When Churches Come Crashing Down
Folc4evernaday
Part 25
***
“Everything set?” Barry asked as he prepared himself in front of the camera. “This is the moment of truth. The moment I, Barry Dunning am recognized as a real journalist.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Jack said, handing him his microphone with a smile.
***
Lucy Lane stared at the people walking along the street as she sipped her coffee. She’d already sent the information Mayson needed to the DA’s office and called out for the rest of the day. She could feel herself falling apart. Everything she’d thought she known for certain was no more.
“You look like you could use this,” a hand holding a chocolate pastry appeared in front of her eyes.
She glanced up with a watery smile, recognizing the face of the DEA Agent that had come to town a few months ago, “Agent Scardino, what are you doing here?” She asked, swiping at the tears that had begun to fall down her cheeks.
“Having a cup of coffee,” He said, motioning to the coffee shop they sat outside. “Are you okay?”
“No…” She said, shaking her head as the tears began to fall. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“You want some advice?” He asked cautiously.
“Sure, why not?” She said sarcastically.
“Whatever’s bothering you has obviously got you quite upset.”
“Nah, really?”
“You don’t have to attack everyone that tries to help you.” He said lightly. “That’s the hardest thing strong people battle with; admitting when they can’t do it all. If you want someone to talk to…” He held his hands up and shrugged, “I’ll offer a sympathetic ear.”
Lucy stared at him suspiciously, “Why? What could you possibly get out of this?”
Scardino was quiet a moment, “Nothing. I don’t get anything out of this, but you do. I know what it feels like to have your world come crashing in on you. I had someone there for me when I crashed and burned. You look like you need someone to be there for you.”
Lucy looked at him hard and long for a moment before speaking again. She didn’t know him from Adam. He had no connection to her other than his investigation, but he couldn’t judge her. He couldn’t judge everything she’d done over the past year. It would be nice to talk about everything.
She swiped at the last of her tears, “Where do you want me to start?”
***
“He needs to be taken care of,” James Turner hissed angrily, “Months of planning and investment all GONE because of that law abiding FOOL!” He threw a vase against the wall, smashing it into pieces.
“What do you want to do to Dr. Lane?” Mindy asked, “Throw him off a bridge? You can’t draw attention to us because you want revenge. I didn’t sign up for that kind of partnership.”
“Maybe you should reexamine things then, Mrs. Church. I don’t take betrayal well,”
“Really?” She challenged, “What about Dr. Lane’s daughter? She betrayed you. Yet, she’s still breathing, walking around. How do you explain that one?”
“How did you…?” He stammered, taken aback.
“Lets’ just say I know a very talkative little birdy.” Mindy shrugged, “That still doesn’t answer my question, Lex.”
***
“It has come to the attention of this station that our friend, our protector, Superman is nothing but a liar. He has hidden among us, lying to us every day about who he really is.” The footage of the Superman suits being revealed in the secret compartment in the townhome flashed on the screen as Barry continued, “Superman is in reality…”
“TURN that garbage OFF!!” Perry bellowed across the newsroom. The televisions quickly shut off as everyone scrambled to escape the editor-in-chief on a warpath.
Lois stood numbly in the middle of the chaos. Someone had discovered their secret. They had found Clark’s suits. How would they explain this away?
“Lois?” Perry’s hand brushed against her shoulder, “Are you all right?”
***
“Making house calls now, Nigel?” Lex mused as he noted his former butler’s presence in the foyer of his penthouse.
“How did you do it?” Nigel asked.
“What?”
Nigel stood up and approached Lex, motioning at his face, “This! Coming back from the dead with a new name and a new face,” His voice dropped to a low whisper, “How?”
“I can’t share all of my secrets. Where is the exciting element of surprise?”
“Always up for excitement, aren’t you, Lex?”
Lex breathed in deeply, “It's what I was born for,”
“And it's what you’ll die for if you’re not careful,”
“Veiled threats?” Lex shook his head, “Really, Nigel, I thought you were better than that.”
“I am,” Nigel smiled, “It’s your partner in crime I’m referring to,”
“She’s nothing.” Lex shook his head, “If she gets in the way I’ll simply have her killed as always.”
“If she doesn’t have you killed first,” Nigel reminded him.
“I didn’t know you cared,”
“I don’t. Chop it up to vanity. I want to be the one to cause your fall from glory once and for all and have all the world watching,”
“Challenges can be dangerous for you, Nigel. Given your age and heart problems.”
“The only heart problems I have are the lack of emotions that you seem to give into all the time. I’m not the one that threw everything away for a woman…”
“She’s not just any woman,” Lex argued.
“You’re still pining over her, aren’t you?” Nigel laughed, “You died because of her and you still haven’t learned your lesson. What will it take to teach you?”
***
“Why did you cut me off the air??” Barry fumed, following Sarah across the office.
“I did what I had to do. We can’t give everything away at once,” She shrugged with a coy smile.
“You said that…”
“I know what I said,” She said, turning on her heel to face him. “This is far beyond your realm. This is about revenge of epic proportions. I want to destroy Superman little by little. I want him fearing what will come next. I can’t do that if you give away our ace in the hole. You’ve shown the public what they need to know for now. Let it fester and start asking questions.”
“What am I supposed to do when they ask me what I was going to say?” Barry shot back.
“You tell them to keep watching and the truth will soon be clear,” Sarah said with a smile.
***
“You’re making us work a lot harder than necessary, Dr. Lane,” Sheldon Bender sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he removed his glasses.
“You want me to take responsibility for kidnapping that baby. I won’t do it.” Sam Lane argued vehemently.
“Need I remind you of the risk you’re taking when you cross that line?”
“I will not be another flunky for your boss to dispose of as he wishes. If he wants to deal with me he can do so face to face like a man. Otherwise, I have nothing else left to discuss and will be seeking real counsel in my defense.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
***
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ellen Lane asked, shaking her head.
Lucy shrugged her shoulders as she tried to explain her actions to her disapproving mother, “I’m pregnant. I don’t want a life with the baby’s father; so now I’m being sued for the custody of my baby before he or she is even born.”
“How can he?” Ellen shook her head, “This is so wrong on so many different levels I don’t even know where to begin.”
“I screwed up.” Lucy shrugged, “I know.”
“No, you didn’t screw up.” Ellen wagged her finger as she began to pace around the room. “You have done nothing wrong. It is your right to decide who you want in your life. If you don’t want this baby’s father in your life; then that’s your prerogative. Threatening you into …..No, he can’t do this!”
“He already is, mom. In one month I have to go to court and fight for my child before it's even born! I don’t know what to do. Everything is falling apart. I don’t know where to turn or who to trust or…” The emotions Lucy had suppressed for so long came out at full force as one by one, tears streamed down her face. “I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get through this. I promise you that.” Ellen reassured.
***
Jimmy stepped off the elevator, surprised to see uniformed officers and ambulatory workers in the newsroom, “What’s going on?”
Perry raked a hand through his silver hair as he approached Jimmy, “Lois passed out in the middle of the newsroom,”
“What?” Jimmy looked around at the ambulatory workers and uniformed officers once more, “Is she going to be all right?”
“Only time will tell, son,” Perry sighed. “They said she had pretty high blood pressure,”
“Do you think it could be connected to that show of Barry Dunning’s?” Jimmy asked.
“That news market sleaze? What would that trash have to do with Lois?”
“I just meant maybe she got stressed out after seeing Barry calling Superman every name in the book; then right when he’s about to reveal this great truth about the guy the signal is cut.”
“Suspicious, but what does that have to do with Lois?” Perry asked. “I’m going to drive down to the hospital and see what I can find out. See if you can get ahold of Clark?”
“Yeah, no sweat.” Jimmy nodded, following Perry into the elevator as he pulled out his cell.
***
He’d done so many wonderful things. He’d rescued a cat from a tree. He’d saved a girl from being attacked. He’d taken the plane that had tried to land in the ocean to safe ground. He was more than ready to begin rescues locally, but his father insisted on him staying away from Metropolis; particularly the Daily Planet. He wasn’t sure what the danger could be, but his father had insisted.
***
Later that evening, Perry found Jimmy in the main conference room buried in paperwork. He opened the door and checked on the young man. He’d been quiet ever since they’d left the hospital. Clark was sitting with Lois and his parents were with Jordan. It appeared the duo had been keeping a bit of news from them the past few days. Lois’ blood pressure was dangerously high and that combined with her pregnancy was what caused her to pass out in the newsroom. He’d have torn into both of them if he hadn’t been so worried.
“You’re working late,” Perry mused when he saw Jimmy sitting at his desk with a mountain of paperwork in front of him.
“I promised Lois I’d look into the Church connection. I got to get it done.” He said glumly.
“Jimmy…”
“She’s gonna be mad. She’s been stressing about this for months. I’ve got to figure out how their deaths are connected. I promised.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Perry said, resting his hand on Jimmy’s shoulders.
Jimmy stiffened under Perry’s touch, “I enabled it. I saw how much stress she was under. I knew it wasn’t good for her or the baby. I just kept quiet. What if she dies? What if the baby dies? I don’t think Lois or CK could handle either of those scenarios.”
“You need to take a step back, Jimmy. That’s crazy talk. It's just…”
“High blood pressure. Yeah, yeah. It can lead to other stuff that CAN kill you, Chief. Heart attack, stroke…. Sound familiar?”
“That doctor was just giving us a ‘what-if’ scenario,” Perry argued. “Sitting here and burying yourself in your work isn’t going to solve anything.”
“If it gives Lois and CK one less thing to stress over; it is helping,” Jimmy said glumly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do,”
***
“Lois?” Clark breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her open her eyes.
“Hi,” She whispered. A scratchy tone emerged as she spoke. She looked up at him in surprise. Questions written all over her face as she looked at him.
He ignored the questions written all over her face and steered the conversation to a lighter topic, “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” She said hoarsely. “I feel sore.” She began to look around the room, “Where am I?”
“Don’t panic,” He tried to reassure her. “You’re at the hospital,”
“What?”
“You passed out in the middle of the newsroom and….”
“Is something wrong with the baby? What happened?”
“I’ll go get the doctor. It’ll just take a sec,” He said reassuringly.
He quickly removed himself from the room and closed the door behind him as he looked for a doctor. He wasn’t about to explain how she’d ended up on the newsroom floor.
***
“You can’t be serious!” Amanda shouted at the top of her lungs as she paced around the small 4x4 cell where the prison visitations took place. “I had nothing to do with that ..”
“You had a history with Lana Lang. You had a history with Dr. Benzen. Conveniently they both ended up dead. The evidence speaks for itself, Ms. Marshall. We all know you have your own sordid ethics.” Mayson said snidely.
“My client is not on trial here, Mayson.” Sheldon Bender interjected.
“Not yet,”
“You don’t have a case,” Bender shot back.
“I don’t? The woman that helped aid and abet you while you were kidnapping Jordan Kent is dead. You had plenty of opportunity in here,” Mayson said, looking around, “We’re all too aware of the crime rate behind bars…Then there’s Tony Benzen. You had an affair with him. He probably knew what you did. You had to shut him up somehow. Maybe he didn’t like what you were offering. Maybe he got tired of your games and decided to turn you in. Things got heated and you just…”
“No!” Amanda shot back.
“Then why don’t you tell me what did happen?” Mayson asked, folding her arms over her chest. “You DNA and fingerprints are all over his corpse. Mind explaining that one?”
***
“So, what am I supposed to do?” Lois asked, “Sit at home and do nothing?”
“Absolutely not. You can live your life as you see fit; just lower the stress tremendously.” Dr. Lee smiled genuinely back at her.
Lois smiled weakly up at the doctor. She was only allowed, one visitor. No children. She couldn’t see Jordan. She had to get out of here. There was no way she was going to sit around and do nothing but stare at the walls while they conducted every test known to man on her.
Her body felt numb; a tingle of dull pain ached from head to toe. Her hand rested on the small bump where her unborn child was growing. She felt the sting of unshed tears behind her eyes. She was tired. Was that from being pregnant or…
The baby. Was the baby all right?
“The baby is fine,” Dr. Lee reassured her as if reading her thoughts.
Lois visibly relaxed at the doctor’s reassurance. “I need to get out of here,” She said, pushing herself up out of the bed, “I have so much I need to….”
Dr. Lee pushed her back against the pillows. “Not so fast,”
***
TBC...
