ToC A/N: This part was rewritten after being posted; sorry for any inconvenience. The part that was *originally* here is now a Limited Edition collector's part. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. ----------
Part 32Lois looked up when he dropped his coat on top of his desk and slumped wearily into the chair. “Um, Clark? Your desk is over here. By me.”
Sure enough, the desk she pointed at had a placard on it that read “Clark Kent”. He sighed, gathered up his coat, and reseated himself with all the dignity he could muster.
“Long night?” she asked, resting her chin on her hand.
He stared into the middle distance, not sure how to answer her. He'd spent all night falling from various heights, only to land in the same stinking dumpster over and over again! Even his vision powers remained mostly inaccessible, save for one mishap that cost him a curtain. Of course, his super hearing at least had come back to him...in fact, he had no idea how to shut it off, and he now knew the location of every barking dog and activated car alarm in the entire city of Metropolis, not to mention far too much information about his neighbors. He'd been talked into wearing the suit today anyway, partly just in case and partly in the hope that the feel of it would bring back memories, but the feel of tights under his clothes just had him wriggling uncomfortably as he walked to work, drawing stares from passers-by as he looked like he was trying to do some kind of interpretive dance!
Worst of all, though, was when he tried to find consolation with his so-called “girlfriend” just a few minutes ago. The gossip columnist had assured him that they were an item. He didn't know if she knew about his other identity, but surely she could at least lend a sympathetic ear for some of his other woes? He'd bared his soul, telling her how lost he felt in his own life without his memories, how disoriented he was by this undercurrent of strange and disconnected emotions running through his head, and how terrified he was that he might be facing a serious or even permanent problem!
Then, she'd told him she'd lied.
“Long night” didn't cover it.
He gave a curt nod, saying nothing.
Lois got up from her desk and perched on the corner of his. “Here, I know what'll make you feel better.”
He looked up at her, his hopes rising despite himself. “Oh? What?”
She grinned. “An investigation! We're going to find Superman!”
Oh. Joy.
**********
The door to the small, cluttered office creaked open, and Susanne poked her head in. “Michel? How are things going?”
“I'm...not sure.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk in front of him and pressing his face into one hand. The rock samples he was supposed to be analyzing still sat in their original container, silently mocking him. As if it weren't hard enough trying to remember the basics of his life and his job, his emotions seemed to be running on two separate tracks. An otherwise pleasant breakfast with his parents had been marred by an inexplicable sense of frustration that he still couldn't shake, and just a few minutes ago, an intense wave of rage and humiliation had rolled through him, leaving him completely unable to think straight! What was going on with him?
The corner of Susanne's mouth quirked upward, and she strode into the room. “Well, you look like a chicken that found a knife. Perhaps you would like to take a little break?” An impish smile crossed her face. “Come over to my office. I have something to show you that I think you'll really...appreciate.”
He slowly rose to his feet. “Oh?”
“Oh, yes.” She sashayed towards the door, glancing back at him to make sure he was following. “Trust me; this will make your day much better!”
**********
“It stands to reason that if...that *since* Superman survived, he would have come back to Earth,” Lois began, apparently unaware of his bored expression. “Now, the question is, why hasn't anyone seen him, yet? And that got me thinking: where does he go when he's not in the public eye?”
His eyebrows raised.
“He probably has some kind of secret hideout,” Lois continued. “Maybe somewhere remote, like in the arctic or something...”
He shook his head.
“And since Nightfall was bigger than anything he's ever faced,” she went on, her smile faltering for a split second, “then maybe he was hurt when he collided with it, so he had to go recover—”
“Collided?” he echoed, cutting her off.
“Well, yeah.” She finally looked at him. “That's how he stopped it, Clark. He flew up and smashed into it, and we haven't heard from him since.”
He frowned. Something was nagging at him...
**********
Susanne's office was almost a counterpoint to the one he'd been told was his; everything in it seemed to have been placed with precision. Long shelves of neatly-arranged rocks and crystals laddered the wall behind her desk, with neat, hand-written labels showing where and when each piece had been collected. Her desk itself had nothing on it except for a small box, much like the one his currently unanalyzed samples were packed in. She strode into the tiny room, snatched the box up, and held it toward him. “Do you want to guess what's inside?” she asked, grinning.
He looked at the container in her hands, then looked at her. “Rocks?”
She rolled her eyes. “Try to be a little more specific, Michel!”
He stared at the container for a few seconds, then shrugged. “I really don't know.”
“It's a piece of the Nightfall asteroid!” she gushed, prying the lid open. “Some of the fragments survived the entry into Earth's atmosphere, and we have a sample we can study! Is that not wonderful?”
Nightfall... He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very strange.
**********
“How dense was the asteroid?”
Lois stared at him “What?”
He leaned back in his chair, meeting her eyes. His frown deepened. “There's a difference between trying to strike a giant dirt-clod or a giant mass of solid platinum. What was the asteroid made of?”
Her forehead crinkled. “I don't think anyone knows, Clark.”
“Why don't they know?” He could feel his heart starting to pound. “Superman's fast, isn't he? Why couldn't they send him up to get more data before having him fly head-first into it?!”
“Well, there wasn't any time!” Lois protested. She looked a little uncertain, though maybe she was only growing concerned about him. “Does it really matter?”
He gripped the edge of his desk, trying to brake against his racing thoughts. “It matters.” He felt strange... “It matters!”
**********
Flecks of red and green sparkled against the dull gray of the asteroid sample. Susanne tipped the rock out into her hand. “Oh! It's heavier than it looks!” She started to smile at him, but then suddenly looked down at the rock again. With a surprisingly unladylike imprecation, she shoved the sample back into the box and closed the lid.
“Ah, I think it must be radioactive,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
Kryptonite.
He stared at the box.
It was Kryptonite.
The darkness of space engulfed him. He could feel the mix of fear and determination running parallel to his own, and this time, he knew what it was: someone else was in his head. They flew side by side, subconsciously drawing closer to each other as Nightfall grew bigger and bigger, nearer and nearer...
“Michel?”
Clark looked up at Susanne, who was now watching him with a concerned expression. “I'm sorry,” he told her. “I...need to go.”
TBC...
