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Previously in...

Quote
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....
And now...

~@*****@~

Lois shifted irritably in her seat. What was taking so long? She pulled her gloved hands free from where they'd been snugged into the sleeves of her coat and leaned forward to pull disconsolately at the toggles of the heater. For a time there the heating system had seemed to be working. But in the last twenty minutes or so the welcome blush of heat that filled the car had faded. It seemed the heater had belatedly woken up to the fact that it was letting the team down by chugging on alone and it had given up the ghost in solidarity with the rest of this scrapheap of rusting metal the rental company had had the gall to call a car.

She sighed, glancing out through the windshield. The wipers, of course, had always known where their allegiance should lie and hadn't worked from the outset. Snow had piled up thick as a wool blanket against the glass, making it almost impossible to see beyond its smothering presence.

Where had Clark gotten to? Surely it couldn't take this long to make it back to town? They hadn't gotten that far out of the town limits before the scrapheap had given up on them.

"There and back in no time," she grumbled under her breath as she put up a gloved hand and swept it across the glass in front of her, clearing a swathe through the steamed-up surface. She peered out through the porthole she'd created and the small borehole of clear glass that remained, into the swirling blizzard beyond. "Just like Perry. Just like...men."

Had the storm thickened since last time she'd looked? It had only been ten minutes ago. Hadn't it? She chewed on her bottom lip as she leaned closer to the glass, squinting into the unnaturally early darkness. A tinge of guilt pricked her as she thought of Clark, trudging through what was rapidly heading towards a whiteout. Alone. In the dark. What if he got confused and lost his way? He could trip over a buried...something...and fall into a crevasse. There was always a crevasse waiting for the unwary in these kinds of situations. Even she knew that. Fall and break a leg. Knock himself unconscious and end up being buried in a snowdrift where no one would ever find him till spring and then there'd just be bones....

A deep shiver coursed down her spine and she hitched her jacket closer around her, biting at her lower lip anxiously. Her mind helter-skeltered through the long list of possible dangers that could meet the unwary and unprepared traveler in this kind of country and in this kind of weather. Hah. Those cutesy Christmas snow parades and snowy landscape cards never mentioned any of *those*, now did they? Oh no. Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney wouldn't want to sully their fairylands with reality. They left that kind of thing to the Discovery Channel.

At that moment, Lois didn't know whether to bless cable or damn it. At least those documentaries had meant she wasn't dumb enough to go wandering out there in that whiteout. And if she was dumb enough and just happened to end up buried in a snowdrift she had a slim chance of knowing how to build an igloo to get her through the night (that particular documentary on the Inuit Indians had been *really* informative).... But, on the other hand, they seemed to have leeched themselves to her imagination and were cranking her anxiety levels up to hyperdrive.

She glanced over her shoulder, peering to try and see through the rear windshield, half hoping to see her partner trudging back towards her, though she knew it was hardly likely.

Clark would be okay. It wasn't as though he was a city nerd. He was a farm nerd. So he knew what he was doing. They probably taught them how to navigate blizzards in pre-school out there in Kansas. Build themselves igloos too. There was probably a scout badge on that or something. Arctic Survival 101.

Actually...he wasn't really any kind of nerd, she thought on the heels of her wandering. Her face softened in the car's shadowed interior. It had been a long time since she'd thought of him that way. And she'd been wrong then. She knew that now. Clark was...sweet...and intelligent and -

A thump from outside interrupted her thoughts, freezing her for a second, muscles bunching taut in instinctive readiness for fight or flight, before she relaxed slightly, identifying it as just a clump of snow sliding off the car's hood and onto the ground. She expelled the breath she'd been holding and watched it plume out white in the car's interior. With a small flicker of momentary unease, she realized that her posture had drifted along with the lingering thoughts of her partner. Lulled into that warm meandering, she had begun to slouch into her seat, huddled into her coat, and her eyelids had grown heavy. She couldn't fall asleep now. Even this city girl knew that would be a very bad idea, under the circumstances.

With a grimace, she forced her back to straighten, shifting into a more rigid sitting position against the back of her seat and briefly rubbed her gloved hands vigorously over her face in an effort to stimulate a brain turning slowly to mush.

Where had she been? Oh...right. Clark.

Who was still out there all alone. In the dark. Her mind spun full circle, back to its starting point. And the snow. If he vanished into some disaster en route to the town, no one would ever find her either. She'd starve to death.

<Just a few miles out of town and on the main road in and out, Lois?> a more rational part of her asked wryly, but the rest of her wasn't listening. The rest of her was already trapped on the highway of irrational fear, racing like a juggernaut towards panic, and it was inexorable in its rush to get to its destination.

He could have been struck down by frostbite by now, she considered worriedly. How long had he been gone anyway? How quickly could you lose a leg? Frostbite was bad, but hypothermia would be worse, and those were just the...well, the tip of the iceberg to coin a phrase and pardon the pun...there were so many other things to worry about too. Like...like...

Snow blindness!

Pneumonia!

Starvation!

Wolves!

That last was one panicked thought too far for her sensibilities to cope with. She snorted.

<Now you're just being ridiculous, Lois> she chided herself and then started as, out in the fading day, far in the distance, a sharp, lonesome howl reached her through the dark.

<Oh my god! Wolves!> her mind repeated in shock, all thought of sense and logic exiting the vicinity.

"It's just a dog," she said aloud.

"Of course it is," she agreed with herself.

Far from soothing her, the sound of her voice, more trembling and wobbly than she'd expected it to be, reminded her of her isolation, that she was alone. She huddled deeper into her seat as another soft shiver wracked through her.

Clark would be okay.

The soothing thought reassured her for only an instant. And then an image of her partner rose up in her head and scattered it into the gnawing concern that was knotting in her stomach. Wan, drawn...he'd been unusually quiet during the trip up here and he'd looked tired.

Sick, actually.

Yes, she mused, chewing absently at her lower lip as a shiver raced through her. She huddled as deeply as she could into what shelter her jacket provided. He'd been looking pretty sick all day.

That little realization intruded into her attempts to convince herself that her partner wasn't right at that moment lying in a ditch while snowflakes slowly covered him in a smothering blanket. Sluggish, tired. A little too pale. But when she'd asked he'd claimed he was fine. She hoped he wasn't coming down with something. She was bound to catch it. She didn’t need a bout of flu taking her out of work right now. She made a mental note to make sure she had plenty of vitamins and ensure she had supplies of zinc and Echinacea over the next few days....

Her musing was interrupted as what had been an absent gaze sharpened abruptly on the black columns of the woods through the car's side window. Had something moved back there? She put up a hand to clear the misted glass and peered as close as she dared to the barrier, every horror movie she'd ever watched rearing up in the back of her mind as she did. A sudden thought occurred. One that had her sitting bolt upright in her seat. One not just unwelcome, but utterly shocking as she abruptly realized she was somewhere she had never intended to be. Somewhere she couldn't contemplate being. Not her. Not Lois Lane! Her mouth dropped open as humiliated horror swept through her.

Dear god, she was the helpless victim in this scenario, wasn't she? The poor female left alone in the car in the woods while the hero went for help. Just waiting for the serial killer or vampire or...werewolf...to jump up out of the dark, jaws slavering, fangs flashing, the thin glass of the window shattering, offering no protection as –

Lois scowled. Quit that, she told herself. It's just woods. That's all. Trees. Who ever heard of trees actually killing –

Well, there was that movie she'd seen about those man-eating plants eating blind people....

....and she guessed a few unwary loggers here and there had been crushed by...

....and, of course, if you happened to be dumb enough to be standing next to one in a storm....

She sighed heavily. "You are losing it," she murmured. "You are definitely losing it."

She was so *not* a victim. Definitely *not* helpless. And if anyone out there was hoping she would stick to the script on that one, they were in for a very unpleasant awakening. She scowled out into the darkness, just in case she was the object of speculative eyes, and then rolled her own as she realized what she was doing.

"There's no one out there," she told herself, scathing. "You've been watching too many late night movies."

Still, no matter how ridiculous the meandering of her thoughts had become, no matter how she tried to laugh off the small, but growing, knot of unease in the pit of her stomach, she couldn't entirely shake it.

<The woods are lovely, dark and deep...>

The words of Robert Frost's haunting poem popped into her head for the second time that evening. She'd never understood that poem. What was inviting about dark, deep woods? Woods full of snow, besides. What had the traveler meant by that? There was a longing in the words, a sense of wishing to linger. She shook her head. The man was clearly an idiot, she decided, wanting to wander around in freezing cold, damp and wet woods in the dead of night. The sooner *she* could get out of here the better she'd like it. Dark and deep those woods over there certainly were and they didn't call to her at all. She shivered and forced her glance away.

She yawned. A bone-cracking stretch of her jaw.

She wished Clark would hurry.

She hoped he was okay...

The chair was digging into her back. Dimly, she seemed to remember there was a reason for that, a positive – a necessity - to being uncomfortable, but she couldn't quite grasp what it might be. She shifted onto her side, snuggling down into the seat, the smell of old leather heavy in her nostrils. Her eyelids drooped. Somehow, it didn't seem as cold as it had been. Maybe the heater had kicked back into action, she thought drowsily. She'd check on it. In a moment...

Yeah. In a little bit. She'd check.

<Miles to go...>

"'...before I sleep'," she murmured.

She closed her eyes.

~@*****@~

Clark scrubbed a tired hand across his cheekbone, feeling the acid bite of the chilled air against his skin. He was beginning to feel as though he was living in a wilderness movie. Any moment now, Gentle Ben would wander into view around the curve of the darkened road up ahead.

The road had been perfectly clear just an hour or so ago, when they had driven through on their way to...disaster. It was only in movies that the lost motorist returned to find that a tree that was probably fifty years old and had never thought about doing anything more exciting in all those decades than staying rooted right to the spot where it had first seeded tentative fingers into the earth had suddenly, inexplicably decided to jump right into his path and mess up his evening even more than it was already.

It certainly didn't happen to normal people. In real life.

And yet....

There the tree was. Huge of girth to match its advanced age and fallen smack dab across the road, blocking his way. The splintered stump it had left behind on the roadside showed its wounds raw, but already that scar was vanishing under a new fall of snow. Clark looked back thoughtfully to the tree. Scrambling over it would be an adventure and lose him some time, but it was probably the sensible option to get him back into town. Problem was, it was also going to make it impossible to get help back to Lois. Nothing other than two feet or four was going to make it over this barrier. Certainly not the tow-truck he needed.

He could always work his way over, leave it behind him, and rely on the aid of the tow-truck driver and whatever help he might bring with him, to clear it on the way back to the car. That was the sensible plan too. It was crazy to think about dealing with it all on his own. His current...disabilities...being what they were.

He definitely wasn't running at full strength. Once the curve of the road had taken him safely out of sight of Lois, he'd tried putting on a spurt of speed. He could think of some way out of her wondering how he got to town and back so fast. It would be worth the excuse to cut down on the time he had to leave her back there, in the cold. Except, his powers simply weren't co-operating on that front at all. He'd barely gotten half a mile before they'd simply vanished on him, so abruptly that they'd left him staggering and almost put him flat on his face before he recovered his balance. And even when he'd been running at full stretch for that distance, he'd been painfully aware that he wasn't moving as fast as he'd been able to in the past. His powers, his strength felt curiously...vague. As though he was reaching for them through a viscous barrier that impeded him. Tantalizingly there...yet just out of reach of achieving full potential. Weakened. Vulnerable.

The thought wasn't a comforting one as he stood there in the frozen heart of the night. It was probably not a good idea to push those powers too hard right now. Or rely on them at all.

Easy to think. Harder to do. He'd spent too many years relying on his advantages to not instinctively reach for them now when he needed them.

His gaze fell on the tree again. He sighed. He really should be sensible about this.

Still... He put a hand on the rough bark, hesitating. It...galled him.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the right way to be thinking. But it did. It irked him. He was used to dealing with things like fallen trees as simply and without conscious thought as another man might pick up a newspaper on the way to work. One of the many mundane minutiae of daily life that he just simply didn't have to think about too hard. To have to ask for help with it...to have to admit that he couldn't move even a tree right now...vexed him more than he liked to admit.

Vanity.

He blew out a breath. Yes, it was. But it still gnawed at him. He glanced up at the road ahead, beyond the tree, and narrowed his eyes. Of course, there was no telling what might happen if he left it behind him and came back with help to clear it. The road here was in a sharp dip. In the dark...another car could come up over that rise and be on it before they even caught it in their lights. This was no well-lit city street.

Sophistry.

No, really, he told the accusatory voice in his head. He pursed his lips in a grimace. Okay, admittedly, he hadn't seen another car pass by in all the time he and Lois had been working on the car...but that didn't mean one *wouldn't* come along before he got back.

Really. He couldn't take the risk. Could he?

Satisfied with this logic, Clark nodded to himself, consigning to oblivion the argumentative voice in his skull that was now telling him sardonically that the likely result of this unwise venture would be that he'd probably put his back out and how humiliating would *that* be for a superhero?

He snorted. Nope, there was only one thing for it. He was going to have to shift it. Clear the road.

Course, any other day of the week, that would have been a snap.

But now...

He rolled his shoulders heavily inside his coat and flexed his fingers into hard fists at his sides, easing their stiffness and wishing, not for the first time since he'd set out from the car that he had thought to bring gloves.

Well, standing here wasn't going to get it moved. And powers or not, he had to give it a try.

Whether his powers helped he had no idea, certainly he doubted that he would have managed to make much of an impression on the tree if they hadn't been there. On the other hand, there was no real, obvious burst of energy that enabled him to pick it up one handed and toss it out of his path. He sensed...something. A tickle, a trickle...a tingle...that enhanced his strength and helped him along. But by no means was he super-powered. A little stronger than the average bodybuilder maybe. But that was all. He tried to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than analyzing his strength or depressing lack of it.

By the time he managed to manhandle the tree around and dump it on the edge of the road, he was sweating heavily and feeling more than a little dizzy with the exertion. The sensation, unpleasant, was dismaying. He paused on the side of the road to catch his breath, letting the maudlin worry that had been gnawing at his nerves leap suddenly into the forefront of his mind like an ambushing tiger.

What if he stayed this way? What if this was it? What if his hidden enemy had caused enough damage to...

He shook his head. His powers would come back. They had last time. He had no real reason to think things would be different now. Except...he *felt* different. This time wasn't the same as the last.

Well, perhaps that was more hopeful. That his powers hadn't left him entirely this time.

He hauled in a deep breath and surprised himself into a coughing fit as he sucked in a lungful of frigid night air. He straightened with a sigh. He'd just have to see. Assume things would turn out okay in the end. For the moment...it was enough that he'd cleared a path into town. He frowned and checked his watch. And Lois was waiting for help back there. And likely to not remain patiently in the car for long. No matter how much she said she would. He should be going, instead of lingering here, wallowing in self-pity.

He pulled the collar of his coat tighter around his neck – now that he'd been standing around he was starting to lose the false heat of perspiration and feel the chill again. As he did so, light speared out of the darkness into his eyes. He threw up a hand against the glare and then peered into the road ahead. Some miles ahead a car was coming up over the rise, its headlamps skittering as it came before settling into a vapid yellow glow.

Clark grinned at the unexpected salvation. He stepped into the middle of the road, raising a hand, thinking of how happy Lois was going to be when he returned so quickly....

The car was approaching fast. Clark's eyes narrowed as he assessed its speed with the jaundiced, automatic eye of a superhero who'd attended one too many fatal road accidents. Way too fast for the conditions. Even as he watched, he heard its engine race higher. Just as he was considering that standing in the middle of a dark country road in the middle of darkness, wearing dark clothing no less as a car sped rapidly towards him, was one of those things his father had tended to warn him about when he was a child and which was foolish to be doing now when he was an adult...it became clear that he had in fact been noticed by the car's occupants.

He heard the distant crack first. For a moment he thought in confusion that it was the sound of snow snapping and slipping in the branches to his right. It wasn't until he felt a hard tug at his sleeve and glanced down to see the tear in his coat and the bloody furrow in his biceps beneath that he realized the men in the approaching car were actually shooting at him.

Shooting at him?

After a year of partnering Lois Lane and working as Superman, he had become accustomed to being shot at, of course. But usually there was a reason for it. No matter how banal or twisted. He usually had to have done something to tick someone off, first. Or, more usually, Lois had. Having complete strangers shoot at him just because was a new experience.

And then an angry buzz against his ear and the growing sting of pain in his arm persuaded him to stop gawping at the oncoming car rushing for him and get into cover.

He lunged for the blackening shadows of the trees to his right, hearing the quick spit spit of bullets hissing into the foliage around him as he went. Instincts kicked in and it seemed his powers were listening; he was several miles clear of the road and deep into the trees almost before he realized it. He came to a ragged stop, breathing hard and fast with shock as he turned back to peer into the twilight.

Faintly, he could hear the angry mutter of voices, but, though back to being augmented, his hearing wasn't clear enough to make out words. The tone definitely spoke of some kind of argument though. Then silence. Followed by the heavy clunk of closing car doors. A moment later, the sound of a burring engine headed off into the night.

Clark closed his eyes in relief, letting out a heavy sigh, and then popped them open again in another instant. Lois! Dear god, Lois was only a little way up that road. A mile or two at best. Dozing probably, lulled into a defenseless sleep by the warm cocoon of the car...she'd have no chance if those killers caught her unawares.

Knowing he had only seconds to get to her first, he twisted around to get his bearings, and a wave of dizziness thudded him up heavily into the tree at his side. He staggered, put out a hasty hand to its trunk to steady himself - "No..." he groaned, "...not now...please..." – clinging to the tree's solid support, feeling the rough bark abrade his palms as he clenched his fingers against it. Nausea welled up in his throat and he groaned, screwing his eyes tight shut and forcing it back until his head cleared. His leg muscles trembled with weakness and -

- he had no time for this. <Focus!> He balled up a fist and slammed it into his thigh <Dammit, focus!> and then straightened warily away to stand, drawing in a sharp, harsh and steadying breath, his strength, willing his powers not to fail him now, appealing to whatever higher power might protect damaged superheroes...then plunged back into the woods in the direction he'd last seen Lois.

~@*****@~

Lois skated further out into the gleaming white surface, the whish-whish of her gliding steps the only sound as she pirouetted gracefully and bladed to a sudden halt. A small spray of white preceded her as she stood for a moment, breathing a little fast with the exertion. Her breath puffed out around her as she scanned the woods surrounding the frozen pond.

Everything was still.

Silent.

As the dead.

After a moment, she pushed off with one foot, letting the natural momentum of skates on ice slip her gently backwards, back towards the middle of the pond, using the minimum of effort to propel herself.

Somehow it felt safer out in the middle. Away from the trees.

There were watchers in the trees.

Dangerous watchers.

She frowned with the thought and came to a halt once more, cocking her head to listen intently to the silence surrounding her, almost certain that there had been...something. Some small sound, something almost but not quite heard, just buried beneath the swish of her blades, something she would hear if she just stayed still and quiet.

Nothing.

Nothing, but the feel of those eyes itching between the blades of her shoulders and tightening the muscles of her spine. The hair at the base of her neck prickled. She whipped around, almost losing her balance and then recovering it as she windmilled her arms. She froze.

The wolf sat on the very edge of the woods. A huge grey-brindled beast, wind stirring fitfully in the thick fur around its neck. Its ears were pricked and its amber eyes glowed with disquieting intensity as it stared at her.

A low rumble filled the air. The wolf, she thought at first, growling deep in its throat, and her own tightened, muscles bunching in alarm. But this was coming from behind her – had he brought along family? She twisted sharply around, almost losing her balance again on the icy surface, skates wobbling before she brought herself back under control. No. Not more wolves. This was a soft roar that was almost...familiar...swelling in the trees around her, growing louder, coming closer...

She was on the cusp of recognizing what it was when the wolf suddenly leapt forward and sunk its teeth into her arm. Lois started, looking down into the yellow eyes of the beast. It had gathered itself into a crouch, back legs braced and digging claws into the ice for momentum as it began to tug her forward and though she tried to resist, a skates-and-ice combination proved not much good for digging in your heels. Inevitably, she found herself being jerked along inexorably. The wolf snarled, clearly frustrated by her attempts to fight it as it yanked at her again, stronger this time.

"Lois..." the wolf said. "Lois, you have to – "

" – wake up! Dammit, Lois – wake up! Now!"

"Ggg...uh?"

Blearily, she looked up at the dark shadow looming over her and recoiled sharply, still half in the wolf dream, not quite awake still. Then, a familiar scent – cologne, fresh linen shirt, a distinctive collection of scents she'd know anywhere – chased the confusion from her and she recognized the shadow as her partner.

"Clark?" she said muzzily. "What - ?"

"Lois, get out of the car!"

With another jerk, he succeeded in hauling her through the open door of the car. She stumbled, catching her toes on the rim, and yelped, but to her surprise Clark ignored her small cry of pain with an uncharacteristic lack of solicitude and kept on until she was on her feet. The air hit her like a sledgehammer, its ice slipping intimate, frigid fingers beneath her jacket to caress her skin, and she shivered.

"Clark," she started, grumpy now, "what the hell do you think - ?"

His hand clenched in her shoulder and he almost pulled her from her already precarious balance as he set off at a sharp clip, dragging her in his wake. Seeming almost instantly to realize she wasn't entirely with him, he growled under his breath – reminding her suddenly and startlingly of the wolf in her dream – and darted back close to slip an arm around her waist for good measure.

The sudden bite of the air outside the car, coupled with her rising anger at this manhandling by her partner, had roused her now. But she was still confused.

"Lois...move..." he muttered, simultaneously trying to half-drag, half-propel her...into the woods.

Into the woods?

The dark, deep woods?

Into the wolf woods?

Uh uh!

No way!

She propped to a sharp halt, bucked back hard against the hands yanking her onwards, and caught a sharp flicker of something like surprise – no, shock – in Clark's eyes as her violent jerk against his grip almost hauled him off his feet and momentarily lost him his balance before he recovered.

There was no way she was going in there, into -

He started hauling at her again, almost lifting her off her feet, and she squawked. What the hell had gotten into him?

"Clark Kent," she snarled as she tried to extricate herself, "if this is a stupid variation on 'Sorry, babe, but we've run out of gas' – "

"Come *on*!"

The urgency in his voice had risen. He wasn't looking at her now, but further up along the road. Frowning, Lois twisted her head to where the greasy yellow glow of headlights showed suddenly over the dip in the road behind them.

"Lois, just move! Please! Please, dammit, will you just trust me for once and do what you're – " Clark's eyes narrowed and then sharpened over her shoulder, widening with sudden alarm. She was aware of bright light washing over her and the rumble of sound from her dream was suddenly all around her in the darkness.

"Look out! Lois!"

tbc....


Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.

The Musketeers