Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic The Longest Road: The Roads They Walked Alone - Part 14

From last time:

"Go down into the lower level, to the communication center, and bring the system back online.” Ching tossed him a hand held communicator. “I will guide you through the process.”

Clark nodded grimly and raced out of the room. He rushed down the corridors to the stairwell and taking the steps three at a time, made his way to the darkened labyrinth of the subterranean level. He felt his heart slamming against his ribcage as he ran to the communication center. He fumbled to open the door and rushed inside, slamming the door behind him.

“Ching, what do I do?” he demanded breathlessly into the communicator. Ching talked him step by step through the process of bringing the regulatory and communications systems online. The whole thing took a few short minutes, but they stretched into an eternity.

“We are back on line, sir,” Ching said at last. “I’ve contacted Parth and Rul and reopened the ventilation system. I will try to reestablish contact with General Comm…” Ching trailed off.

“What is it?”

“You are not alone, sir,” Ching replied. “I have three unidentified individuals entering the corridors of the lower level. They are armed, and they are not ours.”

New Stuff:


Clark swallowed roughly and stared at the heavy door to the communications room, wishing, not for the first time, that he wasn’t without his powers. Before, he would have been able to see through that door to find the threat, and of course, he would have been invulnerable to it. “What do I do?” he asked into his communicator in a harsh whisper.

“There should be an earpiece and infrared vision lenses in there with you, find them. The three intruders have split up. I’m going to turn off the lights on the lower level and then guide you out, sir.”

Clark found the equipment Ching had mentioned. With the power out and with Ching still able to monitor the floor and relay information to him, he would have the sensory advantage over the intruders. Now if they stayed split up, he might stand a chance. He put the bulky goggles on just as the lights faded out and the entire room went pitch black. He put the earpiece in his ear and immediately heard Ching’s voice.

“Sir, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I’ve isolated their communications frequency and I’m jamming their system. They can neither see nor communicate with one another.” There was a long pause. “Just a second, sir. It appears that one of the intruders is making his way toward the communications center…. As he approaches the door, I will tell you when. On my command, open the door, forcefully.”

Clark drew in a shaky breath. This didn’t sound risky at all, he thought sarcastically. It was a good thing the door opened outward and wasn’t one of those pocket doors that just sort of slid into a compartment in the wall. He put his hand on the door latch and braced his shoulder against it.

Ching’s voice was deafening in his ear. “He’s twenty meters from you…ten…five…now!”

Clark threw the door open wide, feeling it collide with the intruder. He heard the rebel fall to the metallic floor with a loud, echoing thud. Before the intruder had a chance to get to his feet, Clark managed to knock him unconscious with the butt of his rifle.

“There is a supply closet ten meters down the corridor; you can lock him in there.” Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Clark dragged the unconscious man to the closet and unceremoniously dumped him inside. He closed the door and locked it behind him.

“The closest exit to you is an emergency hatch down the corridor back toward the way you came. You’ll have to open a wall panel to expose the ladder. The door is disarmed.”

He started back the way he’d come, scanning the walls for the panel Ching had mentioned. “Sir,” Ching’s voice startled him and he nearly leapt up in shock. “One of the other intruders is making his way toward you. I have him on my monitors. There is a doorway ten meters from where you are and right under a monitoring camera. Hide there. He will approach from your left. I will tell you when. You’re going to have to neutralize the threat.”

“What about the other one?” Clark whispered.

“He is not in the area, sir.”

Clark gulped. He found the recessed doorway and hid there, though he was sure the sound of his heart hammering in his chest was audible to anyone in the corridor. He took a deep breath and held it.

“He is rounding the corner, sir,” Ching said breaking the silence. Clark had to remind himself that he was the only one who could hear Ching’s voice. His would-be attacker had no idea he was walking into an ambush.

Clark heard the sound of footsteps echoing against the floor as well as soft cursing. There was a sudden clang and he realized that the intruder must have stumbled in the dark.

“Now sir!” Ching yelled.

Clark leapt from his hiding place and through the goggles, saw the blurred outline of the rebel, just as he was getting back to his feet. Clark hit the other man across the face with the butt of his gun, sending the rebel back to the ground with a loud thud. Clark grabbed the other man’s weapon and ran toward the exit hatch, unconcerned about the noise he was making.

“It’s just ahead of you, sir…there!” Ching yelled.

Clark stopped and looked up. The outline of the hatch visible. In front of him was a thin wall panel, with a latch on one side of it. He tried the latch. It was stuck.

“It won’t open,” he hissed.

“Break it, sir. The panel is designed to break away if it malfunctions.”

Clark drove the butt of his gun into the panel, causing it to shatter and splinter. He knocked away the fragments with his gun and with his hands, unheeding the cuts he received as he clawed at the material. He felt his heart thunder in his chest and sweat pour down his face in rivulets. He finally removed enough of the panel to expose the ladder and with bleeding hands, climbed the ladder to the hatch. The hatch opened easily and he lifted himself up onto the upper floor. He squinted his eyes shut, pained by the bright light. Stupid. He should have removed the goggles before he climbed up to a floor that still had functioning lights. A pair of hands grabbed him and he panicked.

“It’s all right, sir.” He recognized Ensign Parth’s voice and breathed out a shuddering sigh of relief as the young man assisted him to his feet. Parth closed and locked the exit hatch beneath him.

“Well done, sir,” Ching’s disembodied voice congratulated him. “All the doors and hatches to the lower level are now armed, the intruders are trapped.”

Clark felt his heart still pounding in his chest as he caught his breath. He may have gotten out of that particular jam, but things were far from over.

“We should rejoin Lieutenant Commander Ching, sir,” Parth said. Clark nodded and followed the other man down the corridor, knowing a long, unpleasant battle was still ahead.

********

“Lois! We haven’t seen you in here in ages!” Maisie exclaimed as Lois walked through the door to Maisie’s coffee shop. The patrons at the counter, all of whom Lois now knew, looked up as well. Gus, who ran the local hardware store, grinned at her over his copy of the Daily Planet.

“Great column, Lois,” Gus said.

“Thanks, Gus,” Lois replied. The readership of the Daily Planet in Smallville had expanded considerably when Clark started writing for the paper. Lois was honored that everyone kept reading the Planet even in his absence.

“We’ve all read it,” Maisie continued. “Just amazing. I felt like I was there with those kids. Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a way with words? You should never have given up on writing books, you know.” Years ago, Maisie’s comment would have caused her to be taken aback, but Lois just smiled. In a small town few things remained secret; Lois’s novel writing hobby was not one of those things. Lois sat down at the counter among the other patrons.

“Yep, great angle, too. It’s about time someone wrote about all the good things kids do, not just the rotten stuff,” Roger Owens, the local vet, added as he sipped his coffee.

“So what can I get you?” Maisie asked as she placed a glass of water in front of Lois.

“Pumpkin pie and decaf with real cream and sugar,” Lois replied.

“Pumpkin pie? I thought Martha’s pumpkin pie was the best in the county,” Maisie replied with an arched brow.

“It is, but there won’t be any of it until the great pumpkin massacre next week after Halloween,” Lois said.

“Pumpkin pie it is then. Do you want some ice cream on that, you’re eating for two after all,” Maisie asked.

Lois managed a smile. “I think the pie is enough.”

“So what brings you into town?”

Lois turned around on her stool toward the source of the question: Anne, the fifty-five year old school teacher, church organist, pinochle champion, and all around town gossip. “More baby stuff,” she replied. The small talk about the baby and the column and the way the Smallville Tigers’ football team was doing this season continued for an hour or so. People came and went as they always did on Saturday afternoons.

Most of the time, Lois found the attention of small town scrutiny intrusive and exhausting, but she’d come to understand that the interest in the baby and in her work was an expression of genuine concern. This was a good town, full of good people who cared about each other and cared about how their neighbors were doing and what the kids were up to. She still missed the comfortable anonymity of urban life, but during the weeks after Clark’s departure, she hadn’t even had that in Metropolis. Here at least, she had a network of caring people, even if they often seemed a bit nosy.

********

The atmosphere in the situation room was tense; the anxiety in the air palpable. After a week of grueling marches and chaotic battle, and his experiences in the subterranean level only hours before, Clark found the sensation of waging a war from within this closed space bewildering. The chaos was largely outside of this isolated, insulated room. In here, the tension was still thick, but decisions were made with detachment as the battle was fought on monitors in distant parts of the colony. They watched and directed, gave orders and planned strategies for a war fought without sound and in pixilated images on little screens.

Parth looked up from his station. “Sirs, we have word from General Command.”

“What is it, Ensign?” Ching said as he moved to the younger man’s side.

“They’ve re-secured the sector; the rebels are making a general retreat.”

A cheer rose up among the young soldiers who had gathered to secure the situation room. A door on the other side of the room opened and Clark looked up to see Zara enter with her entourage of commanders. She limped slightly and like all the others, looked weary and fatigued from battle. The soldiers all crisply came to attention.

“All hail the victorious commander,” a sergeant declared in voice stentorian.

“All hail!” The cheer went up.

Zara didn’t smile, but bowed solemnly. “By your sacrifices, we will survive,” she said. “Welcome home, Kal El.” She looked directly at Clark and then at Ching. “And the brave soldiers who serve with you.”

Clark glanced at Ching, who had yet to take his eyes off Zara. Around them, officers began giving commands to soldiers around the colony to take up defensive positions and prepare status reports, but Ching remained impassive. The slightest muscle in his jaw twitched and Clark could tell that inside him, emotions were warring, but they remained far beneath the surface.

Commander Goren, who stood at Zara’s side, looked older and wearier than he had when Clark had left, just over a week earlier. “First Ministers,” he announced gravely. “Commander Talan will want to brief you on the colony’s status.”

Commander Goren led the way as Zara and Clark followed, and Ching a step behind them. As they walked through the corridors they passed dozens of soldiers and civilians racing from one place to the next in the chaotic effort to secure the colony and survey the damage. They approached the receiving area outside of General Command. A group of soldiers turned a corner and came toward them and into the open space. Among them was Enza. One sleeve had been torn off her uniform and around her bare arm was tied a blood soaked bandage. She carried a rifle in her injured arm, a look of world weariness settled upon her face.

“There she is, little one,” an upbeat voice called from his left. Clark turned to look for the source. He saw a young soldier holding the hand of the little girl he recognized as Enza’s niece. The little girl squirmed away from her protector and ran through the crowd of people directly for her aunt.

“Enza!” she cried.

Enza stopped in her tracks and fell to her knees. She dropped her weapon and gathered the little girl up in her arms. “Thank goodness you are all right,” she murmured. The little girl burst into tears. Between sobs, she whimpered in confusion, demanding to know why Enza had left her and why bad things had happened.

“Shhhh,” Enza soothed. She stood up, the little girl in her arms and walked away, completely unaware of anything except the child. Clark watched the bittersweet homecoming, silently cursing this war and the harm it was doing, but thankful that Enza and her niece had been reunited.

“First Ministers,” Talan’s clear voice carried across the room. She bowed deferentially and gestured for them to follow her into the Advisory Council’s chambers.

********

Zara paced nervously in the corridor. She looked down the hallway to the single door and the sliver of light that spilled out from underneath it onto the floor. She could hear her heart thundering in her chest. All day, she had waited, agitation building. As the battle had raged over the last few days, she’d at times wondered if the colony would survive. Her mind had been preoccupied with saving her people. She’d had little time to think of Ching. And when she had, she’d worried endlessly. If the rebels had managed to attack the main colony and to have sabotaged their communication system, surely they had set up a trap for the forces that had gone to Terian. As they had fought to defend their home, as she’d made decisions in the course of tense battles which had cost people their lives, she had tried not to think of him. The possibility that he might have been dead had threatened to render her catatonic.

When word had come that he was alive, she’d felt the cold hand of fear release her from its grip, and for the first time in days, she’d felt like she could breathe again. But all day, she’d been forced to suppress her relief at his presence. She’d wanted to throw her arms around him, to draw him into her embrace so she could prove to herself that he was really there. Yet duty and decorum had required that she do no such thing.

An hour earlier, he had bid her goodnight. “A pleasant night to you, Madam,” he’d said. His tone and language as formal as possible, as it always was when he believed the expression of emotion to be inappropriate, but she could hear the slight waver in his voice. He had looked at her for a long moment, as though warring with himself over whether to leave it at that. After a reluctant pause, he’d bowed and left.

So here she was. Outside his quarters, late at night. She drew up whatever courage she could summons, walked to his door, and knocked softly.

“Enter,” his familiar voice came from the other side of the doorway. She opened the door and stepped inside, wondering at her own timidity. Why was she so nervous? How could the ease and familiarity of years have evaporated, leaving them as awkward strangers?

He looked up from his book and she could hear his breath catch in his throat. She felt a sudden relief that she was not alone in this feeling of anxiety. He closed the book and stood up. Before he had the chance to put his uniform back on, before he had the opportunity to create the distance of duty and obligation between them, she threw her arms around him, holding on so tightly she thought she’d never be able to let him go. For a brief moment, she feared she would be rebuffed, but she felt a long, shuddering sigh escape his body as he enfolded her in his arms. One hand threaded itself in her hair as he held her close. She felt him brush the barest hint of a kiss against her temple.

She pulled back slightly. “I’m sorry, I forget myself,” he muttered, and she could feel the walls going up between them. She framed his face in her hands and kissed him fiercely, passionately. His body went rigid, and she felt a stab in her heart as she anticipated his rejection. But suddenly, he was kissing her just as hungrily, his mouth meeting hers pull for pull. Her hand trailed its way to the smooth, warm skin of his chest. He tore himself away with a groan, his breathing shallow.

“We cannot do this.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair and she could see him struggle to tamp down his emotions. He closed his eyes and turned away. Years ago, perhaps she would have mistaken his posture –his back to her, his body stiff –as a closed door, but if Ching had actually wanted them to stop, he would have been direct. Polite and deferential, but direct. No, she knew that he had turned away from her because his heart and his head were at war and his head was losing. She realized, with a small smile, that perhaps they weren’t as strangers to each other after all.

She wrapped her arms around his lean waist and placed her head against his shoulder. “If we begin this, I do not trust myself to stop,” Ching said quietly.

“And who said anything about stopping?” she murmured.

He turned around and placed his hands on her arms. “Zara, what we want, we can never have. You belong to…”

She interrupted him by lifting up her hands and removing the heavy metal cuffs. She set them aside and rubbed at her now bare wrists.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve worn these every moment of my life for thirteen years,” she replied, “to remind me that I am not free. That I cannot give myself to whom I choose.”

“Nothing has changed,” Ching said quietly.

“Everything has changed. In the last few days I have seen more of death and dying than I ever imagined possible. I wondered whether you were all right, but I had to force myself to stop, because every time I thought about the possibility of you not surviving, it nearly killed me. On so many occasions I was certain I would perish…”

“I should have been here,” he chastised himself.

“Shhh… I thought that in those moments I would lament having failed in my duty to protect my people. But all I could think of was you. All I could think about was the fact that you would go on, believing that you came second in my life.”

“Zara…”

“You have never been second,” she whispered, not trusting her own voice. She closed her eyes as he pulled her into his arms.

“I cannot ask you to place me above your duty,” Ching replied despondently.

“And I cannot fulfill my duty without you.”

“We both know that this cannot be.” He rubbed a soothing hand up and down her back.

“We were not always so afraid to try,” she reminded him.

His hands stilled. “We were barely more than children. We were naïve.”

“We were honest,” she countered. “We could not deceive ourselves into believing that duty was enough.”

“What choice do we have?” he asked, the resolve fading from his voice.

She reached up to touch his face and softly kissed his lips. Reluctantly breaking off the kiss, she looked up at him. He took her hand in his and held it to his lips. He closed his eyes. “I do not want to ask you to live a lie.”

“We already live a lie. At least now we can be honest with ourselves. Can you do that? Can you spend your days pretending not to love me? Pretending there is nothing between us?”

“I have been doing the same for years,” he admitted.

“And if that is the price, it is well worth it,” she murmured as she kissed his neck. She trailed kisses along the line of his jaw to his ear and captured the soft lobe between her lips, sucking on it gently. She felt him draw in a sharp breath and wrap his arms around her more tightly. He titled her chin up and brushed his thumb softly over the outline of her lips before lowering his head to kiss her.

She struggled to shed the heavy mantle over her uniform and it fell to the ground in a pool of superfluous fabric. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her hands in his hair. Their kisses became more passionate and the heat and tension in her grew. Her tight grip on control was coming loose and she welcomed it.

Ching pulled away and she suddenly felt bereft. He rested his forehead against hers, still holding her close. “Are you certain you want this?” he asked.

“More certain than I have ever been before.”

“I…I do not want to cause you pain,” he confessed, closing his eyes.

“Our lives are full of pain. Love is the last thing from which we should be protecting ourselves.” She expected him to go through the endless litany of reasons why they shouldn’t, why decorum and duty were aligned against them, why good judgment would counsel caution, why it would be improper, imprudent, and unsound to proceed. And she had no arguments to counter with, save one. It was tearing her apart inside to see him every day and to not be with him. She was certain it was doing the same to him.

Zara felt him sigh and braced herself for the impending words of wisdom she had no interest in hearing. She tried to prepare her heart, though she knew what he was about to say would wound her terribly. Could she have honestly expected anything else, though? Could she have suspected that her beloved, steadfast and dedicated to his duties, would forget his calling on account of his heart?

He kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes, waiting for the dreaded words. She opened them with a start as he bent to hook one arm behind her knees. He picked her up easily, holding her securely against his chest. Ching crossed the small room with Zara in his arms and laid her down on the bed. “I love you,” he whispered as he leaned down to kiss her.

“I love you,” she said simply, drawing him into her arms.