Table Of Contents
here I was listening to Sting's beautiful ballad, Shape Of My Heart, just before embarking on this and just knew I had to write something with that title. The lyrics don't really fit, but the title spoke to me somehow. <g> I'd been looking for a waffy, PWP vignette because...well just because...and this is what I ended up with. As it turned out – starting with that crazed drug gang who surprised me as much as they did Clark when they appeared over that hill
- it isn't *entirely* a waffy PWP vignette. But what the heck. It's close enough. <g>
The poem which nags Lois is Robert Frost's beautiful and evocative "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening". Always one of my favorites.
Oh, and this one is set - loosely - around HoL, but I've tweaked events and timelines to suit myself. Basically, just took what I needed and ignored what got in my way.
My thanks to Wendy and Lynn for some speedy, thoughtful and very helpful beta reading, not to mention much ego boos (that's ego boosts or boosts to the ego for you non-Glaswegian people
) when necessary and slaps upside the head with a two by four when required.
I'd also like to pay due credit to Real Player's continuous play feature and my growing collection of Stargate music videos, which, between them, kept me supplied with a steady intravenous drip of soppy ballads, which paid dividends in inspiring the Muse.
This is for Kaethel. Who refused to give up on the Muse.
~~~ Shape Of My Heart ~~~
"When we get back to Metropolis," said Lois conversationally, "I'm going to slice Perry White into very, very small pieces. Probably," she mused with a certain degree of malicious relish, "with that brass and silver letter-opener he keeps on his desk. You know, the one with the lyrics to Love Me Tender inscribed on the handle? 'It's just a quick hopper flight into Albany, Lois'," she mimicked her boss in a vitriolic tone. "'And then a short drive up to the Adirondacks. You'll be there and back in time for dinner.'"
She stopped abruptly in her pacing of the short line alongside the car and glanced up into the sky. It was getting dark. Something wet flicked against her cheek. And a few tentative snowflakes were starting to drift down out of the heavy-laden skies. Great; just what she needed.
Ahead, just visible still, the black shadows of the wood beside the road seemed to linger like rubberneckers, crowding close to witness the humiliation of the Planet's top reporter stuck in the wilds of nowhere with a rust-bucket rental car that had choked out its last breath two hours ago and a partner who had all the mechanical skills of a jackrabbit. The last of the snowfall that had finally ceased a bare half hour previously, rustled and shifted among the branches of the pines, making them whisper like disapproving aunts.
Lois scowled out into the darkness that lay at their heart. She hated trees. She hated woods. She hated long, dark narrow country roads that led from nowhere to...even more nowhere...even if they had a car that would take them...nowhere.
She'd give anything right now for a car that would take them fifty yards, she thought irritably, giving the offending vehicle the benefit of a cold glance and wondering whether a few hearty kicks at its tires would count as trying to keep warm through exercise. Which didn't seem to impress it into suddenly roaring into life and making amends for its appalling tardiness at all.
She sighed, pushing her gloved hands deeper into her coat pockets. It didn't help much. The temperature was plummeting even as she thought. Her fingers felt stiff as iron rods. She watched her breath explode into the air on a white plume and narrowed her eyes again on the interloping pines.
The woods. Thick with snow and silent as sentinels. Watching. Waiting. Timeless.
Deep. Dark and deep....
<The woods are lovely...dark and deep...> The stray thought wove its way into her head, the remnant of something long-learned and long-forgotten, and she frowned.
"'But I have promises to keep'," she murmured in response and then sighed. "Like meeting Lex for dinner." She tipped her wrist over and glanced at her watch with a grimace. "He'll probably be waiting at the restaurant now," she added wistfully, visions of the warm ambiance of his favorite Italian trattoria wafting tantalizingly into her head. Zucchini. Linguini. Light opera whispering among the subdued conversation and potted palms...warmth...heat...comfortable, warm, heat...
A wistful sigh escaped her before it morphed into a growl. She put her cupped hands to her mouth and breathed on her iced fingers. Oh, Perry White was so dead!
"Did I say brass letter-opener?" She turned abruptly with the question. "Too quick. I'm going to garrote him first with one of those appalling ties you insist on - Clark? Clark, are you listening to me?"
A grumble came from beneath the hood of their rental car.
"What?" she yelled back.
Clark's head popped up, coming into abrupt view over the edge of the metal ridge between them. "I said, I give up." He slammed the hood back down and came towards her, wiping his oiled hands on the rag he'd found beneath the back seat of the rental Taurus. He gave the car a frustrated glance across his shoulder as he neared her. "I've got no idea what's wrong with it."
Lois stared at him. "You're joking, right?" she said and then, when his glance told her otherwise, "Well, why *can't* you fix it?" she growled a peevish demand at him, waving her hands in agitation. "You're supposed to be the farm boy, aren't you?"
He gave her a confused look. She sighed. "You know. Aren't you supposed to have been tinkering with farm tractors before you leave the womb or something?"
"Oh." He shrugged. "Sorry, Lois. I guess while the rest of the kids were learning to be mechanical geniuses at their father's knee, I was busy milking the pigs."
Lois gave him a scathing look. "Don't be cute, Kent. Even I know you don't milk pigs." She hesitated and then swept him a cautious glance from underneath her lashes, before snorting and tossing her head as she looked deliberately out into the woods. "You do *not* milk pigs," she declared firmly, folding her arms.
"No, really," he said, giving her his patented wide-eyed and sincere expression. "Special kind of pig. The Royal Garden pig. They come from Venezuela. They're very big for pig milk in Venezuela. Huge. It's a very ancient breed. Venezuelan kings began it six centuries back. They say that the milk has special healing properties and - "
"Don't they have *cows* in Venezuela?" Lois interrupted with a frown and then, her expression changing instantly to exasperation, "Don't answer that." She glanced skywards, rolling her eyes. "Why am I even asking?" she implored the heavens. "Why do I even let you sucker me into these ridiculous conversations?"
Clark grinned at her and then frowned. "Anyway, why can't *you* fix it?" he said. "This is - as you keep reminding me – the twenty-first century, Lois. We guys don't always have to be the mechanics, you know."
Lois snorted.
"No, seriously," he insisted. "I'd have thought you'd have learned the basics by now. One of those skills a good reporter needs to know?" he prodded. "You know, the ones on that list you printed up and left on my desk my first day at the Planet."
Lois felt her cheeks grow hot, despite the frigid air surrounding them. "Those were perfectly valid," she muttered and then quickly, "Anyway, Clark, I don't pay my garage half my salary each month to do the work myself."
"Half your salary?"
"Well, seems like."
"Your mechanic can't go with you everywhere. What if this had happened while you were out chasing down some story?"
"It did happen when we were out chasing down some story, Clark, remember?" Lois said caustically.
"You know what I mean. What if you were stuck in some back alley at night in the mean part of town and – "
"That's what cabs are for."
"Lo...is," his deep growl protested. "You know there isn't a cabby in Metropolis who'd go within a hundred yards of Hobb's Bay at night. They have more – "
He'd been about to say 'sense'. She gave him the look. The one he had once – quite unfairly and without justification – labeled her "Right, okay, I know I'm losing this one, but it's only because you keep using logic, which is so below the belt I should win by default anyway, Cheater" look.
Clark, however, seemed already to have judged the wisdom of finishing that sentence and decided, judiciously, that maybe changing tack was a better idea.
"Okay. Well then, yes, what if I hadn't come with you today? What if you were stuck out here, right now, alone?"
She shot a low glare at him. He looked smug. "Don't have an answer for that one, huh?"
"Well, having you here hasn't got me any further, has it?" she grumbled. "Might as well be on my own for all the good you - oh, get out of my way, let me see that thing!"
Lois, ever up for a challenge, nudged him out of the way with a little more force than was strictly necessary and peered dubiously into the car's innards. She continued to grouse under her breath about being alone at least meaning you didn't have to put up with smart-alecky, know-it-all partners pointing out the obvious.
"I'd have brought my Jeep," she muttered after a moment. "That's what I should have done. My reliable Jeep."
Clark snorted. "Lois, driving all the way up here instead of taking a flight wouldn't have got us here any quicker and you'd still have spent the entire time complaining about missing your...date. With even less chance of getting there."
Even with her attention riveted to the mess of bewildering spaghetti she'd discovered beneath the car's hood – did it really take all of that to make the thing move? – Lois didn't fail to hear the note that had crept into her partner's voice with that last. Especially that bite on 'date'. At least he'd had the grace to hesitate before bringing in the 'D'-word, she thought in annoyance. How many times did she have to tell him, there was no dating involved here. Lex and she weren't...that was, they were...well, they were....
Her expression darkened.
Okay, she was so *not* getting into Lex right now. Not that old chestnut. Not with him, and most especially not with herself. Especially right now, when what she really needed was someone to blame for the mess they were *currently* in and the main culprit was several hundred miles away, no doubt listening to Elvis's Summertime Hits and enjoying cappuccino with his feet up on his mahogany desk.
Hot, frothy, hot, milky, hot, chocolately, *hot* cappuccino...
A small sound close to a moan as made no difference escaped her with the thought. She could almost smell roasting chicory. She brought herself back to the matter at hand, thoughts of all that heat she was missing raising her irritation levels markedly.
Yup, any other mess she was in could wait for later. She had enough to concern herself with right here. Still, she couldn't resist prodding at that longstanding nerve, that old, old dissention between them. She knew if she let it lie, Clark's suspicions would be instantly aroused. He would want to know what was wrong with her if she passed up on the chance to make comment on that deliberately provocative nudge. And right now, Lex was one conversation she wasn't ready to have with him. She wasn't sure she wanted to talk about that one to anyone.
So...just for form's sake...
"Which you are more than happy about," she accused grumpily, but with no real heat. Even if she'd been genuinely keen on arguing the same old points with him, she wouldn't have. They'd pretty much maxed out their argument quota on his unreasonable dislike of Lex and her refusal to listen to him on the subject right back when she'd first started...when she'd begun being *friends* with...the billionaire. These days, thanks to an unspoken but rigidly maintained mutual non-aggression pact, they limited their difference of opinion to Clark's obvious but silent disapproval and her ignoring of it. It had seemed healthier that way. The constant bickering on it had begun to seriously damage their friendship and neither of them was quite prepared for that. So it festered.
"Don't pretend you aren't," she added now.
Clark shrugged. An eloquent and truthful enough response. And well within the boundaries of their treaty. And, fully cognizant of her own responsibilities to adhere to the surrender terms and despite her better instincts to bristle at his interference – who gave him the right to disapprove of her...um...of who she chose to have dinner with, she thought sourly? – Lois let it be. The effort almost killed her, since it was in direct contradiction to her nature. But she let it be.
Safer that way.
"Well, anyway, anything would have been better than some heap of junk rental car that couldn't make – is this where I'm supposed to whip off my pantyhose and save the day?"
Clark, who had begun studiously watching the landscape, his shoulders grown taut and his back stiff, perhaps anticipating another spat, choked. His head whipped around as he stared at her, round-eyed. "What?"
She glanced up at him earnestly. "You know." She gestured vaguely at the car. "Use them as a...slingshot...or...something...well, it works on TV," she defended herself as he looked at her in obvious amusement. "Stop laughing at me, Kent," she demanded.
"I'm...not. Really." He looked away, biting at his lower lip and she sighed, looking away from her partner to scan the forest and the long, empty stretch of road that disappeared over the horizon.
"It's not bad enough I have to be stranded out here in the boondocks," she muttered. "I have to be stranded here with the boondocks' answer to Chevy Chase."
~@*****@~
Stranded.
The word seemed to echo ominously in the still air. Clark's grin faded. "Yeah, well..." he said uneasily, following her gaze along the deserted track.
The blizzard they'd run into had blown itself out - at least for now - but the sky that met his gaze as he tipped his head back was thick with gray and there was a familiar, laden heaviness to the air that promised more snow on the way. One or two errant flakes fell silently and softly, already. Beside him, seeming to sense that too, Lois shivered violently and pulled her coat tighter around her.
He gave her a quick sideways glance. "You should at least get into the car," he said. "You'll freeze to death out here."
She looked at him, and he saw a worry in her eyes that, he realized abruptly, with her tirade against Perry, her sharpness and her impatience, she'd been trying to hide for some time. He opened the door for her. "Look, why don’t you get as warm as you can, and I'll go see if I can find a garage back in that town we passed? It can't be more than a few miles behind us."
Lois looked doubtful. "I don't know, Clark. What if you get lost out there? Maybe we should wait for a car to come by or...." She tailed off. She knew as well as he did the road hadn't been disturbed by any car in the two hours they'd been stuck here already. Why hadn't the darned car cut out on them ten miles back? he thought ruefully. It had seemed fine when they'd driven out of Haven after stopping for lunch at the local diner.
Haven.
Never had a name sounded more apt. The cold wasn't affecting him too much, thankfully, not at the moment anyway, though he couldn't be sure of anything as far as his powers went right now. All the more reason to take advantage of what little was left to him now, just in case even this small respite was lost to him later. In the situation they were in, they needed every advantage they could get to get themselves back to town and shelter.
He glanced worriedly at Lois as she took his advice and huddled into the driver's seat of the Taurus. The thought that they might have to spend the night out here....
And Superman would be no help. Not this time. He couldn't. He didn't dare. With the cold not currently affecting him, he guessed that for the moment his powers had stabilized after their frightening fluctuation of the previous day. But he simply couldn't risk them cutting out on him again. He rubbed a tired hand across his forehead, suddenly nostalgic for the days when all he had to worry about was finding an excuse to duck out on her and a spot to change clothes in so that Lois wouldn't catch him in the act. Had life once been that simple and uncomplicated? Up till yesterday, yes, it had. But then had come the bank holdup and afterwards....
He shook off the darkening turn of his thoughts, aware that the red panic that had had him in its grip since the previous day's...incident...was ready to rear up and trample him again if he wasn't careful. He didn’t have time for it, he couldn't fall apart now.
But he couldn't trust his powers either. Not until he was sure what was going on with him. Until he was sure of them.
This time, they were just going to have to get out of this without the superhero's assistance.
"I'll be okay," he said quickly. "Just wait here, okay? Don't go wandering off or anything. I mean it this time, Lois," he added as she looked up at him. "Trust me. I'm the wilderness kid, remember? People get lost all the time up here. It's not as tame as it looks."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Clark, if you think for one minute I'm going to get the urge to go hiking in this weather you're more addled than I thought. I'll stay here, don't worry," she added impatiently as he looked dubious. She waved a hand at the desolate landscape outside the windshield. "It's not as though we're in the middle of a crime hotspot, is it? I mean, unless aliens decide to drop their flying saucer right in front of me and ex-sanguinate a few cows, it's not likely I'm going to find a Kerth-potential story dropping into my lap needing investigation, now is it?"
Clark paused. "I guess not," he said dryly. "Although..." He glanced up at the sky, considering.
"What?" Lois asked quickly.
"Well...the waitress in that diner was talking about how people in town had seen these funny lights out here at night and - "
Lois rabbit-punched him in the arm. "Funny guy."
He grinned. "I'll be back quick as I can," he promised as he closed the door between them with a thud that sounded dull and ominous in the echoing stillness of the encroaching night.
He glanced back once as he trudged up the snow-filled track. Lois was already nothing more than a shadow behind the wheel of the Taurus. Clark frowned. The heater was out, of course, just like the rest of the car.
Maybe he could try....
He hesitated, tried to bite back the pulse of unease that formed unbidden in him, the thought that maybe he shouldn't try this, not with so many failures already. If he failed...again...as he'd failed so often since that bank raid....
No. He couldn't give in to pessimism over this...blip...yes, he was sure it was a blip. That was all. A slight...temporary...failing. Something that he would solve. Would recover from. Like flu. He pursed his lips wryly at the thought and then sighed. Whatever. He had to hold on to hope that it was something he could overcome. Because if he let himself sink into the belief that this problem with his powers was at all permanent...
With a frown, he cut the growing thought off sharply and the deepening fear that it provoked. He wouldn't think of it. Not now. He had other things to concern him. One of which...
He gave a mental shrug in armor against the small, unwelcome voice in his head that urged him not to try, to avoid more disappointment...and then surreptitiously, he pulled down his glasses and directed a burst of light heat-vision at the vehicle, sweeping it from trunk to hood. He did it quickly, not pausing to let the thought of failure overcome him, and tried to ignore how strong the relief was in him – and surprise – when it actually worked.
<Of course it worked> he admonished himself. <You see? It's fading already. They're coming back.>
He wasn't sure if he entirely believed that counterpoint thought, that defiant hold on hope part of him held fast to, but nevertheless his lips quirked in a satisfied smile as he jammed the glasses back into place. That should keep the car cozy enough for at least a small time. Long enough to keep Lois warm until he got back.
The satisfaction faded rapidly as he headed out along the dark and deserted road. Reality bit as cold as the air around him. It was going to be a long and freezing walk back into town and with fluctuating powers that could cut out on him at any moment, it wasn't going to be a pleasant one, he imagined.
~@*****@~
The problem with his powers had begun the previous afternoon.
Put like that it seemed such a simple, uneventful thing. Not the shocking, frightening event it had been. A...problem. Something which could be solved, overcome, surmounted...
He had had no warning. No inkling that his day – his life – was about to change. That the resurrected green ghost of kryptonite would insert itself into his world like a sliver of thorn beneath his skin.
He had responded to the bank alarm. One of a dozen minor incidents Superman attended every day. He had dealt with the bank robbers quickly and without effort. It had only been when he was leaving that the terrifying, distinctive sickness had washed over him in a wave of weakness. Weakness he'd only known once before in his life, but which had struck so hard at the core of him that it could never be forgotten, never fail to be instantly familiar. To his alarm and growing panic, he almost hadn't been able to make it off the ground.
He had looked around him wildly, seeking his attacker, but the sidewalk had been crammed full of people; it had been impossible to pick one out of the hordes. Finally, he had opted for prudence as his only defense and his relief as he'd finally been able to surge upwards into the sky had been overwhelming.
He'd expected – had hoped – that the debilitating effects would fade the further he got from the source of the unexpected attack. But it seemed that the damage had already been done. In the middle of the flight back to the safe haven of his apartment he had suddenly and terrifyingly lost his powers. They had simply winked out on him like someone had switched off a light. He had plummeted in freefall several miles down towards the ground before they had reappeared as quickly and unexpectedly as they'd vanished on him. He had been sweating when he'd finally made it home, badly rattled by the incident.
Of course, he knew – didn't he? – that he really had nothing to worry about. He knew the cause of his sudden problem and although the memory of Trask's assault on him, so many months before, still had the power to give him nightmares and form a tightly clenched ball of tension in his belly every time he thought about it, he also knew that any damage to his powers, any loss of his abilities, was unlikely to be permanent.
Didn't he?
Wasn't it?
Of course...strangely...things weren't happening as they had then. The kryptonite stored at the farm had taken his powers from him completely. There had been none of this disorientating there-and-then-not about it that had plagued him since he'd first felt the dizzying nausea yesterday afternoon. And if the stuff was affecting him differently this time...couldn't that mean that any final outcome was plunged disconcertingly into the realms of uncertainty too?
No. No, he had to believe that things would come out right, that this was a temporary blip, that his powers would return once the effects of the green rock dissipated from his system. Just like before.
He had to. Because to believe otherwise...
He shook his head fiercely, squinting out into the black night and even blacker road ahead, jamming his fists deeper into the pockets of his coat as he trudged onwards, refusing to give in to anything other than positive thought.
His powers would return.
The alternative was unthinkable.
So...he wouldn't think it.
And...really...he wasn’t *too* concerned.
Well...maybe no more than a little.
Slightly.
Almost....
He paused in the darkness, listening to the silence, thick and heavy-laden with the promise of more snow to come, and sighed. He watched the puff of breath show white among the darkness for a moment before it faded, and then morosely, he shrugged the collar of his coat higher around his neck and moved on.
Okay, so he was worried. Who wouldn't be?
What troubled him more than losing his powers for good was the unmistakable conclusion to the sudden unpredictability of powers, the onset of a debilitating weakness that was all-too familiar - somewhere in Metropolis, someone had kryptonite. And, worse, along with the deadly crystal they had something even more dangerous. Knowledge. They *knew* of its connection to him, how it could affect him, what it could do to him...they had the knowledge of how to use it to hurt him.
The thought sent a chill skittering down his spine that had little to do with the frigid bite in the night air surrounding him.
Who?
And how?
The only chunk of kryptonite he'd ever seen had gone into the lake near his parents' farm. It seemed unlikely that someone could have discovered it there, or retrieved it. Even if Trask had left behind some documentary evidence of his find and his theories about it. Which led to an even more sobering thought. There was more of it. There was more kryptonite out there in the world; a deadly, unpredictable trap he couldn't guard against and had no clue how to fight. How much of it? How many knew? What enemies were plotting even now to bring him down? Was he destined to find himself attacked at every turn? Any moment? What would repeated exposure to kryptonite do to him? Would he one day lose his powers for good? Could it even...kill him?
Tracking down whoever had the crystal and had attacked him with it had just become a priority, he thought grimly. As soon as he and Lois managed to get back to Metropolis. This assignment couldn't have come at a worse moment for him. But he hadn't been able to figure a way out of going.
But, for now, he had the more pressing problem of getting back there to begin with....
~@*****@~
tbc...
