Table of Contents I'm pretty sure that 35 is the final number. 97% sure. Seriously, it can't get much longer, can it? 
~~~Part 31~~~
Lois watched him from her seat by the window, her head resting against the sun-warmed wall. He'd been sleeping for well over an hour now, but that was good. He needed it. Rest would help. And sun, he'd said. He'd murmured something about powers and sunlight as he'd drifted off to sleep.
There was a faint smile on his face now, his pain seemingly forgotten. At least for now. She could tell it wasn't gone, though. There was still a faint ache in her shoulder. She'd tried to dismiss it earlier, but...
She had to accept it for what it was. A connection from out of nowhere. She could feel his pain. The emotional connection had been startling enough, but this was more. Weaker, but more... frightening? She wasn't sure how she felt about it. Unbalanced, maybe. Like getting used to a new pair of shoes or something. It just took time to adjust to. Hopefully.
She wondered if Clark could feel her pain. Or if he could feel what she was feeling while he was sleeping, her emotions being tossed about on a stormy sea of confusion. He was lying there, a mass of contradictions and mystery. The strongest man in the world, the media had said. But they couldn't know how deep that strength really went. All they saw were the muscles and strength; she'd gathered that much from the hungry throng of reporters she'd seen outside his apartment.
She'd seen him differently, though.
He'd been weak and hardly standing, yet he'd managed to cross half a warehouse to dive in front of her...
She'd had her doubts until that moment. Now there was no more fear, no more worrying that he hadn't meant what he'd said. That *she* was the one he wanted. The one he needed.
Like she needed him.
And instead of feeling suffocating, the thought was liberating.
She smiled, still watching him. His hair was mussed and his cheeks a little flushed. Life would be so complicated when they got out of here, but they could handle it if they stuck together. They would be okay. They had to be.
Her gaze turned to the window and the brilliant rays of sunlight being cast through it. A handful of trees were visible from where she was sitting. There must have been a light breeze out because the leaves were swaying to a delicate rhythm. Funny, that everything seemed so... cheery. So right. The bad guy was dead. There was a finality to that she could almost feel. Someone was supposed to cue the orchestra for the denouement.
But it wasn't over with.
Clark was still hurt, and there were still people in the Congo dealing arms and diamonds, killing who knew how many people in their path. Just because Luthor was dead didn't mean that everything else was over and done with. There was still work to do. They had to put a stop to all of it.
She wouldn't be able to sleep soundly until it was all over with. This whole nightmare. More than three years of her life, it'd been. Well, she was through being a victim now. It would only be a little while longer before she could close the book on this chapter of her life and start a new one...
Hopefully with Clark at her side.
***
His stomach hurt. A lot. That was all he knew. Until he tried to shift to a more comfortable position. Someone had stabbed a lead poker through his thigh. It burned. And his stomach burned too. He was in Hell. He'd been sent to Hell, and he was burning alive. Except for his left foot, which was freezing.
He dared to open his eyes, expecting to see the flames licking at him.
No flames. White walls.
That meant something... if only he could remember what.
White walls. And beeping?
And pain. Lots of it.
Oh. He groaned. That added up to hospital.
And a gunshot, no, *two* gunshot wounds, that were burning like hell.
Who... what assignment had he been on? He just had to think. Had to concentrate and ignore the burning and throbbing. There was something important about this one. Something missing. There was something that hadn't gotten...
Elle!
He started to sit upright, but stopped, sucking air in through his teeth. God, that had... hurt didn't even begin to describe it. Drugs. He needed drugs. Painkillers. Something.
And Elle. He needed to know if Elle had made it.
***
It was dark. Eerie, too. Why did everything have to seem so frightening tonight of all nights? She'd always felt safe in her apartment before, but tonight was different. The bedsprings creaked when she shifted and brought her knees to her chest. The dead silence was creepy, and she couldn't decide whether or not she was grateful for random chirping of the crickets that cut through the night air and sent her heart racing all over again.
Being interrogated was definitely something she didn't plan on doing again. Killing, though, that was first on her list of things to avoid. Guns, too. And government agents. Police, ATF, FBI... she was through with the lot of them.
She only hoped they were through with her. Henderson had believed her. Or, really, he'd believed Superman, but the point was they'd let her go. But for how long?
It didn't matter that she'd done right in the end; her initial involvement in this was all but innocent. She shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around her knees.
And way to go, Elle. She'd given them the tape - proof of her connections with Luthor. Or that she'd had some sort of arrangement with him, anyway. Right after she'd done such a good job of convincing the authorities to check Luthor out, to see how dirty he really wa-
Had been. How dirty a crook he *had* been. Because he was dead. Gone. She'd shot him. Killed him.
And now it was only a matter of time before they started thinking - realizing - that she had been involved. Dirty. Guilty. Evil.
She bit at her lower lip. She wasn't going to cry.
What had she been thinking? She gave a trembling sigh as she leaned back into the corner of the cold bedroom wall. She was brilliant.
Why hadn't she thought...
Just because she was on the good side, killed the bad guy, helped save the day... none of that meant she hadn't been on the bad side, too. She had, to begin with. And now, even if they cleared her for Luthor's death, that wouldn't save her from the crimes she *had* committed.... Not that she knew exactly what they were...
She'd been getting paid for a job she certainly hadn't filled out tax forms for. But what else? Sitting in the airport and City Hall and keeping watch on the Daily Planet wasn't a crime. And it wasn't like she'd had anything to do with the whole Congo operation. Diamonds, guns, smuggling and all.
Her brow creased with worry. They would find out, wouldn’t they? They'd realize just how involved she'd been. How much she knew of all the things she was supposed to be ignorant of.
What if...
What if, because of what she knew - and had known, they considered her an accomplice? That happened all the time. Not reporting a crime was just as good as committing it yourself. Wasn't that what they always said?
And this was huge. Monstrous. International smuggling and arms dealing. How long a trip to prison did that win? Years? Decades? Better yet, they might just revoke her citizenship. Extradite her back to Ireland. Mam and Dad would be so proud. She wouldn't have to worry about the New Troy death penalty; her parents would murder her for sure.
She deserved it, though, didn't she? Elle Daly, the eternal good girl, never in trouble, never done a thing wrong in her life. How on earth had she ended up in a situation like this? She could very well be facing a whole slew of felonies. She was only twenty-four. People her age didn't go to jail. Or at least she didn't. Things like this weren't supposed to happen. Not to her.
She shuddered and grabbed the thin, knitted blanket to wrap around herself. The fabric was futile, though, wasn't it? It couldn't ward off the sort of cold that had settled inside her.
They wanted her to go back tomorrow.
TBC... on Monday
