"Clark?"
He jumped at the sudden sound of her voice. "Yes, Lois?"
She glanced at her watch. "It's almost one o'clock. The funeral starts at two. There's no chance of us being interrupted now."
"OK." Was she going to ask again?
"I have an idea for something we could do."
"You do?"
"I do," she said. "Tennis. Well, it'll probably be more like squash."
Clark looked around the prison, seeing the possibilities. "Squash?"
She nodded. "I know you've kept fit with running and other exercises. I have a ball and two racquets. Would you like to?"
He sprang to his feet. Squash he could manage.
Part 9
Lois stormed up the stairs and only just refrained from slamming the office door into next week.
She was an idiot.
She had allowed her impulsiveness to override her common sense. In pushing too hard, she had bulldozed over all the progress they had made yesterday.
Poor Clark!
He'd tried so valiantly to conceal his dismay.
He was a bachelor. And probably not one of those bachelors who revelled in their *freedom* to sashay from woman to woman but one of those bachelors who felt self-conscious around women. Add to that seven years of being treated as a subhuman monster, and how could she have expected anything else?
Why hadn't she taken it slowly?
Lois wanted to scream. But she couldn't - Clark would hear.
She wanted to punch something. But she couldn't - he would hear that, too.
She snatched up the two racquets, the tennis ball, and a large piece of chalk from her desk.
At the door, she forced herself to pause. Take a breath. Calm down.
This was redeemable, her rational side insisted in a small voice.
But now he'll be on edge, she argued. He'll worry that I'm going to suggest something else that will be too difficult for him, he'll obsess about declining, he'll wonder if I'll back away, he'll fear that his refusal will have ramifications.
She'd put him in such a difficult position.
If he agreed now, the reasons would be all wrong.
Stuck in her mind had been how washing her father's hair had seemed to break down the barriers between them. And she hadn't been able to forget how Clark had recoiled when their fingers had brushed yesterday.
She so wanted to make up for seven lost years.
How did it feel to not know the touch of a friend for seven years?
He must feel so isolated.
Lois grated out a silent groan of frustration.
The longer she stayed away, the longer he would agonise over what had happened.
It was vital that he trusted her. He had to trust her enough to give her the information she needed to ascertain the best way to procure his freedom.
Trust took a long time to build up. And seconds to break down.
Linda had always provided the steadying hand in their partnership. She had been the word of caution that perfectly balanced Lois's impetuosity.
But now, that hand was gone, and Lois was working alone.
On the most challenging, most important assignment of her life.
Perhaps the situation with Clark could be restored through their game of squash. At least it was going to be physical. She could keep her mouth firmly shut - and that was a good thing. Unless she accidently whacked him with the racquet, she wasn't going to be able to do much damage.
Lois walked purposefully down the stairs, telling herself that it would be good to get active again. Since returning to the US, she hadn't felt any motivation to exercise. Then her ankle had been hurt in the incident with Moyne.
She should be feeling great about this ... this was one of the ideas she had looked forward to most.
She arrived back in the cell - not in the greatest frame of mind - and dropped the racquets onto the concrete.
They discussed a few rules for their game as they used the chalk to draw some lines on the floor and along the side wall.
"Let's just hit for a while," Lois suggested. There was no enthusiasm in her voice.
"OK," Clark said. There was none in his either.
When Lois handed him a racquet, she didn't meet his eyes.
Clark hit the ball against the wall, and it ricocheted to her. It sat up, and she swiped at it. It flew back towards the wall - faster than she'd intended.
Clark stuck out his racquet and returned the ball, moderating its speed enough that it lobbed back to Lois.
She pounded it at the wall.
He muted it.
She slugged it.
He slowed it.
She thumped it.
He tamed it.
She charged at it, absolutely determined to either belt the cover off the ball or blast a hole in the wall. She drew back her racquet -
And excruciating pain seared through her left ankle.
Her leg crumbled.
The concrete rushed towards her.
Lois dropped the racquet and put out her hand to cushion her fall.
Before she crashed, two arms surrounded her and lifted her.
Clark carried her - one arm under her shoulders and one arm under her knees. He dropped smoothly to the concrete, gently lowered her onto the mattress, and slipped his arms out from under her.
"Lois?" he said.
Her ankle felt like it was being consumed by raging fire. She bit down on her lip and closed her eyes.
She felt Clark's hands on her leg. Her eyes shot open to protest. Movement ... touch ... anything was going to intensify the pain.
Before Lois could object, he had raised her foot and was cradling it in his hands. He breathed in and blew a zephyr of air onto her ankle. It felt cold against her skin, but it smothered the fire and brought instant relief.
Clark's breath finished, and his eyes lifted from her ankle to her face. "Is that any better?"
She nodded.
He inhaled, and the cooling breeze whispered across her ankle again. Lois closed her eyes. The pain had subsided enough that it was possible to concentrate on other things.
The way her foot was nestled into his large, gentle hands.
And the memory of the concern so vividly expressed in his brown eyes.
She heard him inhale. His out-breath coincided with another flutter of pulsing air on her ankle. It was becoming numb, and the searing pain had faded to a dull throb. Lois lowered herself from her elbows and lay on her back. Clark placed her leg on the mattress, and she felt the prickle of disappointment that he was leaving her.
When she opened her eyes, Clark was offering her the pillow. She took it from him and slipped it under her head. "Thanks."
"How's your ankle?"
"It felt better when you were holding it."
He crouched at her feet, and his long fingers slid around her lower calf and lifted her ankle. "How's that?"
"It still hurts, but it sure feels better than it did."
"More ice?" he asked, as nonchalantly as if he was offering an everyday icepack from the freezer.
She nodded.
He breathed in again and blew across her ankle. At the end of his breath, his eyes connected with hers. "I think it might be best if your shoe came off now," he suggested quietly. "In case your ankle swells."
"Is it going to hurt?" Lois asked with a grimaced smile.
He gave her a little smile of assurance. "I'll try to make sure it doesn't."
"Thanks."
He placed her foot on his thigh, and Lois watched as he undid her laces with such care that he didn't jolt her foot at all. He loosened the shoe and grasped it. "Ready?"
Lois nodded.
Clark eased off the shoe and placed it on the concrete. Then his hands returned to her foot to steady it as it perched on his thigh.
"Do you want to get more comfortable?" Lois asked. "I'm not going to feel like moving for a while."
He sank to the mattress with a smooth and effortless movement. "Do you want me to keep your foot elevated?" he asked. "Or would you prefer that I put it down?"
Maybe they could achieve through a sprained ankle what they hadn't been able to achieve through a hair wash. "It feels better when it's elevated."
"OK." He adjusted his hands slightly so they provided a sling of support. "How's that?"
"That's great," Lois said. "Thanks."
"What happened?"
"I think my ankle must still be weak from when I twisted it a few days ago. It just gave way under me."
"There are no broken bones," he stated decisively.
He waited ... probably preparing for a barrage of questions. Lois decided that there were more important things at stake than knowing how he could ice her ankle with his breath.
Or react so quickly that he'd caught her before she hit the floor.
Or know with certainty that her ankle wasn't broken.
"Thanks for helping me," she said, hoping to move them away from the gulf of looming questions.
"How's it feeling?" he asked.
"OK. Perhaps a little more ice?"
Clark breathed in, and his breath cooled the lingering coals of pain.
They were silent. Lois closed her eyes as the last vestiges of discomfort ebbed away. When she opened them again, Clark was gazing at her, deep in thought.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked.
"How sorry I am that I made you mad."
"You didn't -"
"Yes, I did," Clark said. "I made you mad when I wouldn't let you wash my hair."
"I wasn't mad at you."
"You were mad," he said. His beard twitched, and for a fleeting moment, Lois was sure his eyes glistened with amusement. "And you were taking it out on that ball."
"True on both counts," Lois said. "But I wasn't mad at you."
He glanced around the room. "There are only two of us here," he noted.
"Yup - and it's not you."
"Oh." He looked down to where her foot hung in the haven of his hands. "I guess that leaves you."
"I was so mad at myself for pushing too quickly and destroying all the progress we -"
"You didn't do that," Clark said.
"Yes, I did."
His eyes settled in hers. "You must have questions," he said.
"You, too."
"You weren't the one blowing your icy breath everywhere."
"You weren't the one trying to blast an innocent tennis ball through a brick wall."
Clark smiled. Lois couldn't see much of his mouth, but she sure could see the humour in his eyes.
They said nothing. She was smiling. He was smiling. She was drinking in his smile.
"I'm sorry, Clark," Lois said. "I was an idiot over the hair-washing."
He slowly shook his head. "You could never be an idiot."
"You hardly know me yet."
"I know enough to know that."
"You don't know some of the things I've done. You don't know some of the incredibly stupid decisions I've made. Decisions that ... hurt people ..."
"Was your intent to hurt them?"
Lois closed her eyes and was transported back to the putrid place where Linda had been raped and killed.
"You don't have to say anything," Clark said quietly. "I know the answer."
His voice had the power to drive away the blackness. Lois opened her eyes. "Thank you," she said.
He looked down, as if her thanks had discomfited him. "It hurt you a lot, didn't it?"
Was he being deliberately ambiguous? Lois nodded. "But your *ice* was wonderfully soothing."
He lifted her foot a few inches and blew on it again.
It felt good.
"I have a suggestion," Lois said at the completion of his breath.
Clark's eyes crinkled. "Does it involve my hair?"
Lois managed to keep her reaction to a restrained chuckle. Clark was *teasing* her. How could a man who had been locked in a cell for seven years still have even an iota of humour left to draw upon? "No," she said, smiling on the outside as her admiration for him surged on the inside.
"Squash?"
Lois shook her head. "I don't think I'll be playing squash again for a few days."
He winced, and his thumb slid across the curve of her ankle. "Does it still hurt?"
"Not much," Lois said. "Not if I don't think about having to stand up."
"We can stay here for a while," he said. "There's no hurry."
Somehow, staying here with Clark - as he held her foot, and talked to her in his soft voice, and looked at her with those sometimes-smiling brown eyes - seemed like the best idea Lois had ever heard. "Here's my suggestion," she said. "We both have questions, but neither of us wants to ask them in case the other doesn't want to answer."
He nodded. His thumb was still gliding across her skin.
"What if we answer questions?" Lois said. "What if I guess which questions you would ask and answer the ones I'm willing to answer? And you could guess which questions I would ask and answer anything you feel comfortable telling me."
"OK."
He didn't sound completely sure. "If there's nothing you feel you want to tell me, that's OK," Lois said.
Clark nodded slightly. His thumb had stopped. Did that mean he was tensing up? Perhaps he needed a reminder of how much he had helped her.
"My ankle's starting to throb again," she said. "Would you mind?"
He inhaled and blew the cool breeze across her ankle. "Better?"
She nodded. "Thanks."
"Who goes first?" Clark asked. "With the answers?"
"I will," Lois offered. She had hundreds of questions she wanted to ask him and very little that she was sure she wanted to say, but it would be unfair to ask him to go first.
"OK."
Lois searched through her mind. "I work as a secret agent," she said.
Clark's thumb slid across her skin in an arc of encouragement.
"When you spend so much time pretending to be someone else, it's very easy to forget how to be you."
"Yup."
She hadn't realised how aptly her statement could apply to him. Part of his survival technique must have been to hide and protect the real Clark. "The only way to stay grounded is to have a friend," she said. "Someone who knows you, and accepts you, and allows you complete freedom to be yourself. Who you really are."
His thumb cruised back and forth across her skin.
"I had a friend," Lois said quietly.
Sympathy budded in his eyes. He - who had lost absolutely everything - could feel the pain of her loss. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said.
"He raped her before he killed her," Lois said with such raw anguish that it didn't sound like her voice. "He raped her, and he hurt her, and he hit her, and he violated her, and ... and ... and ... there was *nothing* I could do to help her."
Clark's eyes had deepened to dark brown - deepened to such a level of feeling that it was like a physical blanket of support being wrapped around her.
"I heard it all," Lois whimpered. "I heard his evil triumph, and I heard her fear, and I heard his cruelty, and I heard her pain." A tear squeezed from her eye and rolled down her temple, leaving a damp trail. "And I heard her die. I heard her final breath."
"Lo -" The word was chopped off as Clark swallowed jaggedly. "Lois," he said. "Aww, Lois."
She could see that he wished he had words for her, but she didn't need his words. His empathy was so pure that words would have cheapened it.
Lois brushed away the trail of her tear. "Your turn."
Clark took a breath, and his thumb stopped on the protrusion of her anklebone. His mouth opened ... then closed.
"Take your time," Lois said. "You can say something as frivolous as whether you prefer coffee or tea, and why."
"That would seem to trivialise what you told me."
"I know you wouldn't mean it like that."
"I like coffee in the morning and tea in the evening," he said.
She smiled a wobbly smile. "I like tea in the morning if I've slept well and coffee if I haven't."
"I'm an alien," he said. "I don't belong here."
Where are you from? How did you get here? How can you look so human? Are you going back? Are there other aliens here? Why did you come here? With a colossal effort, Lois subdued the questions jostling through her mind, and gave him time to choose his answers.
"I came here as a baby," Clark continued. "My planet was about to self-destruct. My biological parents figured this was my only chance."
A baby? She'd read an entire notebook filled with information about a spaceship, but if Trask had mentioned that it had carried a baby, she'd missed it. "Did they -" Lois slapped her mouth shut. "Sorry."
"Ask," he said. "It's OK."
"Did they come, too?"
"No. Only me."
"Why did they send you to Earth?"
"Because they thought I would be enough like humans that I could be ..."
"Accepted here?"
He nodded. "Two Kansas farmers - Martha and Jonathan Kent - found my spaceship. They lifted me out, and took me home, and gave me a name, and raised me as their own son."
And Trask had ensured that they had paid an enormous price for their kindness.
Clark looked down, his eyes blinking rapidly. When he looked up, they were damp with unshed tears. "I can't talk about my parents," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I think it's my turn again," Lois said.
"Thanks." The gratitude in his eyes drilled deep inside her.
She searched through her mind. There had been wonderful release in the little she had told Clark about Linda, but Lois wasn't sure she wanted to tell him any more.
Not now.
His thumb began coasting over her ankle again.
What could she tell him?
Something light - but what? All of the best parts of her life had disintegrated. She'd had some fun times with Lucy ... who'd moved to the West Coast and whom Lois hadn't seen in two years. Her relationship with her mother became more strained every year. She'd had a good - if at times turbulent - relationship with her father ... who was now in a nursing home paralysed from a stroke. She'd had a friend, a partner ... someone she loved and trusted ... who had died a horrible and violent death.
The stark truth was that the best thing in her life right now was the prisoner she was supposed to be guarding - the man she had spoken to for the first time only yesterday.
The pressure of Clark's thumb increased a tiny amount. "It's OK," he said. "You don't have to say anything."
"Thanks."
"Would you mind if I asked a question?" Clark said. "I don't think it will be intrusive, but if it is, you don't have to answer."
"OK."
"Other than your ankle, whatever else Moyne did to you ... are you OK?"
She nodded. "I'm fine."
One hand left her ankle and rose to his face. He brushed his fingertips across the top of his beard, along his cheekbone. "I've been watching the graze you had here. It has almost faded to nothing."
"The Neosporin you gave me helped," Lois said with a smile.
"I wanted to do so much more," Clark said. "But I knew that anything I did would scare you more - and you already looked so frightened."
"I was," Lois admitted.
"Did ... did Moyne use me to scare you?"
"Yeah."
Clark looked like she had hit him. "Sorry," he mumbled.
She waited for him to look up before answering. "It wasn't your fault."
"No wonder you were screaming that night."
"That was *not* about you - it was about the ... the night my friend died."
There was such depth of understanding in his eyes that Lois felt irresistibly drawn to him. What would it feel like to have his arms around her? To lean into his chest and -
"Having been there ... that must be tough," Clark said.
Lois nodded, and her eyes flooded.
His thumb continued to work her ankle. She stared up at the high ceiling and blinked against her rising tears. She concentrated on Clark. Was he aware of what he was doing? Was he doing it to comfort her? Or because human contact felt so good after the years of segregation?
Did he know how amazing it felt?
She returned her gaze to Clark. "Do you know why Moyne forced me into your cell? Did he really think you would hurt me?"
"That's what he did the other two times."
"He forced Deller and Bortolotto in here?"
"Yeah, he locked them in here, and then he returned with the poison and a knife. Because of the poison, I couldn't do anything while he attacked them."
"They weren't able to escape?"
"The second one wasn't a fighter. He wasn't very strong."
"What about the first one?"
"Trask helped Moyne that time."
*That* definitely hadn't been in Trask's log. "So, you think Moyne's plan was to leave me here with you ... although he probably knew you wouldn't hurt me? Then, he planned to return with the rod, kill me, and say you'd done it?"
"Yeah."
"But he pulled my gun on me," Lois said. "He tried to shoot me."
"If he said you walked in here with a gun, and you ended up shot, who do you think they were going to blame?"
That question didn't need an answer.
The grim silence fell again, and Lois could imagine too well the horrific things that had happened in this place.
"I'm sorry I believed ... just for a few moments ... that you might hurt me," Lois said.
"You don't have to be sorry," Clark said. "You had no reason to think I was anything other than what they said I was."
"Yes, I did," she countered. "I had plenty of reason."
"But reason gets easily lost in the heat of the moment."
"Thanks," she said. "Thanks for being so understanding."
"And two days later, you walked in here unarmed." Clark shook his head in wonderment. "I could never have imagined such an act of trust."
"Trust?" she said, smiling. "Or stupidity?"
"What do you think?"
"Trust," she said decisively. "Even then, I knew there was something about you."
He smiled cautiously. "There's plenty about me," he said. "Mostly it makes people terrified and suspicious."
"Was it always like that? When you were younger?"
"No one knew. I didn't tell anyone. I just tried to blend in."
Lois had thought a lot about the trauma of his imprisonment but nothing of the lifelong anguish of being so different. She didn't know what to say. And ... she was going to have to get up.
"Clark?" she said. "I need to use the ..." She glanced to the door of the cell.
He carefully placed her sore foot on the mattress and removed her other shoe. "Would you like me to help you to your feet? Or carry you to the door?"
He had carried her to the mattress, but she had been in so much pain, it was nothing more than a blurred memory. "Would you mind carrying me?" Lois asked.
Clark knelt beside her, slipped his arms under her body, and lifted her as easily as if she were a child. As he walked across the cell with smooth, even strides, the bottom of his beard tickled her arm.
They arrived at the door, and he lowered her to her feet. His hands loosely circled her waist as he steadied her. Lois grasped his shoulders and put her foot to the ground. She gingerly transferred her weight from her good foot to the injured one.
The expected shot of pain didn't come.
It was sore, but not unbearably so. She smiled up at Clark. "It's OK," she said.
He seemed suddenly conscious of their closeness. He lifted his hands from her, but they hovered, ready if she should need him again.
"I'm fine," Lois assured him. She squeezed her fingers into his shoulder, smiled into his eyes, and then turned and walked into the staffroom.
||_||
Daniel Scardino escaped from the funeral home as soon as was seemly.
Funerals overflowing with raw emotion made him uncomfortable, but this had been infinitely worse. It had the feel of a stilted business meeting. A small group of strangers - a few men in suits and one woman - had gathered. None had wanted to be there. None had cared. All had hoped that it would be over as quickly as possible.
It had been mercifully short.
There had been no eulogy and only the sparsest of detail regarding the life that had ended.
In fact, more was said about the manner of his death than the years of his life.
Daniel had been asked to be a pallbearer. He - who had met Jason Trask exactly three times and knew nothing about his life outside of the job.
Thankfully, his duties had involved nothing more than moving the casket from the front of the tiny room, through the door, and into the waiting hearse.
The body was to be cremated.
Scardino hoped no one would contact him about what to do with the ashes.
He reached his car with a sigh of relief.
"Scardino!"
His heart sank as he turned.
As he'd expected, it was Menzies.
The tall man hurried over to him. "I'm Eric Menzies," he said gruffly.
Scardino had known that - although the men had never met. "Daniel Scardino."
"I want to know everything that is happening in the operation Neville Moyne just left," Menzies said. "Be at my office, eight o'clock sharp, Wednesday morning."
Daniel nodded, hoping his apprehension wasn't obvious.
"From what I've heard, it's a complete fiasco," Menzies said. His eyes narrowed, and he leant forward. "What in heaven's name possessed you to appoint a *woman* to the position?"
"Ms Lane is a highly competent operative," Scardino said.
Menzies snorted. "She's still a woman." He turned and strode away without a backward glance.
Daniel slipped into the driver's seat of his car.
Eric Menzies was not just a 'higher-up'. He was one of the 'highest-ups'.
He was a man feared for his inflexible austerity and sharp, scything tongue.
He had recently returned to the job after a yearlong absence that had evoked a legion of rumours, but no one Daniel knew had dared to ask the man himself.
And he was married to Neville Moyne's aunt.
