"South Grove Nursing Home, Veronica speaking."

"Ronny," Lois said. "It's Lois. How's Dad?"

"Hi, Lois," Ronny greeted. "He's great. He's been working on the jigsaw puzzles, and his physiotherapist said he had recovered more strength in his good hand."

"That's wonderful, Ronny. I've had to go away for a while. Could you give Dad my love?"

"Of course. I'll tell him you called."

Lois needed to finish the call. "Thanks, Ronny."

"Wait!"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I have a message for you."

Lois's gut curled in alarm. "From whom?"

"A man called Daniel Scardino."

Lois's heart sank. "What is the message?" she asked, trying to keep the trepidation from sounding in her voice.

"Hold on," Ronny said. "I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. He asked that I pass it on exactly." Lois heard the rustle of paper. "He said he knew you had gone away, and he didn't want to interrupt your vacation, but he asked that I pass on this message."

Lois waited, her heart thumping an ominous rhythm through her chest.

"Ah, here it is," Ronny said. "The message is - Menzies satisfied with completion. His nephew might return following the death of his colleague on Friday."


Part 6

"Lois? Are you still there?"

Lois dragged her mind from the frantic analysis of Scardino's message. "Ah, yes, Ronny. Thanks. Thanks for passing it on."

"You're welcome," Ronny said brightly. "I'll tell Sam that you called."

"Bye."

Lois slowly replaced the phone. As she left the telephone booth, Clark hurried towards her. "What's wrong?" he asked before he'd reached her.

She took his hand and led him back into the motel room. They shut the door, and Lois leant against it, her mind grappling for comprehension.

"Lois?" Clark said. "Is it your dad?"

She shook her head. "Sc ... Scardino left a message for me. With Ronny."

Clark's face filled with foreboding. "A message?" he gulped.

"Menzies satisfied with completion," Lois said.

"What does *that* mean?"

"Could ..." she stopped, unable to believe what she'd almost said.

"Could what?"

"I don't know what it means."

"You were about to say something."

Lois *had* been about to say something - and she had stopped because she hadn't wanted to plant a seed of false hope in Clark's mind. He waited for her to decide whether to share her thoughts, and his troubled expression tipped her decision. "Could ... could it possibly mean that Menzies' main objective was to terminate the operation?" she said. "And now, he's satisfied that that has been achieved?"

"No," Clark breathed, emphatically shaking his head. "No, he couldn't be OK with me being out of the prison."

"Perhaps he doesn't know."

"*Someone* has to know."

"You don't think ... it's not possible ... that they just destroyed ... No ... Scardino's a bit lax, but not even he would forget to check that a building is empty before the demolition team began its work."

A deep rumble sounded in Clark's throat that could have indicated anything from despair to sudden comprehension.

"What?" Lois said.

"You said that Menzies ordered the termination of the operation?"

"Yes."

"How?" he asked in a low voice. "What were the specifics of how it was to be done? What was to happen to me?"

Lois was cornered. Clark had asked a direct question, and she had to answer. "He ordered your death."

"Is that why you said we had no choice?"

"That's why we had no choice with regard to the timing," she said. "It didn't change what we were going to do anyway."

Lois could see Clark churning through this information. And she realised that there was every chance he would arrive at the precisely the wrong conclusion. She hooked both of her hands on his shoulders and faced him squarely. "Don't, Clark," she said in a soft voice that was underpinned with rigid resolve. "Don't even think that."

His mouth opened - either to protest or to pretend he didn't understand what she meant - but it closed without uttering a sound.

"Don't," she repeated.

"They forced your hand," he rasped.

"They forced the timing," Lois asserted. "No one forced me to do what I did."

"If you hadn't gotten me out, I'd be dead now."

She wasn't even going to think about that.

"I'd be dead now, right?" Clark demanded.

Lois nodded in reply.

"Menzies came, didn't he? I remember someone I didn't know coming into the cell."

"Yes, Menzies came."

"So he ordered that I be exposed to the rods?"

"Yes."

"Until?"

"Until you were vulnerable enough to be ..."

"Killed."

"Please, Clark," Lois cried. "Please. Please don't let this sit and fester."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"There was no time. We -"

"We've been together constantly for the past thirty-six hours. Why didn't you tell me?"

Lois snatched one hand from his shoulder and angrily swiped at the tears that had gushed into her eyes. "Because I knew you would react like this," she fired at him.

The vehemence of her reply stunned him. Lois turned her head so he wouldn't see her still-rising tears.

Clark's hand gently cupped her jaw and turned her head towards him. "Look me in the eyes," he said. "And tell me that the execution order changed nothing except the timing."

Lois faced him without flinching. "It changed nothing else," she said. "I wasn't pushed into this. I had already decided what we were going to have to do. I knew there was very little chance that they would just let you go. I knew that going to them as your advocate was fraught with risk - it would probably have resulted in them pulling me off the operation. And at the very least, we would have lost our advantage of surprise if I had revealed my thoughts about your imprisonment."

The gush of her words came to an abrupt halt, and the air filled with her unsteady breaths. Lois waited, silently pleading with Clark to believe her.

His fingers slipped from her jaw and down her neck, and the side of his hand rested on her shoulder. His thumb slid over the skin just below her ear lobe. "Did you ever tell anyone that you had doubts about whether I killed the two agents?"

Lois felt a jolt of surprise at his question. "I intimated to Shadbolt that I had doubts."

"This might make sense," Clark said.

"It might?"

"Yeah. Menzies is Moyne's uncle. Everyone accepted that I had killed those two men. If you disputed that, it raises the question of who did commit the murders. Moyne is one of the very few who could possibly have done it. Perhaps Menzies wanted the operation terminated to protect his nephew from suspicion."

Lois nodded slowly. "I didn't think of that," she said. "But you're right; it does make sense."

"But that doesn't mean he would accept what has happened," Clark said. "His solution was my death, not my freedom."

Clark's words had been remarkably devoid of emotion, but Lois could see the pain in his eyes that his life had been of so little consequence. "But it was never a solution we were going to accept," she reminded him.

He swallowed roughly, understanding - she hoped - her unspoken declaration of the value she placed on his life.

"Scardino said that Menzies was satisfied with completion," Lois said, steering them back to the message.

"Do you trust Scardino?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps it's an attempt to try to lure you back to Metropolis," Clark said.

"Or perhaps he's trying to let me know that no one is chasing us."

"We can't believe that," Clark said. "If we think for one moment that no one is looking for us ..."

"If Scardino really wanted me back in Metropolis, he would have arranged for the message to be that something had happened to my dad."

Clark grimaced. "No," he said. "That would be an unconscionable thing to do."

"Often, they're the most effective," Lois said. "And in this business, you usually only get one shot - so you go for the jugular - first time."

"You really think so?"

Lois nodded. "That's what I would do. Scardino knows about my father - he left the message with Ronny at the nursing home."

Clark suddenly seemed to realise that his hand was draped rather intimately around her neck. He dropped it and pushed it into the pocket of his jeans with a small murmur of embarrassment. "Do you know where Moyne is?" he asked.

The mention of that name felt like jagged ice shards being crammed into her heart. "Scardino was supposed to send him away on an assignment."

"If there's any chance that questions are being asked about the murders, he might have been glad to go."

Lois shook her head. "There was another part to the message."

Clark paled. "About Moyne?"

"Yeah. Ronny said that Menzies' nephew could be returning."

Some of Clark's colour returned. "Metropolis," he said with evident relief. "We're a long way from Metropolis."

"That isn't all," Lois said. "But I can't figure out what the rest is supposed to mean."

"What else?"

"That Menzies' nephew could be returning following the death of his colleague on Friday."

"Did you hear of someone dying?"

"No," Lois replied. "My first thought was either Shadbolt or Longford, but I was at the compound most of Friday. I'm sure that Scardino would have called to tell me if it had been either of them."

"Perhaps it was someone Moyne worked with on another operation."

"Moyne hasn't worked on any other operation for seven years."

"Someone he worked with before that?" Clark suggested.

Suddenly, the ends joined, and in a flash, Lois understood. "It's you," she exclaimed. "Scardino was talking about *you*."

"Excuse me?"

"The part about someone dying goes with the first bit of the message. Menzies is satisfied with the completion of the operation following a death on Friday. Scardino means *you*. He means that Menzies thinks that you died, and that's why he's OK with it."

Clark's throat jumped. "That would mean Scardino faked my death."

"Yeah."

"Why would he do that?"

Lois chuckled, and the sound of it lapped against the wall of her uneasiness. "Probably because it was easier than having to tell Menzies that the prisoner had escaped."

"But ... but he wouldn't do that ... not if he thought I was going to be a danger to humans."

She pondered that. "You're right," she said. "Even if it meant a lot of trouble, Scardino wouldn't take the path of least resistance if he seriously thought that people were going to get hurt."

Clark adjusted his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Are you sure about this?"

"It seems more likely than anything else we've considered."

"Are you sure enough to risk our freedom?"

Lois sobered. "No," she admitted.

"Then what are we going to do?"

"We're going to keep driving. Today, we should look for a place where we could stop for a few days."

"I need to find work," Clark said. "Motels, food, gas ... I need to find work soon."

Lois edged her fingertips into the short hair that sat on the nape of his neck. "We don't need to worry about that yet," she said.

Her assurance didn't smooth the crease from between his eyes.

"I have a present for you," Lois said, easing their conversation further away from the perils of discussing Menzies' sentence of death on Clark. "Remember?"

He nodded.

"I need a few moments to prepare it. I intended to do it when I got back from making the call to the nursing home."

Clark glanced at the bathroom. "I ... I heard your heartbeat accelerate. I knew something was wrong."

Lois smiled. "I wondered how you knew that I needed you."

"I ... I didn't mean to hear," Clark said. "Just suddenly ... I knew you were scared, or worried, or anxious. And ... and I couldn't stay here."

Lois burrowed her fingers a little higher up his neck. "Thanks for caring."

"You're not upset with me? You don't think it was intrusive?"

"No."

He looked relieved. "Thanks."

Lois lifted her arm from his shoulder, picked up her bag, and headed for the bathroom. "I'll just be a moment," she said. "And then you can have your gift."

Any anticipation he'd had was lost in his worry about what Scardino's message might mean. "OK."

Lois spun around as she reached the bathroom door. She pointed at Clark. "And no peeking," she ordered.

"I would *never* look while you were -"

"I know," Lois said, smiling. "I was joking."

Before he could reply, she went into the bathroom and shut the door.

||_||

Clark slumped into the seat.

Surely, it couldn't be possible.

They hated him.

Feared him.

They believed he was a killer.

Believed he would use his strength for destruction.

They were not going to rest while he remained at large.

But Lois seemed to think it was a possibility. Her belief wasn't strong enough to act on it, but she thought it was possible.

He could not imagine what it would be like to be truly free.

Free and not hunted.

Free to live.

Free to be Clark again.

||_||

As Lois prepared the gift for Clark, she mulled over Scardino's message. Would he cover for them? She didn't know, but when she thought about the potential risks of getting this wrong, her gut was remarkably calm.

Clark didn't believe. Didn't trust.

She figured that was to be expected. Preparing himself for the worst outcome in every situation had been a survival skill for the past seven years.

She opened the bathroom door, and excitement welled inside her. She didn't know how Clark would react to the two items, but she was looking forward to giving them to him.

He was sitting at the little table, still looking dazed.

Lois walked over to him and held out the paper bag. "This is for you," she said, infusing her words with the affection she felt for him.

His eyes rested on it for a second, and then he took it. "Thanks."

"Look inside," Lois urged.

He did, and Lois saw the surprise register on his face ... followed closely by a smile that - although restrained - warmed her heart.

He looked up at her. "Lois ..."

"Do you like them?"

"Lois, this is too much."

"No, it's not," she said. And it hadn't been. It had eaten into their supplies of cash, but she had been desperate to do anything to help Clark assimilate back into the world. "Do you like them?"

"Lois ..." Clark lifted the watch from the bag and stared at it.

"Did you wear a watch?" she asked. "Before?"

"Yeah," he said, not taking his eyes from it as it lay in his palm.

"Put it on," Lois said. "Would you like me to?" Without waiting for him to respond, she took the watch from him and fastened the leather strap around his left wrist.

Clark twisted his forearm to look at the watch face. "Ten past seven," he said. "We should get going."

"Look at the other gift first," Lois said.

He withdrew the wallet from the bag.

"I put your money in there," she said.

He opened it and flicked his thumb over the bills. "Lois ..."

"Every man needs a watch and a wallet," she said. The depth of wonder on his face stirred up a myriad of emotions inside her - but Clark looked like he was having a hard enough time dealing with his own emotions to be able to contend with hers. "Have you finished with the bathroom?" she inquired casually.

He closed the wallet and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans as he stood. "Yeah," he said. "I'll get everything into the car while you use the bathroom."

"OK." She turned away.

"Lois?"

She faced him again.

"Thank you," he said hoarsely.

Lois smiled. "You're welcome."

||_||

They continued west for most of the morning, stopping only to buy breakfast. Lois had considered asking Clark if he would like to eat in the diner rather than in the car, but something in his manner told her he wasn't ready for that yet.

They drove mostly in silence, with only occasional dialogue to discuss their route. Clark had the map open on his lap and took an active interest in their progress.

Lois used the silence to ponder what they should do next. What were their most pressing needs?

They needed driver's licences in their new identities. The next time they passed through a town of reasonable size, she would look for somewhere to have passport photos taken. In her bag, she had a kit containing everything else she would need.

She would work on them tonight. Once she was happy with the facsimiles, she would ask the motel proprietor for the use of an iron and meld the clear plastic coverings onto the plastic backings.

Their 'licences' wouldn't pass scrutiny by someone experienced or specifically looking for fakes, but someone merely looking to hire a worker for a few days would almost certainly not notice anything amiss.

That would give them identities.

Their other need was cash. Despite what she'd said to Clark, it was getting short.

She had formulated a plan - but it was flimsy and carried inherent risk. She had decided that they would reach a town, access her account, withdraw some money, and then immediately change direction and drive east northeast. If Scardino or Menzies *had* placed an alert on her account, by the time they received notification, she should be at least twenty miles away and heading in a direction they wouldn't anticipate.

She wasn't completely happy with it, but it was the best -

"Clark!" Lois braked hard, skidded onto the side of the road, and stared at Clark.

"What?" he said. "What's wrong?"

"I know how to do it."

"How to do what?"

"How to get money out of my account without flagging where we are."

"You think they *are* chasing us."

Lois put her hand on his arm. "No. I don't know. I think we need to be careful. But it's OK. We can get out some cash without them knowing our whereabouts."

"How?"

"You can fly, right?"

He nodded.

"Then take me ... anywhere! Texas. Florida. California. I'll go to the ATM, get the cash, and you can fly me back to the car."

He didn't seem convinced.

Lois's fingers pressed into the hard muscle of his arm. "You can't fly yet?" she asked.

"I can fly," he said.

"You don't want to fly with me?"

"Are you OK with flying with me?" he asked as if he couldn't believe she would put her life in his hands.

"Sure," she said nonchalantly.

Clark shook his head slightly. "And it's also that ... it's that we must be eating into a lot of your savings."

"Consider it payment for the flight," she said with a playful grin.

He didn't return her smile, but he didn't argue further either. "When ... when do you want to go?"

Lois was trying to act as if this was something she did every day - fly, by personalised alien, across half the continent. She couldn't contain her smile, though. It sounded like it would be fun ... and that was without even considering the whole experience of being in Clark's arms. "How long will it take?" she asked.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I think Florida would be best - if we'd headed south from the beginning, it's believable that we could be there by now."

Clark hesitated. Lois wondered if Florida was too far for him to fly. Was he embarrassed to admit that he had *limits*? "If we went to Florida, perhaps I could fly back regularly and check to see if anyone has set up road blocks coming out of the peninsula," he said. "That might give us some indication as to whether they *are* trying to find us."

"Good thinking," Lois said with enthusiasm. She squeezed his arm. "So how long will it take? An hour to get there? Two? I think it takes about three hours by airplane to get from Metropolis to Orlando."

Clark adjusted his glasses. He was definitely self-conscious about something. Perhaps it would take longer than by airplane, Lois thought. Her next thought ricocheted around her mind - the longer it took, the longer she would be in Clark's arms.

"If I slow down enough so that it's comfortable and safe for you, it will take about five minutes," he said.

Lois's jaw dropped. "Five *minutes*?" she gasped.

He nodded. "But when I go back by myself to check for road blocks, I can be there and back in five seconds. Plus a minute to check out everything."

Lois managed to recapture the ability to speak - although her brain was working frenetically to assimilate this new information into the landscape of her mind. "Clark," she said as her smile blossomed. "This is going to be so cool."

A tinge of pink coloured his cheeks, just below the frame of his glasses. "Flying?"

"Yes! And being able to get anywhere quickly. It solves so many problems."

"Of course, they might know that I can fly, so even if they don't try to trap us in Florida, it doesn't necessarily mean they are all right with me being free."

"That's true," Lois said. But she wasn't going to let anything dampen her excitement at *flying* with Clark.

"Do you want to stop at the next roadside stop?" Clark asked.

"Yup." Lois pulled back onto the road, her enthusiasm bubbling. The way ahead suddenly seemed so much clearer.

And fun, too!

||_||

Clark's heart jumped a little when he saw the sign for the coming roadside stop.

He was sure he could fly. He was sure he could get them both to Florida and back safely. He never would have agreed to flying if he had had any doubts about his ability to keep Lois safe.

It had been seven years, but his body felt exactly how it had before his capture - strong and fully powered and capable of just about anything.

There were so many other thoughts scuttling through his mind.

Flying.

The freedom of being able to move through the measureless expanse of sky.

Would it feel like it had when he'd emerged from the cell? Would the openness and immenseness feel like it was pressing against him?

Or would he feel as if he had returned to somewhere familiar?

And holding Lois? How would that feel?

He had carried her from one side of the cell to the other. But this ... Holding her in his arms. Having her arm around his neck ... her face close to his ... her side secure against his chest.

For at least five minutes. Ten, if he included the return trip.

That was going to be blissful torture. Or torturous bliss.

Lois pulled into the small parking area. There was an old brick building that probably housed restrooms - so anyone passing wouldn't find anything unusual in a parked Buick without immediately visible people.

The car stopped, they got out, Lois took her purse out of her bag, and then she locked the car doors.

She smiled at him. If she felt any apprehension, she was doing a compelling job of concealing it.

Clark scanned the entire area. No one was around. He tuned in his hearing. There was no sound of any motors in the vicinity. But he could hear Lois's heart - it was skipping along at an increased speed. He checked her face again. There was still no sign of fear.

Could her elevated heart be driven by excitement?

She grinned. "Would you like to go by yourself first?" she offered.

He understood her hesitation. "Yeah," he said. "I should."

Her hand gripped his arm. "I didn't mean that," she said. "I meant that this has to be a big moment for you - a time when you're returning to something from your life before the cell. I understand if you want to do it alone."

"No," he said. "I'd like to share it with you."

Her grin widened. "Let's go, then."

"I'll need to ..." He gestured towards her.

She raised her arms from her side. "Go ahead."

Clark bent low and swept her into his arms. "Ready?"

"Yup."

"We'll shoot up pretty fast - so no one sees us."

"OK."

He bent his knees slightly, and then they were in the air, high above the Illinois countryside.

Lois's face was alight. Her eyes were shining. There was no doubt now. She wasn't worried; she was enthralled.

"This is *amazing*," she called. Her head dropped back, and laughter rippled through her body.

Clark couldn't drag his eyes from her. He used the sun to set a course vaguely southeast and relished Lois's reaction to flying with him.

*She* was amazing. Her trust in him was so complete that it hadn't seemed to occur to her that there was any possible danger. There wasn't. Not up here. But for her to *know* that ...

She thought his weirdness was something to celebrate.

And, right now, she has celebrating. It was intoxicating.

Lois lifted her head and opened her dancing eyes. "Clark," she said. "This is incredible. I love it."

"We can do it again," he offered tentatively.

"Does flying tire you? Does my weight make any difference?"

"No."

"Then I'd *love* to do this again," she said. "As often as possible."

Clark smiled. Having Lois in his arms 'as often as possible' sounded wonderful.

"Will I unbalance us if I look down?" she asked.

"No," he said. "But because of our speed and height, you won't see much."

She tightened her hold around his neck and peered down. After just a few seconds, she settled back against his body. "You're right," she said. "The feeling is better than the view."

A few minutes later, Clark landed them in a tiny alley in Orlando - having already scanned extensively for people and cameras. They walked - just like any other couple - onto the street and found an ATM.

Clark waited impatiently while Lois withdrew the money. The feeling of being exposed was even greater here than when they had been in the park yesterday. People hurried past them, not even glancing in his direction, but it *felt* like *everyone* was staring directly at him.

He just wanted to get them away and lift Lois back into the friendly cape of the empty sky.

Lois, however, didn't seem to be in a great hurry to leave. She was looking along the stretch of stores.

"We should go," Clark said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

"I know," Lois said. After a final lingering glance, they retraced their steps. When they came to the alley behind the stores, Clark again swept her into his arms.

Then, they were alone in the blueness of sky.

"Do we have to go straight back to the car?" Lois asked.

"We shouldn't leave the car for too long," he cautioned.

Lois nodded. "I know."

"Perhaps we can have a more leisurely flight soon."

She smiled at him - full of acceptance and unrestrained delight. "I can't wait."

Neither could he.

"Can't we do just a small detour?" she begged. "Not to anywhere in particular but just to extend it a little?"

It wasn't possible to refuse Lois anything, so Clark smothered all the fears that were gripping his heart. "Just a small one," he agreed.

Lois's smile was full and beaming. "Great," she said. "I love this."

And he loved her.

That certain knowledge pushed through all the darkness and anxiety that had clouded him since leaving the cell, beckoning him forward and lighting his way.

For a time, he'd lost sight of it, but now it was becoming clearer again.

He loved Lois.

He always would.