresponding tension where her hand was joined with his.
Henderson must have noticed. “It’s OK,” he said reassuringly. “Whoever it is, you don’t have anything to fear.” He opened the door.
It was Sarah Crawford. “Billy!” she said with a huge smile of delight. She stepped into the cottage and encompassed Henderson in a big hug.
Clark stared at them, sure now he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Lois had brought him to this storybook cottage and slept in the bed with him. Henderson had come with tales of destroyed planets and fervid scientists, missiles and deranged agents and now … Sarah Crawford was hugging Henderson with what could only be described as easy familiarity.
Sarah withdrew from the embrace and swung her eyes over Clark. She winced with heartfelt sympathy. “I usually make it my business to stay right away from the cottage when the flag is up, but after I read the paper this morning, I hoped you’d had the good sense to come here. So I came to see if there is anything you need.”
“How do you know Henderson?” Clark asked, not able to keep the suspicion from his voice.
Sarah shot Henderson a laughing glance. “Bill’s father was the Crawford gardener for most of his life. He planted the trees behind the cottage and brought to reality Emma’s dreams for the front garden. When Bill was a teenager, he would sometimes come with his dad. My husband, David, was a young boy and he loved nothing more than following Bill and his father as they tended the garden.”
Henderson smiled. “He was a good kid,” he said gently. “But he *never* stopped talking.”
A shared look passed between Henderson and Sarah, a look of remembrance, of someone loved … and lost.
“Do you trust him?” Lois asked Sarah, with a nod towards Henderson.
“Billy?” Sarah said. “Totally. I would trust him with the lives of my children.” Her eyes flitted over Lois and Clark. “I’ll bring clothes and food.”
With a final hug for Henderson, she left.
“Did you orchestrate that?” Lois demanded.
Henderson smiled wryly. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “But you have to admit, her timing is impeccable.”
“So that’s how you knew about this cottage?” Lois concluded.
“Yeah. I’ve weeded this garden more times than I care to remember.”
“But how did you know *we* would be here?”
“I found Hodge’s cell in the warehouse and checked the call register,” Henderson replied. “Putting two and two together wasn’t difficult.”
“Do people still consider Superman a threat to their safety?” Clark asked.
Henderson looked at him, then at Lois. “Doesn’t he know?”
“We haven’t had much time to talk,” Lois said.
“Then I’ll leave you to it.” Henderson offered his hand to Clark.
Clark put his hand in the proffered one.
“This morning’s papers have the basic story of an agent gone wrong and two captured reporters,” Henderson said. “I ensured Perry White got more of the details than anyone else. I told him you’re safe, but not where you are. I also explained the reasons behind Sally Smallville.”
Lois’s expression softened for the first time since Henderson had walked through the cottage door. “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for looking after the Planet.”
“I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t print,” Henderson said. “But I’m sure you’re aware that if my true part in this becomes public knowledge, it will affect my future viability.”
Lois nodded.
“Say the word and I can have all the bugs removed from your apartment and the Planet. And I’ll make sure your personal effects are returned.”
“Thanks.”
Henderson smiled hesitantly.
Lois returned his smile, also hesitantly.
“See you on the beat?” he said.
“See you on the beat.”
+-+-+-+
Fifteen minutes later, Sarah arrived with Tanya, one of her staff members. They brought clothes – some of David’s and some of Sarah’s - enough food for at least two days, personal toiletries and a copy of the morning’s Daily Planet.
“I thought we’d leave today,” Lois said, looking at the rather large pile.
But Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. “Stay at least another night,” she insisted. “But two or three nights would be better. If the flag is still up tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be back with more supplies.”
Lois hugged her tightly. “Thank you, Sarah.”
“Look after yourself, Lane … and your man. You both need it.”
+-+-+-+
When Sarah had gone, Lois looked at Clark, still dressed in Henderson’s overcoat. Her laughter bubbled up and she struggled valiantly to restrain it. Her mouth, she kept clamped; her eyes though, gave her away.
And she knew it.
“Are you laughing at me?” Clark said.
She checked his eyes before answering. She could see the little sprigs of amusement in them. “Yep,” she admitted, granting her mouth freedom.
He glanced down and when he looked up at her again, he was grinning. “Now I have clothes, I should go and dress,” he said.
He picked up the track pants and the polo shirt, tossed them onto his shoulder and attacked the stairs with a vigour that widened Lois’s smile considerably.
Amongst the food Sarah had brought was a lasagne. Lois turned on the oven and put it in to warm. Then she put away the rest of the supplies and picked up the Daily Planet.
Ironically, Trask and Superman shared the front page. Her story about Superman returning to his people had equal billing with the story of Trask and his plans of destruction – a story that carried the by-line of Perry White.
Lois read the story – appreciating its smooth logical progression and readability. Without doubt, the Chief’s juices still ran bountifully when they needed to.
Lois found a pen and paper and began jotting a follow-up story. She left out any mention of Superman other than in the context of being the focus of Trask’s deadly obsession.
She needed to talk with Clark. He needed to know she had fabricated a home planet and sent Superman away. He needed to decide what happened with Superman now.
Although without his powers, it could be that the decision had been stolen from him.
Lois glanced up, wondering what was taking Clark so long. He was standing – on one foot - at the bottom of the stairs, dressed and leaning nonchalantly against the wall, arms folded across his chest.
Staring at her.
She met his eyes and smiled. “What are you looking at, farmboy?” she asked.
“My world,” he said softly.
