You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Part 23 Part 24[i]Two days earlier…
Lois paced in her cell as Clark tried to reassure her. She was still mad that she had been locked up with no due process. Her so-called psychiatrist had said Lois was crazy and that she attacked her and should be locked up, so she had been.
At least the walls aren’t padded.“Very funny,” she grumbled. He was right, it wasn’t a cell per se, due to the lack of bars, and the walls weren’t padded, but the furnishings were prison bare, and the door very much solid and bolted shut from the other side. “I can’t believe Perry and Jimmy. I’ve been here for two days, and nothing! Not one word. Do you think they’ve abandoned me?”
After you bit that orderly and almost escaped, did you really expect them to allow you visiting hours? You’re lucky Arianna didn’t sedate you and chain you to your bed.“Yeah, I don’t understand that. What’s up with her? It wasn’t my fault Lex died. He was the one who tried to escape during the terrorist heist of the Daily Planet,” she reminded him, stretching; her back still ached from both the Taser’s current and hitting the hard floor. “It wasn’t my idea.”
Are you really trying to get inside the head of a psychopath?“You’re right, trying to understand her logic would probably drive me insane,” Lois said, dropping down onto her cot. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Clark chuckled.
It’s a good thing it doesn’t happen that often.Lois smiled at his joke. “Thanks for not abandoning me, Clark. This would be worse if I were alone.”
Now, there’s a Catch 22 for you. Are you better off in the mad house with the voice inside your head or better off if I wasn’t here, therefore have no reason for them to have locked you up in the first place? Clark’s voice said in jest, but she could still hear the guilt behind his words.
“Don’t tell me you’re blaming yourself for this, Clark,” she murmured, wishing she could touch him, hold his hand, give him a hug, something to reassure him other than her words. “It’s not your fault.”
I beg to differ there, Lois.“Then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” she countered.
He sighed.
I love you, Lois, and I’ll be here for you as long as I can be.“What’s that supposed to mean, Clark?!” Lois snapped.
Star’s prediction.“Oh, come on, Clark. Arianna already has me locked up, do you really think she’s going to try and kill me as well? She couldn’t torture me if I was dead,” she said with a shake of head. “Anyway, Star said the ‘ex-wife’ would try and kill me after the dead man returned. You haven’t returned as far as I can tell, so obviously something’s off with Star’s prediction.”
Unless…“What?”
Unless I’m not the ‘dead man’ from Star’s prediction. She did say the ‘dead man’s ex-wife’, Lois.Lois pressed her lips together. “If this is some ploy to make me believe that they could bring Lex back from the dead, don’t even go there. The man was dead, very dead. He died in the middle of the night, while handcuffed to me, his back against mine. I could feel the body temperature leach out of his body as the hours progressed, so don’t tell me that they have a way to bring back a man that dead from the grave.”
Sarah said something about Lex’s body having been stolen from the morgue.“Didn’t I just say not to go there?” Lois retorted.
Lois, Lex came back from the dead in our time too, the night of our first date.Lois scoffed and shook her head. “Lex always had impeccable timing. Look, I’ve spent the last two days reliving months of our life together. I’ve had to deal with being engaged to Lex, almost being married to him, watching him die on our wedding day, you rescinding your love for me, and then Arianna trying to frame me for your murder. I really, really don’t want to hear about Lex still being alive. Can’t I just be happy that he’s dead for a while? Both in real life and in my memories?” She dropped her head into her hands for a moment, and then she raised it, her brow knitted with an expression of confusion. “Wait? We went on a date? A date date? How did that come about?”
I asked you out, and you said ‘yes’.“Wow. Do they actually pay you for writing there, Kent?”
He chuckled sheepishly. Lois had never known a man who could express so much through his voice.
We didn’t actually go. Lex came back, and Perry put us on a stakeout.“Still, it would have been nice to remember you asking me out,” she said, rubbing her arms with her hands.
You will; it happened sometime after Christmas… Cold? Clark sounded worried.
“A bit,” Lois admitted, pulling her blanket over her shoulders.
I wish I had my powers so I could warm you up with my heat-vision.~If you had a body you wouldn’t need your powers to warm me up,~ she replied.
True. His smile evident in his tone.
Lois sighed at the futility of it all. As long as she was stuck in the mental hospital, there was no way to save Clark. “All right, tell me. How did Lex come back from the dead?”
Gretchen Kelly Frankensteined him back.“I knew it!” Lois jumped to her feet in triumph. “I knew it was her. I just knew she stole Lex’s body!” She started pacing again. “Really? She’s that good? Lex wasn’t more than a stain on the sidewalk after jumping off his balcony.” She bit her bottom lip. “Do you think those two – Arianna and Gretchen – would work together? I mean, especially if they both were supposedly obsessed with Lex? Sounds like a cat-fight waiting to happen.” She paced back and forth in silence as she thought. “If they could piece together Humpty Dumpty, a simple bullet wound be nothing, wouldn’t it?”
I assume so.“Damn! It’s not looking good,” she said as another chill went down her spine. “We need to get out of here. You know what Star’s third prediction was.”
You die.Lois waved that possibility away. “No, I meant the other part. The part where time starts over and you die. We’ve got to stop that.”
Lois, I’m already dead, Clark reminded her gently.
“You’re not dead until I say you’re dead,” she argued.
Oh, is that how it works?There was a click of her bolted door, and Lois backed away, staring at it.
“Lois?” Dr. Carlin’s voice said through the small sliding window. “We’re coming in to bring you for your session. Place your hands against the wall and spread out your legs. Don’t attack us or we’ll have to sedate you.”
“Really? Is that what you call it when you Taser people now?” Lois retorted, not complying. “And I don’t need therapy. You’re the crazy one.”
“Lois, I’m not crazy, and I’m not out to kill you,” Arianna replied in her soothing tone. “Whatever Clark has told you about me isn’t real. Just like he isn’t real, Lois, and these memories of your former life with him aren’t real. Your brain is just trying to cope with all the hurt, abandonment, and death you’ve dealt with since Lex died.”
You better do what she says, Lois. You’ll never escape while you’re locked in here. At least out there you can get a lay of the land and figure out where to go once you do get free.Grumbling Lois spread-eagled against the wall as they had shown her when they informed her of the rules. She heard, more than saw, the door open and two orderlies enter her cell. One of the men shoved her back with one hand, so that her chest flattened against the wall, and grabbed one of her arms with the other. The other orderly took hold of the bicep of her other arm.
“I’m obeying; mind not being so rough?” Lois snapped at the men. They ignored her.
“This way,” Dr. Carlin said to the orderlies as she had the men take her down a long hallway.
They passed several of the activity rooms: game, dining, music. A door to a bright sunny room closed as they went by. “Hey, that looks like a nice room. Can we talk in there?” suggested Lois. Her vitamin D quotient was seriously low, and where there was lots of sunshine there were lots of windows, and where there were windows maybe there could be a way out.
“No, you can’t go into the Day Room. We don’t reward guests who try to permanently check out,” replied one of the orderlies.
Permanently check out?“Guess I’m not the only one trying to escape,” she mumbled, unsurprised. ~Who would want to live here willingly?~
They stopped at a door at the end of a hall, leading to the psychiatrists’ offices. Dr. Carlin placed her hand on fingerprint scanner to unlock the door and waited for it to allow her access. Lois had visited Dr. Carlin’s office the previous day, after twenty-four hours of cooling her heels in her cell. It had been on the way back from her office, or therapy room, that Lois had bit the orderly and tried to escape. She hadn’t made it to the end of the hall before the orderly shot her in the back with the Taser that they all carried for “protection” and security. She was now considered a “restricted” patient, which required the escort of a doctor and two orderlies whenever outside her cell, limited visitation rights, and the withholding of privileges such as access to the dining and activity rooms, entertainment, and dessert. Lucky her.
Soon Lois and Arianna were alone in the doctor’s therapy room. It technically wasn’t Arianna’s office. There was a couch for Lois and a chair for the doctor. There was no desk, no books, no pictures on the wall. There was a solid table and a couple of chairs to the side of the room, should the therapy require drawing, art, or some kind of test. A small barred window high in the wall was the only source of natural light, which was supplemented by a fixture high on the ceiling. The walls were painted a creamy pale yellow; Lois had read once that said color was supposed to have a positive influence on one’s happiness. So far, it wasn’t working.
Arianna sat down in the chair and indicated that Lois take the couch. Lois sat down, but refused to recline. She’d much rather keep both eyes on her opponent.
“So, Lois, how are you doing today?” Arianna said, opening her notebook.
“Completely cured and ready to go home,” Lois said, trying to keep the harshness out of her voice.
Dr. Carlin smiled indulgently. “I’ll determine your mental health, if you don’t mind.”
“Actually, I do mind. I would like to again request transfer to another facility and access to a psychiatrist of my choosing,” Lois responded, crossing her arms and fixing her glare the woman. “Access to my lawyer would be nice as well as I have been locked up here against my will.”
“The voice inside your head, whom you’ve named Clark, has told you that I’m not to be trusted. In your paranoia, you attacked and hurt me.” Arianna raised a hand to the bandage on her cheek. Lois knew it was there more for show than for actual injury. “For the safety of the general public, you have been remanded under my care,” the doctor once again informed Lois.
“I’d rather go to jail on a misdemeanor assault and battery charge. Thank you very much,” replied Lois. “What you are saying is that because
you say I’m crazy, I have lost all my rights?”
“Then let’s work on making you sane again, shall we?” suggested Dr. Carlin.
Lois pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes.
“What is Clark telling us today?” requested Lex’s ex-wife.
Nothing I would say in polite company.The reporter needed to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing at Clark’s terse comment. Clark wasn’t one to ever speak impolitely to anyone in any company. Lois decided to see if she could startle the woman into revealing information. “Well, in my other life, the life that was supposed to be…”
“You mean the one where Lex wanted to marry you and then committed suicide when the police came to arrest him on your wedding day?” Arianna clarified in a skeptical tone. The doctor hadn’t liked Lois’ story of the events in her true destiny and hadn’t believed Lex’s behavior.
“Yes. Apparently, Dr. Gretchen Kelly, Lex’s personal physician, stole his body from the morgue, as I’m assuming she did here as well, and using unorthodox scientific practices, brought the man back to life,” Lois said, keeping an eye on Arianna’s reaction.
Dr. Carlin switched her crossed legs, shifted in her seat, and swallowed. “That’s quite the imagination you have there, Lois, or shall I say, that Clark has?”
That sounded like an admission of guilt on Arianna’s part, did it not?~That body language didn’t lie,~ Lois agreed. ~Time to press her further.~
A phone rang and interrupted these thoughts. Lois looked around the room, finally spotting it hanging on the wall next to the door. Dr. Carlin ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Lois asked. “It could be important.”
“I’m in session, and they know never to call me while I’m with a patient,” replied Arianna.
The phone continued to ring, and it was impossible to carry on their duel of words while it did so. With each ring, Dr. Carlin’s eyes hardened.
“It could be an emergency,” suggested Lois lightly, who absolutely hated the sound of an unanswered phone as well.
Arianna got to her feet and stomped over to the phone. “What?!”
Do you think we pushed those buttons?“You know never to call me while I’m with a patient!” Dr. Carlin reprimanded whoever was on the other end of the phone. She paused to listen to whatever ‘emergency’ had been deemed important enough to interrupt them. “I don’t care if he is… Of course, I know who he is! She’s a ‘restricted’ patient and isn’t allowed visitors… He’s threatened
what?” she growled. Then the doctor looked at Lois and pursed her lips before they slowly curved devilishly upwards. “Fine! If he insists on seeing her, let’s give him what he wants. He can have fifteen minutes. She’s sedated in the infirmary and still on suicide watch after her attempt last night. Take her to the visitor’s lounge and make sure that she’s supervised at all times… I doubt she’ll speak to him. Yesterday’s…
session was a difficult one, she’s practically catatonic.” This was said with gloating smile. “But if she does, let me know what she says.”
We’ve got to get you out of here.~You took the words right out of my mouth.~ Lois swallowed as she watched Dr. Carlin hang up the phone and return to her seat.
The doctor looked down at her notepad. “Now, where were we?”
“How did she try to commit suicide?” Lois asked. Everything was so regulated in this place, she doubted anyone could overdose of pills, or get access to anything sharper than a dull butter knife, if that. Hanging perhaps?
“Are you looking for ideas?” Arianna inquired with a raised brow.
“No, I’ve got too much to live for,” Lois replied.
“Let’s get back to what you were saying before we were so rudely interrupted. You implied that in this other life with Clark, Lex was brought back to life by Dr. Kelly. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you tell me that Lex committed suicide, jumped off the balcony of his Lex Towers penthouse apartment?” Arianna clarified.
“Yes, but…”
“And how was he after Dr. Kelly resurrected him, Lois? A vegetable? The man had fallen over a hundred stories to the pavement below,” Dr. Carlin reminded her. “He must have broken every bone in his body and smashed every organ. His spine in the very least would have destroyed. His blood must have splattered…”
“Shut up! Shut up!” Lois roared, pressing her eyes shut and covering her ears, but it was too late. The memory of Lex’s death on the sidewalk replayed itself before her very eyes in gruesome detail. Tears streamed down her face. She hated the man, but there was still a fraction of a piece of her that had once admired him and had mourned his death.
“Lois,” the woman’s voice was much softer now, calmer, coaxing. “There was probably hardly enough of him to take to the morgue, let alone steal, and rebuild into a perfectly viable body. How long did Clark say this transformation took place? Days, weeks, months? Don’t you think even if such science were possible, such a recovery would take years?”
Don’t listen to her, Lois.“Roughly nine months,” Lois conceded.
“Clark lied to you. Can’t you see that, Lois?” Arianna reached out to touch her, but then changed her mind and withdrew her hand. “What he told you is impossible?”
~Clark?~
I cannot explain it either, Lois. Everything Arianna said makes sense. All I know are the facts as they were told to me as Lex and Dr. Kelly told them to you, and you explained them to me.Lois squeezed her eyes closed tighter. ~Clark? I have no memory of these events yet. The last thing I remember is… was… You got nominated for a Kerth award over me?~
Clark made that slight squeaking noise he did whenever he cringed.
We ran into Dr. Kelly in the cemetery several months after that, in November, I think.~Did you win? Did you win the Kerth? Who did you take as a date to the ceremony?~ Lois got to her feet and started to pace.
Lois, that isn’t important right now. Let’s concentrate on finding out as much information as possible from Arianna about her husband… the one she said had been in an accident.~Oh, you say it’s not important. Well, it is important. It’s important to me! I can’t believe it! You won, didn’t you?! And what piece of arm candy did you take to the awards banquet to simper and laugh at your jokes, and to bat her eyelashes at you and look at you as if you were… Oh, crap!~
Clark sighed.
Yeah, you.“Lois? Lois? Is Clark talking to you?” Arianna asked.
Lois waved the question out of the air. “So what if he is?”
“Is he still trying to convince you that he wasn’t lying? Lois, you’re an intelligent woman. What makes more sense, that Lex died or that he was resurrected into the same man in less than a year?”
She dropped back down onto the couch. “I… I… Clark doesn’t lie.”
“Doesn’t he? It’s been my experience that every man lies,” Arianna said.
Lois closed her eyes and licked her dry lips. It had been Lois’ experience too. Even Clark had lied to her… all the time, about Superman.
“Is he trying to convince you that Dr. Kelly stole Lex’s body from the morgue, here in real life too, and brought him back to life?” Arianna shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I had heard that his body was stolen, but I don’t know anything about it.”
“You don’t?” Lois asked, her voice sounding echo-y.
“Why should I? I haven’t seen Gretchen in…” Arianna thought for a moment. “… over a year, since before Lex died, I guess.”
“You know her?”
Arianna shrugged as if it were nothing. “We’re both doctors. We ran into each other at the Metropolis chapter of the AMA’s: Women in Medicine meetings.”
“Don’t you care that she may have stolen his body?” Lois gaped.
“That man was nothing to me, Lois, an acquaintance.”
“An acquaintance?! Arianna, you were married to him!” Lois retorted. “You told me that you had never loved any man more than him.”
“Lois,” Dr. Carlin said, looking Lois straight into her eyes. “I wasn’t married to that man who died at the Daily Planet when those terrorists took over. I had only met him a couple of times. I hardly knew him. He was most certainly not the man I loved, and whom I married.”
Lois’ head began to spin. Arianna Carlin had sounded so sincere, looked her in the eye, and told her the truth. She hadn’t been married to Lex Luthor. Everything Lois had learned from her memories had been wrong? Had Clark lied to her?
Never! Lois, don’t listen to her. She’s trying to turn you against me. She knows that together we are stronger, you’re stronger. She’s trying to weaken you. Remember, she’s already admitted to being married to him.Lois lay down on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. ~But everything she has said makes sense, Clark. How could Gretchen Kelly resurrect Lex? That’s impossible! Dr. Carlin is right about that. That doesn’t make any sense.~
I’m not a scientist, Lois. I don’t know how Gretchen Kelly did what she did, but she did do it. Believe me.~Why, Clark? Why should I believe you? It doesn’t make sense, logically. Arianna’s not Lex’s ex-wife. She’s just some random person that he knew. There’s no conspiracy here,~ Lois told him. ~Why would she be trying to kill me? It was
you who convinced me that I shouldn’t trust her.
You who said that she was trying to kill Superman and frame me. I didn’t have memories of that event until
after you told me about them. You’ve lied to me for months, Clark. Why should I believe you now?~
She sat up and looked at Dr. Carlin. Maybe Arianna, Perry, Jimmy, and Sarah were all right. Maybe Clark and these memories were her imagination after all, a coping mechanism to deal with all the crap she’d been dealt over the last few years. “I’d like to go back to my room now,” Lois murmured, defeated.
***
With this “breakthrough” all the fight inside of Lois died.
She loved Clark. She loved the idea of him. She loved that it took a rare green rock to kill him. She loved that he loved her unconditionally. She had been willing to love him unconditionally as well, but he lied to her and kept on lying to her.
Clark had twisted Star’s crazy prediction into an unrealistic scenario and made her paranoid. What he had suggested just couldn’t have happened like he had said it had. Dr. Carlin had been right about that. There hadn’t been enough of Lex after such a skydive to piece back together for shark food, let alone a whole, living, breathing, fully functional person, especially within the span of less than a year. The brain and spinal cord damage alone would have made that impossible. She couldn’t believe she had been so duped. Again. Maybe she could believe it. It seemed to be her pattern with men.
Her dreams were morphing into nightmares. Mayson had been there. Lois’ former best friend was obsessed with Clark and kissed him! Clark didn’t seem to mind either. Lois hated them both for it. Could she really have been so petty and jealous over a man whose heart she herself had broken? Did she deserve to be so? Should she have expected him to continue to love her, wait for her, after the way she had treated him? Or was the dream just a ploy to make her jealous? Was Clark trying to make her believe in him wholeheartedly again by realizing how much she hated seeing him with another woman, by mixing together facts from her reality with this other life to make it seems more real?
Then Clark died! He was shot by clones of gangsters no less, and died, right in front of her. Of course, she knew he wasn’t really dead, because bullets couldn’t kill him. Yet, Clark let her dream-self go on thinking that he was dead. He didn’t love her enough, trust her enough, to tell her the truth and reveal his secret to her blind-self of these nightmares. Oh, sure, he resurrected himself – or his Clark Kent persona – a couple of horrible days later. She bought it again, hook, line, and sinker! What an idiot she had been to believe him so willingly. These scenarios were getting stranger, weirder, and more and more unbelievable. Clones? Again! Please, hadn’t they done the clone storyline already? How could she have ever believed these dreams had once been her life?
Then they found out that Gretchen Kelly did have Lex’s body hidden away in some laboratory at the cemetery. Looky that, just like Clark had told it to her. Only how could Lois trust these dreams as memories any longer when Clark – the consummate liar – had already told her that they were true? Maybe he was implanting these thoughts, memories, dreams, nightmares into her head. None of it felt real. It felt like she had fallen into her favorite TV show and now couldn’t escape, tortured by a man who she had once believed was her hero.
Clark had receded into the back reaches of her mind once more. He hadn’t left, Lois could still sense him there, but he was depressed. He had gotten tired of arguing with her, trying to convince her that he
had been real, and finally had gone off to mope.
I’m not moping, Clark grumbled in a dejected voice. Sure sounded like moping to her.
~Clark, I want to believe in you, really I do. I would like nothing better than to have you proved right and Dr. Carlin proved wrong,~ Lois said inside her head to him the next day as she sat motionless at a table in the Day Room.
Her lack of any sort of enthusiasm for life, since her therapy session with Dr. Carlin, was seen as such a good thing, they had rewarded her by letting her go to the room with all the windows and skylight to do some drawing with crayons. What was she? Four?
The room itself held no curiosity to her at all. Any interest in finding a way out, of escaping back into Metropolis, had disappeared with her complete belief in Clark. Anyway, what sort of life would she be escaping to?
She was dressed in the hospital gown they had given her to sleep in. She saw no reason to get dressed. If she was indeed crazy, what was the point of putting on real clothes, especially if she had been wearing the same clothes for three days straight? Hell, she hadn’t even been given the opportunity to take a shower. She might as well play the hand she had been dealt. It wasn’t like she was going to go anywhere anytime soon or have any visitors. What did she have to live for? No family. No friends. No job. She hoped someone had thought to feed her fish.
Lois sighed. She didn’t want to believe that both Perry and Jimmy had abandoned her to this fate. Did they really think she was crazy? Did they have no hope left for her? It wasn’t like she had any family left to care. The Daily Planet was her family or, at least, it had been.
Honey, do you remember what Dr. Carlin said to you before she attacked you in the conference room?She mentally shrugged; the physical exertion seemed pointless. They had been over this before.
Look at the facts, Lois. Arianna said that she had been married to Luthor and that ‘Lex had only loved her’. That was why she had attacked you, because you told her what he had said about only loving you. Now, she’s denying more than just a passing acquaintance with the man. Does that sound like a sane woman to you? A woman who claimed that she would do anything for him. Lois, please, don’t give up. You’re letting her win. You’re letting her kill you with these lies. Please, Lois.~So, you’re done moping?~ Lois replied with a half-hearted barb.
I don’t think you meant it.~Meant what?~
That you’d rather be crazy with me than sane without me.Lois continued to stare at the floor, not really focusing on it as her mind concentrated on Clark’s words. Would she rather give him up and go back to what her life had been like before he had started whispering in her ear? Going to work, living vicariously through other people’s stories, eating microwave meals by herself, dating men like Scardino? Or worse, Lex? Clark made her feel… what exactly?
Lois?Alive? Loved? Cherished? So, Clark wasn’t perfect. She hadn’t yet met a man who was.
Lois? Did you hear that?True, Clark lied to her, but Lois was starting to think that was a given in any relationship she got herself entangled with.
Lois! Someone just mentioned WandaMae.~WandaMae is a character from our dream-life, Clark,~ she reminded him. ~She’s not real.~
Then why did I hear some men talking about her?~Hmmmm,~ Lois replied, not really paying him any heed.
Lois, they’re talking about you, now.~So.~
It was kind of nice having Clark in her life. She always had someone to talk to, joke with, and if he was indeed real…
Lois, pay attention! Could you please look up, so I can see the men discussing you? They just said you were engaged to a powerful man.~Then they aren’t talking about me, are they?~
She’d miss him, if she let him go. Lois sighed. But if she didn’t, how was she ever going to ever leave this place?
“I don’t know why anyone would want to escape,” she could hear a man saying. “The therapists are friendly, the sheets soft, and the food quite delicious, but then again, I don’t live on the evil side.”
~Clark, I don’t want to listen in on other people’s conversations. Stop it.~
Of course, the man had a point. She could just remain here.
You’ve got to be kidding!~You’re right, Clark. The therapists are psychotic, the sheets scratchy, and the food horrible.~
“I’m Batman.”
~And they think I’m crazy,~ Lois told Clark. ~Hey, you ever met the Caped Crusader? I hear he’s intense.~
Focus, Lois.“H.G. Wells.”
What?~What?~
“Not
the H.G. Wells.”
~No, we couldn’t have that kind of luck, or should I say, we do have that kind of luck. H.G. Wells finally comes to rescue us and he’s locked up inside the same mental institution as me.~
Lois, look up for goodness sake, make eye contact with him at least; he’s going to think you’re mentally unbalanced otherwise.~Well, he’d probably be…~
Lois!With a sigh, Lois rolled her eyes up from where she was staring at the floor. ~Fine.~ Her eyes blinked and she focused on the other side of the room. There was a petite man with a mustache and spectacles. ~Hey, he looks just like…~ Lois was on her feet and at the glass wall, two seconds later. “Wells!” she called, but her voice made hardly a noise from lack of use. She cleared her throat. “Wells!” She started knocking on the glass wall.
The man was passing through the door with one of the women from admitting.
Oh, God! You’re going to miss him.Lois turned around and picked up the folding chair she had been sitting on and swung it at the glass wall. “
Wells!” she yelled.
She saw him turn, but the woman he was with closed the door before he could see into the room.
“No!” Lois screamed, hitting the window again. “Wells!”
Suddenly, three orderlies had her. One took the chair out of her hands, the other two held her arms. There was a smash and another chair hit the glass wall and bounced back into the ‘restricted’ section of the room, and then another.
“Let go of me,” she hollered, trying to pull herself free.
The other inmates of the restrictive section continued to bombard the thick glass walls with chairs and easels, trying to break through. An alarm sounded and more orderlies arrived to help calm the ensuing chaos. The two guards who had her arms started dragging her towards the exit. When they got to the door, Lois climbed up the wall with her feet doing a back flip over the shoulders of the men who held her. This motion caused the two men to swing towards one another and bash heads. It was enough of a distraction for Lois to squirm out of their grip and out the door.
Lois ran down the hall and then another, searching for a way out. She hadn’t been down this hall before. She heard footsteps behind her. She grabbed the knob on the closest door to her, thankfully it turned, and she ducked inside the room. She turned around and realized she was in some sort of hospital ward with rows of patients in beds.
None of the people glanced up at her entrance. The nurses were all absorbed in a security monitor showing the fight in the Day Room. The patients were all either sleeping or staring off into space. It was eerie how her presence went unnoticed – almost as if she wasn’t really there at all.
Half-way down the ward, she saw a woman with dark hair falling about her chin, cut into the same style as Lois’. Both of her wrists were bandaged as if she had cut them in a suicide attempt. Was this the woman about whom Dr. Carlin had gotten the emergency call during their session the previous day? Was this why Arianna refused to tell Lois how the woman had hurt herself, because she had been able to access something able to slice her wrists? The woman had a lost expression that reminded Lois of her own before Clark had snapped her out of her self-pity. Maybe that was why the woman reminded her of herself.
A chill made her hairs stand on end. No, it was more than that. That woman looked exactly like her! Lois gulped. Was that her? Was she only dreaming, fantasizing about escaping? Had she fallen so deeply into her delusion that she didn’t know reality from her dream-world any longer? Whatever the reason, Lois didn’t want to be this room any longer. She backed up and felt the doorknob hit her in the center of her back; she turned it and bolted from the room.
Lois ran back down the hallway and came to the door leading to the offices where Dr. Carlin had held her therapy sessions. As she got close, she heard the secure door unlatch and start to open. She leaned up against the wall next to the door as Arianna and two other people in white doctor jackets exited the hall and ran towards the Day Room. As the last one passed through, Lois jutted out her hand and caught the door before it closed. She slipped down the secure hall and started checking doors.
The first door on the left had been the therapy room where she had talked with the ex-Mrs. Luthor; she skipped that one. If Wells existed, then it proved Clark’s story as true and she might as well accept the truth: Dr. Arianna Carlin was the ex-wife of Lex Luthor.
The first four doors were locked. Maybe they were only therapy rooms with patients currently held in lockdown, while their doctors were dealing with the mess in the Day Room. She finally came to an unlocked door. It was a doctor’s office, but one cursory glance told Lois she would never get out from that room – it had no window.
Lois tried the next room and found the same problem. Instead of trying the next door, she skipped all the doors until she reached the end of the hall. There was a large window there, and she could see the fire escape outside. Just as she went to try to open the window, she heard a sound and realized someone was coming. She ducked inside the last office on the hall and closed the door behind her.
As she leaned against the door attempting to catch her breath, she looked around her new hiding spot, searching for a way out. She saw lots of books on bookshelves, a computer, a telephone. Oooh. She could call Perry.
And say what exactly?
No, scratch that idea. She saw a door in the wall behind the desk. Figuring it was a personal bathroom, where she might be able to find a change of clothes, Lois opened the door.
On the other side of the door was a long hall.
A back exit perhaps, suggested Clark.
~Perhaps,~ Lois agreed, quickly darting down the hall. There were three doors on the hall. The first was to the restroom. She closed it as soon as she opened it. The second was locked. The third was also locked. ~Damn!~
Lois returned to the office and started checking the desk for anything. In one drawer, she found a pens, pencils, paperclips, tacks, pair of scissors, and other office supplies. In another, blank papers, folders, and envelopes. The last drawer was locked. Could she use a paperclip to get that locked drawer open? What was in there worth securing, she wondered. Did it merit her time and effort to find out?
Her mind returned to that woman who looked like her in the hospital ward. It had been spooky how nobody had noticed her enter that room, like she wasn’t even there, like she had been a mirage or a dream or something.
It was someone who looked like you, Lois, but she wasn’t you, Clark reassured her.
Lois would make sure no one made the mistake of confusing the two of them. She grabbed the scissors and a lock of her hair. A few snips later, her shoulder length bob was now up to her ears. She probably looked a wreck, but maybe being unrecognizable as herself would buy her more time to escape. Now, she only needed a change of clothes.
Lois, what are you doing? Wells will end up taking the wrong you back in time to save me if he doesn’t recognize you.She looked down at the clumps of hair in her hands and dumped them in the waste paper basket. “Nothing I can do about that now,” she muttered.
Lois took the scissors and dug one of the blades into the lock on the desk, popping it open. Inside she found a large ring of keys. She dropped the scissors, grabbed the ring, and returned to the secret hallway. She tried the middle door, first with one key and then another and another and another. Finally, she found one that fit. She turned the lock and opened the door.
On the other side of the door she found an apartment. Did one of the doctors live in-house? She looked around the ornately furnished living room, still searching for an exit. Running to the windows, she noticed they were all barred.
“You’re not going to find a way out,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
Lois spun around and found herself facing Lex Luthor.
***End of Part 24*** Part 25 Comments
