Author's Note:
The final chapter of the fic is here, at long last! Thank you to everyone for having patience with me (and thank you to Sara in particular for the reminders and encouragement). And thank you to Evie for being a wonderful beta reader! Couldn't have done it without you.
Happy reading!

***


As Clark waited for the council meeting to begin, he thought of Lois. He wished he could send her a message not to worry and that he’d be home soon. No such luck. He hoped to channel some of her steely nerves when it was time to face the Council.

Lori’s father was in their chamber at the moment, convincing them to hear him out. Clark was sure that wouldn’t be easy, given that he was a surface dweller. He’d quickly gathered those were usually unwelcome here.

Down here, he was practically helpless. He was hundreds of feet underwater, surrounded by people he couldn’t understand and in a cave he couldn’t navigate. He was quite literally out of his depth. He was just thankful that he’d been able to hold his breath this long. That said, he’d started to feel a pinch in his chest that he guessed was the first sign of his air running out. He hoped he’d have enough left to make his case to the Council.

He had a solution to suggest for when it was his turn to speak. He had a feeling that neither Lori nor her people were going to like it, though. Suddenly, all the eyes in the grand chamber turned to him, each pair drilling into him with their judgment. Well, it was now or never.

He reflexively went to clear his throat, before he realized that was unnecessary. “Hello, I’m here to speak with you as a representative of the people of the surface. They know me as Superman. Really, that’s a fancy way of saying that I help when I can. In this situation, I think I can help all of you. I have a solution, if you’re willing to hear it.”


Lori translated his short speech to the council members, then their responses, in turn.

After a few questions and bouts of squabbling, Clark could tell they agreed the city should stay hidden, but the issue lay in how. One finally asked, “Each of us has our own ideas about how to solve this dilemma. Now, I want to hear yours. What do you think we should do?”

“If you’re so determined to hide your city, do it. Permanently.” His suggestion was met with a few headshakes and skeptical glances. Of course, such a plan would no longer allow them to observe humanity. From the way Lori talked about it, that seemed to be one of their main forms of entertainment. If they were so above dealing with the human race, they could surely live without them.

Instead of the expected protests, he received a single question, from Lori’s father of all people. “How do you expect us to do that?”

“I don’t. I can do it. I just need your permission, that’s all.” He was a bit stunned, as he really hadn’t expected them to go along with it. Granted, he was only guessing the opinions of the handful of people in the council chamber. Due to his lack of proper telepathy, he couldn’t grasp the whole of the conversation.

A few more skeptical glances followed, along with comments, he assumed, because soon enough, he had another question to field. “How do you know that you can do it? Seal us away forever?”

He chuckled. “Uh… I once lifted a space shuttle into orbit, if that answers your questions.”

It seemed that it did. The older man crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. Clark was overcome with a strange sensation. He could practically feel his brain being prodded for the truth. With a nod, the older man turned the discussion over to the other council members. If whatever he saw in Clark’s mind was enough to convince him, good.

“If we are in agreement, then, this goes to a vote,” the man declared.

Then came the worst part, the waiting game. Clark tried to pace the length of room, but it ended up being more of a dissociated float that occasionally brought him into near collision with someone. For once, he was playing up his clumsiness. Thankfully, the merpeople didn’t seem to mind.

The slight tightness that he’d felt in his chest earlier had begun to feel like a low, but consistent burn. He was running out of time down here.

To distract himself, he watched as the voters filed in and out of the grand chamber, their scales glistening in many colors. If all the light wasn’t so oppressively blue, he could have imagined the reflections casting the room in a rainbow, like the stained glass windows in a church. In the line, he saw the odd child tagging along with a parent. They stared at him, with their big bright eyes, eyes too big for their little heads. He knew that look well. He only wished he spoke their language, just so he could say hello. He settled on a wave and a friendly smile, hoping that it meant the same thing under the water as above.

After that, the telepathic chatter at the edge of his mind faded away, followed by a long stretch of silence. Lori swam up from where she stood vigil beside her parents towards Clark's distant vantage point.

They floated there together for some time without a word exchanged between them.

He hadn’t been able to admit how much he’d missed Lori. Even though he hadn’t shared his secret with her, at least not purposefully, he could always sense that she’d understood him. While Lois was the love of his life, of course, there were just some things about him that she never really grasped. She’d never had to hide, not in a meaningful sense. She was so brash and outspoken, the thought of hiding had simply never occurred to her.

What would happen next already seemed like a foregone conclusion. Clark wasn’t ready to leave this moment, not yet. Unfortunately, the impending submarine launch and his own depleting supply of oxygen had forced his hand.

“What’s the verdict?” he finally asked.

Lori blew out a stream of bubbles, then said, with a resigned look painting her face, “They’ve agreed to let you seal off the city.”

“I guess, I should get to work, then.”

“I’ll see you up there, Clark.”

***


After popping back to the surface for some air, Clark heaved a massive boulder over the cave entrance. He was pretty sure the thing was heavy enough that it’d take nothing less than an earthquake for it to budge. Even so, he piled some smaller rocks (that were still nearly as big as him) around the edge, then melted them with his heat vision, just for good measure. He hoped that would work as a robust enough seal against the sonar.

There wasn’t much time. He could already hear the barge making its way into place on the surface. That meant the submarine was already poised above the water, ready to dive. Clark zipped away just before it could begin its descent. The last thing he wanted was to get caught in the sonar readings. If this was going to work, they couldn’t know he’d been down there.

After a few minutes of flying the long way around, he made his way to an alley near the docks. He’d missed the press conference, but at either side of the podium, the television screens were still broadcasting a live feed from the submarine as it dove into the inky abyss. Everything appeared to be going as planned. It hadn’t gotten far, but hey, he’d take the small victories when they came.

He’d only taken a few steps out of the alley, before Lois slammed into him, rooting him in place with a tight hug. Her expression was one of irritation, but he could tell that was only surface-level.

“You’re the worst,” she grumbled, into his jacket.

“I love you, too, Lois.” When she finally let go, he smoothed out his rumpled coat and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Your hair’s wet… Where were you? Saving a sinking ship?”

“Actually…” He pointed towards the screen. There, the submarine was approaching its final depth. The massive boulder he’d placed just minutes before grew to fill the screen. “I was down there.”

Lois furrowed her brow, then leaned forward and squinted. “What for? There’s nothing down there. Just rocks and stuff.” His handiwork combined with the grainy quality of the submarine camera had done its job. The glowing labyrinth in the seafloor was now completely invisible.

Clark felt a small pang of guilt. If he’d done his job correctly, Dr. Timaeus would never have his great breakthrough. He just hoped the man would find a new obsession to fill his waking hours.

“Clark?” Lois asked, noticing his distant expression, “What did you find down there?”

He chuckled, then admitted, “Your favorite ‘crackpot scientist’ was right.”

“What?”

“There’s a whole city down there.”

She raised an eyebrow. For a moment, she surely thought that he was crazy, but this seemed a bit too strange to lie about. “Really? How’d you find it?”

He contemplated telling her about Lori, but instead said, “Dumb luck, really. I was flying in the area and happened to see it. I would’ve left them alone if not for the submarine launch today.”

“Just like that, huh?” she replied, still understandably skeptical.

He nodded.

“Then why aren’t we seeing anything?”

“They wanted to keep hiding, so I blocked the entrance with a boulder.” The submarine steered around, its camera panning across the scene. He pointed out his work. “That one, to be specific.”

“You just let them keep hiding? You didn’t think that this sort of thing might change the world?”

He didn’t just think it would change the world, he knew it would. After all, hadn’t his own arrival done just that? You look at life a little differently when you live in a town with a man who can fly and deflect bullets.

“I wasn’t gonna impose on them. They voted to stay, so I followed the will of the people.”

Much like Lori had been, Lois wasn’t pleased with their decision. She grimaced. “Democracy at work.”

“You sound too happy about that,” he teased her.

She wound up to protest, but stopped, letting out a short sigh. “It’s just—It’s not everyday that you come across something like this. This meeting could have been a next step for humanity, but now, we’ll never know. It just seems awfully selfish on their part.”

“I’m sure I’ll always wonder what could have been but, in the end, it’s not my choice to make.”

Their conversation was interrupted by an announcement from the TV screens. Clark glanced over, half-expecting to see Lori herself displayed there. Thankfully, there were still only rocks. The voice-over was explaining the sonar technology to the audience, who watched in rapt attention, waiting for something newsworthy.

That said, if Clark did his job right, they were going to be disappointed. Now, though, it was still a big if.

The submarine kept lingering over the spot that the boulder sat on. Maybe it was getting some unusual readings, maybe it was nothing at all. Clark watched anxiously, his lips pressed into a thin line. He hoped that Lori had made herself scarce, like he had. Otherwise, they’d have a new set of problems.

“Well,” Lois began, “This explains where you went, but where did Lori run off to? Or I guess, wheel off to.”

He felt a strange sense of nostalgia from that comment. When they had dated, people always thought that Lori would be offended if they mentioned walking or running in front of her. Obviously, she wasn’t. She and Clark used to have a good laugh about it. This time, especially, he wished she were here to speak for herself. “She uh… she had a family emergency.”

“Oh, is everyone okay?”

“Uh, yeah… yeah, it’s okay now, but she had to leave Metropolis in a hurry.”

She watched him in a strange way, an eyebrow slightly raised and her lips tight. He knew that face, her ‘I know this chump is lying to me’ face. He’d seen it directed at informants many times, though not too often towards himself. But she didn’t dig into him. She just nodded slowly and replied, “That’s too bad. Maybe we’ll see her another time.”

“Yeah, another time,” he agreed, grateful to his wife for letting him process the loss of his friend without pushing him on it. Yet.

The crowd began murmuring, drawing Clark’s eyes back to the screen. His breath caught in his throat for a moment. Had they found something? What did they think was there? Were they investigating? When a crab came into view of the submarine’s sights, he breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if they’d found something, anything with the characteristic blue glow of the underwater city.

Together, he and Lois watched in silence until it was announced the sub would return to the surface. The newscaster didn’t sound optimistic about a second dive.

It was over.

It was finally over.

Across the docks, he saw a woman in a wheelchair passing by. Her gaze seemed to linger on the screens before she turned away. With her back to him, he couldn’t be sure if it was Lori or not. He chose not to look too closely. If she wanted to find him, she knew how.

Wherever she was, he just hoped she was safe and happy. No matter how far she went, she’d always have a friend, looking out for her from the skies.