~~~Part 23~~~
Her head was pounding. She swallowed, her tongue dragging roughly against the top of her mouth. She could taste the sour, stale remnants of the sedative she'd been given. Her eyelids were like lead, and they were an effort to drag open. Slowly, her surroundings came into focus. Well, mostly focused. If things would just stop moving, they wouldn't be so blurry.
She was sprawled face down on the floor; that much she knew. And she tired not to shudder at the feel of the cold concrete against her cheek. This was different. She wasn't in the Congo. She was in Metropolis...
She hoped she was still in Metropolis.
Lois held back the tears. She wasn't going to cry.
Resolutely, she pushed herself up from the floor, trying to keep her balance when her head started to swim. Moving more slowly, she brought her legs up underneath her, sitting on the floor and trying to get a handle on her surroundings...
Trying not to notice that this room... she swallowed... that this room looked like... She took a deep breath and held it, struggling to hold back the tears.
Lois's eyes swept in a slow arc around the room. The cell. Concrete walls. Concrete ceiling. No windows. A hole in the ground on the far side. A bed... a mattress on a steel slab attached to the wall. She whipped around to look at the door.
Her stomach clenched, and she gasped. The tears were making it hard to see, but...
It was the same door. Same thick, discolored steel. Same two inch gap at the bottom. The hole they'd...
The air whooshed out of her lungs, and she started breathing hard and quick.
They couldn't... they couldn't have. She hadn't been out for that long. She'd have known... She wasn't...
Lois shut her eyes and shook her head violently. Nightmare. It was just a nightmare. She wasn't really here. Not again.
Not. Again.
She tried not to think that she had no idea how much time had passed. Where they'd taken her. What they'd given her. What had happened while she was unconscious...
And what they were going to do to her now. It was the same thing. All over again. Only it was worse. This time they'd be mad, furious that she'd escaped. They'd tor-
She froze.
A raspy cough.
Someone else was in the room. No. Not now. Please not now. How could she have not seen them? She'd looked. Seen the whole room. She'd... not looked directly behind her...
"...isss..."
Clark!
Oh, God! She'd forgotten about Clark.
She whipped around and saw him. Lying there on the floor. Bare inches from the wall. His chest rising and falling unevenly. His head was lolling off to the side, his eyelids twitching with what must have been an uneasy dream. A nightmare.
Like what she was living right now.
But... she wasn't alone. At least this time she wasn't alone.
Lois crawled the short distance to his side and checked him over. He didn't... look hurt. No scrapes or bruises or blood. But the slight rasp to his breathing didn't sound good. He looked pale, too.
"Nooo..." he moaned, twitching slightly. His brow furrowed, and he shook his head.
She wondered if she should wake him. Or was it best to let him rest?
If only she knew how that damned Kryptonite worked. He might need some kind of antidote or something. Something she didn't have.
He'd looked visibly relieved when the box had shut, blocking out the unearthly green glow. So maybe he just needed to be away from it. As long as the rock wasn't anywhere near him, he'd be okay. That made sense... in a weird sort of way. But that meant he should be fine. He'd make it.
Only...
The rock was nowhere around, and while he didn't look to be in immediate pain, he still looked sick and weak. Maybe the man had left the rock behind? She looked around frantically. Nothing was glowing. And a glance at his form-fitting jeans told her there was no room for it to be in his pocket. So... it wasn't here. Unless they'd hidden it somewhere...
But he wasn't writhing with pain like he had before. She just had to trust that it was gone.
Lois reached out to feel his forehead. It was warm. Hot, actually. But he was different. His body didn't work the same as everyone else. Maybe hot was normal. Or maybe warm was normal and hot was bad. She couldn't know, and she felt helpless.
She let her hand slide down the side of his face, cupping his cheek. "Oh, Clark," she breathed.
He had stopped moving restlessly and settled a bit. He looked better but the difference was marginal. She just wished there was something she could do. He was sitting here on this cold, concrete floor, not even a blanket or a pillow. She glanced sidelong at the bed along the wall to her left, then back at Clark. There was no way she'd be able to lift him, even if she could manage to move him four feet across the room.
Well, her lap would work well as a pillow, wouldn't it? Lois shifted to sit against the wall above where his head rested, and then, as gently as she could, she lifted his head and shoulders so she could scoot underneath. He was even heavier than she'd expected, but after a few moments and a bit of extra effort, she'd managed to move him.
She sat with her legs straight out, and his head rested on her thigh. He'd not woken, only stirred a bit, but he seemed to be more relaxed, a little more comfortable. She hoped that meant he was going to make it. But she was still worried; something told her his color wasn't quite right.
She didn't know what temperature he was supposed to be, but she had a feeling he was far too hot. As if he had a fever of some sort. His breathing was labored, too. It didn't seem like he was struggling to breathe, it was just... it didn't sound right. A wheeze almost, and she'd found herself listening a little too closely, having unconsciously matched her breathing to his. She shook her head and took a deep breath, trying to clear her head and breathe right again.
Lois rested her head back against the wall and sighed, and all of the stress and terror from minutes ago seemed to catch up with her. She felt weak all of a sudden. Fatigued.
She took a moment to look around the room again. Slower this time. It was still frightening. She still wondered...
Lois turned her head to look at the bit of wall just above the bed and sighed with relief. No sign of the concrete having been chipped away slowly. It was smooth, unblemished. This wasn't the same wall she'd picked at everyday for over two years.
This was a different room. She sagged with relief. She wasn't back there, and now that she looked more closely, she could see that. Everything looked a bit... newer. Cleaner, almost. She took another deep breath. The rancid smell of... things she'd rather forget was absent.
And Clark.
Clark hadn't been there, but he was now. And now, more than ever, she needed him. Especially to keep her sane and remind her she wasn't in the last place she ever wanted to see again.
Even with Clark there, she still shuddered at the thought that someone had gone to so much trouble to recreate an exact replica of the cell she'd been kept in for years in the Congo. Whoever had done this was evil and sadistic in ways she couldn't even fathom.
And... it took time to build such things. Time and money. Money wasn't an issue, considering what she'd seen over there, but time. They'd been watching her. Ever since she'd returned. They had to have been. She'd only suspected before, but when she'd gotten down to it, she hadn't thought that anyone would really think she was still alive. Especially the men who'd witnessed the harsh reality of the Congolese jungle. Most people didn't survive that; it was a miracle she'd made it home.
And found Clark. She wouldn't have made it alone. Maybe it'd been fate that had let her find the old issue of the Daily Planet, giving her a morsel of hope to hold on to. A destination when she'd known home wasn't really home anymore.
Clark stirred faintly, and she looked down at him. His eyelids were fluttering softly, and his lips were parted slightly. He looked so... vulnerable. He seemed peaceful, though. For all the pain he'd suffered in his life, it was almost a contradiction for him to look so untouched and innocent in his sleep. She reached out to touch him, fingers stopping poised mere millimeters away from his lips. Not to check if he was breathing, but the slow breath of warm air against her fingertips was comforting all the same. She ran her fingers lightly over his lips, feeling the smoothness and remembering what they'd felt like pressed against hers. A shiver ran through her at the thought, and she drew her hand away.
Maybe fate had more of a hand in her life than she'd realized. There had to be a reason for this connection she felt with him. Maybe that was how it worked when you were in love, truly in love. The stuff of fairy tales after all. But Prince Charming wasn't supposed to hide things, important things. Things that he ought to have been eager to share with her if he really loved her as he said he did.
But he hadn't shared, not until she'd mentioned it. And with two little words, he'd made her doubt what little trust she'd had. If he hadn't told her, there'd been a reason. Like maybe he couldn't be sure which Lois he loved. Like maybe he'd loved *her* more and was just settling for what he could get back in his own universe.
She struggled with that idea, though. Not just because she didn't want it to be true, but because something inside her told her it wasn't. Even so, she still couldn't trust him. Or herself. She didn't know how love was supposed to work. Every time she'd asked in the past, people had told her she'd "just know".
Well, she didn't just know. Or maybe she did, and she couldn't trust it to be real. Her days of jumping in without checking the water level were gone. She couldn't afford the risk... especially not with her heart. Not when she was so unsteady and damaged. She couldn't be sure that he'd be there for her if she fell apart again, not when he was just as fragile... and mortal.
Clark could die. She hadn't been prepared for the cold, gripping fear that had clenched in her gut when Clark had been dying right in front of her. Equal, if not more, to the terror of knowing that she was going to be caged. Again.
And the only reason she was still sane was him. Without Clark's presence in the cell... and in her heart... the walls would have caved in long ago. She just wished he'd wake up; the fear was seeping back slowly from the edge of her senses, and she wasn't sure how long she could hold it back. There was no telling when they'd come back for them. For her.
All she could do was wait.
***
Pete kept sneaking glances at Elle from the corner of his eye as he drove them across the city to the warehouse district. He couldn't believe he'd kissed her. What the hell had he been thinking? He didn't get involved with his assignments. He was a professional. No personal interest at all. He was just doing his job.
Which was a load of crap.
He'd gotten involved the moment he'd found Lois Lane's backpack in a storage closet eight months ago. That decision had jeopardized the entire operation. Not only had he lost his position as a valuable insider, but he was now considered AWOL. The ATF would suspend him if they could find him.
And now with Elle. He'd marched right into the airport in full sight of the very men he was trying to put away, letting them see him. Exposing himself to the possibility that someone would recognize him from the bunker in Point Noire. All for someone he didn't even know. A feisty, rude someone, at that.
He hadn't even had a plan, either. And what he had now hardly constituted an intelligent course of action, nothing compared to the exhaustive assignment details he was used to following. But he was never really one to follow convention anyway. He was never content in doing things the "right" way, and he'd never been able to stand by and watch innocent people die. Not when he could do something about it.
Pete glanced back at Elle again. She was restless in her seat, trying to be surreptitious about scratching under her shirt where the wire was taped to her side.
"You need to stop fidgeting," he warned, hoping the exasperation hadn't leaked through in his voice.
She stopped, but glared at him. "Well, it itches!" She crossed her arms over her chest and slouched down in her seat.
"Then you'll have to ignore it."
She made a face at him. "I'll try," she replied testily.
"No," he snapped. "You'll ignore it. Period." He felt the skin on his hands pinching as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "If you don't, they'll notice. And if they notice, you'll die." His voice hadn't risen a pitch on that last word, had it? Hastily, he added, "And if you die, I won't get my information."
Pete kept his eyes straight ahead. He could hear her muffled whimper just fine without needing to watch the hurt and scared look in her eyes. C'mon, Elle... where was the rivalry now? The quick rejoinder? He needed her to get that back, especially if Luthor was going to be there as Pete anticipated he would be.
He heard her take a deep breath, but he still didn't look over when she started speaking. "Would it kill you to be nice to me, Romero?"
He winced at the hurt in her voice she hadn't bothered to mask. The fear was really getting to her, wasn't it? No more sharp, cruel façade to hide behind. It'd gotten too real.
Pete sighed, his brow creasing, and he slowed the car to pull in a nearly deserted parking lot. He cut the engine and threw the car into park.
He shifted so he was facing the passenger side and found her staring through the window into the near-darkness. The weak light from a nearby lamppost cast her reflection on the glass. A faint, distorted picture, but the glint of tears in her eyes was unmistakable. "Elle?"
Her arms tightened around her sides, and she spoke without turning to look at him. "Why are we stopped? We wouldn't want to be late for the meeting. You wouldn't get your precious evidence, and wouldn't that leave you in a merry state altogether?"
Pete cringed. He'd gone one too far. But he wasn't sure how to fix it. He hardly knew her. "I didn't mean it, Elle. It's..." He sighed. "Luthor is dangerous. Very dangerous. And h-"
"Luthor doesn't come to these meetings," she cut him off tersely.
He opened his mouth and shut it. How exactly should he tell her... "Actually..."
She whipped around, wide-eyed and just stared at him.
"I have a feeling he might be coming to this one." Pete waited for her reaction with bated breath.
"H-how would you know?" He could tell she was trying to keep the edge to her voice, but it wasn't working so well.
It was better if she knew... He just hoped it didn't frighten her more. "The phone call I got earlier was one of my sources, and he told me that..."
"That what, Pete?" She didn't even try to disguise the tremor in her voice this time.
He didn't want to say. He couldn't just blurt out her death sentence.
"Tell me!!" she urged, the worry lines on her forehead becoming prominent.
"Luthorwantstokillyouhimself."
"What?"
"Don't make me repeat it, please, Elle."
"In a pig's ear! You'd better bloody well repeat it! Especially if it's what I think it was." Her voice had grown a little stronger, more insistent.
He couldn't look her in the eye as he repeated himself in a low voice. "Luthor wants you dead. And he wants to do it himself. Tonight. He's betting you'll show up."
Her jaw dropped. Too blunt. He should have been more delicate about it. No one should have to learn that they were-
"So you were just going to serve me up to him on a platter?!"
"No! I-I... I didn't th-"
"You didn't what, Pete? What? You didn't think that it would be a concern? You just thought that I could get your evidence for you, and then you could collect the recording later from my dead body? The no-risk plan to get Pete Romero his promotion for bringing down Lex Luthor?"
He... he'd thought he could improvise. Like always. It had always worked before...
But, dammit, this was Luthor... Had he really expected her to come out of that meeting alive? "We're not going," he said blankly, still shaken that he'd overlooked something so vital.
"No, no. I'm all for being a sacrificial victim. Let's go." She was bordering on hysterical, and he about choked when she reached over to turn the keys in the ignition, the engine roaring to life.
"No," he insisted, trying to keep his voice firm.
"Yes."
"I said no!" He jerked his hand up to the ignition and cut the engine again.
"Well, I said yes! I'm dead either way you look at it, so I might as well be of some use to someone, even if it *is* as a human dartboard."
She reached for the keys again, but he snatched her hand back, keeping it in his. She struggled against him for a moment, and he released his grip. "Look at me, Elle!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and stared until she met his eyes.
He could feel her trembling beneath his hands. "What, Pete?" Her voice shook, too.
Pete closed his eyes and shook his head. He was crazy. Damned crazy. He opened his eyes again and looked straight at her. "You can't because I... I don't think the penguins would handle it well at all."
She let out a sobbing laugh, and he felt the tension bleed out of her shoulders. "I told you to keep your penguins away from me, Romero."
TBC...
