Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Shape Of My Heart 4/7

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Previously on...

And now...

~@*****@~

The house as they approached it had that air of recent abandonment that probably meant no one was home. Clark just wished he didn't feel so much like Papa Bear as he made his way carefully across the lawn towards the wide porch.

Lois overtook him halfway there. "Come on, Baby Bear," she whispered, clutching at his sleeve to increase his pace a little and showing him once again just how in sync they were. Well...almost. *Baby* bear?

He managed to get in front of her before they got to the top of the wide steps and onto the porch. "Hello?" he called. He stepped up close to the door. Cupping his hands around his face, he pressed up against the glass panel in its upper half. Inside, the open-plan room was dark, pieces of furniture draped in loose covers. He sighed and backed down the stairs to stand in the clearing, tilting back his head and yelling, "Hello? Anyone -- in there?", with no real hope of getting any answer.

No lights flared in the upstairs rooms; the cabin continued to brood in the heavy silence. Clark sighed and turned to Lois. "I don't think...what -- are you -- doing?" He frowned. She'd wandered away as he'd been investigating and was bent over next to the line of trees, brushing aside foliage and peering into the roots of the shrubs.

"Looking for --a k-key," she muttered back in a distracted tone.

Clark's eyebrows rose. "What makes you think -- they'd keep a key – oh," he said as she straightened, hefting a medium-sized chunk of rock in her hands. "Uh, Lois -- I don't think -- that's a good -- idea," he cautioned. "We can't -- just – "

"Clark." She turned on him, wearily. "Look, we can e-either -- stay outside -- f-freeze to death or we -- can shelter here. We can pay for -- the window later -- okay? This is an -- emergency. I don't think -- they'll jail -- us for it."

He had to concede the wisdom of that. Anyone who lived up here in this inhospitable land, used to the treachery of the weather, would probably understand and they could easily leave enough cash to pay for one broken window, easily replaced. It wasn't as though they were going to cause any other damage inside. They weren't vandals or thieves. Just lost. And freezing.

God, he *was* freezing. It was a sensation he didn't much enjoy.

"Here. L-let me," he started, but she was already hobbling determinedly around the side of the house and long before he caught up with her he heard the sound of smashing glass. When he reached her, she was awkwardly trying to haul herself up to the small, square kitchen window. Clark shook his head and closed his hand around her upper arm, tugging her gently back and behind him.

"Wait," he insisted, ignoring her grumbled protests. He clambered up onto the windowsill, with less grace than he might have done normally. Gravity was more of a drag than he'd always imagined it could be. Literally. And the need to favor his arm made hauling himself bodily to the ledge difficult. But after a moment's teetering on the brink, he made it safely, dropped down onto the floor. From inside the kitchen, he glanced back at her through the window. "Go back around -- to the front. I'll let -- you in."

~@*****@~

Lois wrapped her arms tighter around herself, teeth chattering as she shuffled uneasily in the cold of the porch. What was keeping him? She'd been out here for at least an hour....four minutes...she amended reluctantly as she checked her watch and discovered that her instinctive sense of time didn't match reality. Still. Four minutes. Where *was* he?

She darted a look around the clearing and shivered. There had been something fluttering up in that tree a moment ago and she was sure it was a darn sight bigger than any bird she'd ever seen. There was something rustling in the bushes too. She thought about how close that lake was, just beyond the screen of shrubs, and absolutely refused to even consider it was an alligator....

Discovery Channel hadn't told her how to deal with one of those. Though it had been pretty graphic on providing lots of detail about what you could expect being a victim of one.

She jumped as a click sounded behind her and whirled into a defensive crouch, hands rising sharply to fend off –

"Clark!"

He stood in the open doorway, studying her curiously. "You okay?"

"What – k-kept you?" she complained irritably, as she pushed her way past him.

"Just checking we weren't disturbing Mamma Bear and the kids," he said and grinned at her as she scowled at him. Her leg was aching now and being in the middle of all this...nature...was making her twitchy. She wasn't in the mood for his lame attempts at humor. She wanted to sit down. Now.

Clark seemed to sense that, moving closer as she made her way into the shadows of the room, his expression turning grim.

"Here," he said, moving to slip an arm around her waist and ignoring her protests that she was not some china doll he had to mollycoddle as he eased her over to one of the sofas in the center of the room, seeming to have cat-sharp vision in the shadowed darkness of the cabin's interior. He settled her on the cushions with gentle consideration and then reached over her to switch on the floor lamp next to the sofa.

He grunted when nothing happened, not sounding surprised.

"What?" she whispered. Her voice came out sounding more weary than she expected. It was amazing just what sinking into a soft sofa did for her energy levels. Instantly, she felt the tiredness settle over her shoulders like a warm blanket and she blinked rapidly, trying to stave it off. Just a little longer. The temptation to just sink in deeper, curl up and surround herself in the soothing balm of sleep was almost irresistible. In that instant, though a moment before she'd been able to stand and walk and keep on plodding just that one more inch, that next step through sheer force of will if nothing else, now she doubted she'd be able to get up again even if the door suddenly exploded inwards and a whole horde of Ninja gunmen came bursting through. They'd just have to wait until she had a nap before killing her, she thought tiredly and a bubbling chuckle rose up in her, too weak to emerge, but sharp and frighteningly out of control in her head.

Clark was talking, she realized, focusing on him again and trying to hold on. God, her eyelids felt like they'd been fitted with weights.

" – and the electricity's probably on a generator. It'll have been turned off when the owners left. Looks like they weren't planning on visiting for a few months," he explained, nodding at the dust-covers she was listlessly sitting on. "I could get it working, but it would take a few hours to get fired up. There probably isn't much point if we'll be out of here by morning." He took a swift glance around the room. "This place seems pretty well kept up. I'd be surprised if they didn't have candles somewhere around here. Maybe a storm lamp or two. We can make do with those. I'll go hunt them down in a minute."

He glanced across his shoulder and then strode over to the windows, throwing back the wooden shutters that had held back the light from outside with a clatter. Instantly moonlight streamed in, almost as bright as daylight to Lois's suddenly blinking eyes, accustomed as she'd become to the near-absolute dark of the woods. What kind of state was it anyway that didn't come equipped with decent street lighting? she thought peevishly and not for the first time that evening. She felt a yawn coming on and ruthlessly repressed it.

After a moment, her eyes adjusted somewhat, clearing, and the light muted to its true degree. Less brilliant, it still painted the cabin's wooden floor with stripes and squares and enabled her to get a clearer picture of her surroundings. She glanced around the room, pleasantly surprised.

She'd been expecting something rustic, a boy's retreat. Old blood and skinning knives. The stale scents of sweat and manly toil. Desiccated trophies on the walls. Even worse, mold and a leaking roof. But this was no hunter's skinning lodge or ramshackle cabin, she reluctantly conceded.

The living area was simply but stylishly decorated with the emphasis on country chic. Expensive taste. Lawyer's weekend haven, she instantly decided. Accountant maybe. The type who prided themselves on being country to the core and whose sense of rustic was dictated firmly by the latest glossy issues of Country Living and Farmhouse Style. No doubt they had mints on the pillows and a den with full Surround Sound entertainment system installed and returned to their plush high-rise city offices on Monday with tales of roughing it in the back of beyond.

Clark distracted her from her assessment, making her jump in surprise as he crouched down beside her, his eyes intent. Her hands half lifted, instinctively defensive, before she let them drop again. Her instant bewilderment as to his intentions turned into a slight flush of embarrassment as he asked anxiously, "You okay?"

<Geez, Lane – what did you think he was going to do?> she asked herself with a mental rolling of eyes. She was strung out, she decided. The traumatic events of the evening had left her drained until she was spooking at shadows. And helpful, considerate partners, too. She sighed and nodded dumbly in answer, before adding tentatively, "Your arm - ?"

"In a minute." He patted his hand absently against her knee and then levered himself to his feet. "Stay here," he cautioned. He looked around the room and fixed on the staircase jutting into it some paces away. "I'll go take a look around. There must be a first aid kit somewhere around here. Probably in the upstairs bathroom. Then we can deal with your ankle, too." He shivered a little. "I'll look out some blankets, too. Until we get some heat going in here, it's not going to be much warmer than outside. Even if it seems that way."

His tone was casual, but she caught the tension around his eyes and knew he'd be looking for more than a first aid kit and blankets while he was gone. Like all the ways in and how to secure them. She nodded.

"Keep your weight off that foot," he warned with an admonishing finger. "I'll be right back."

Lois watched him go, waited until he'd rounded the top of the staircase and vanished from view onto the upper landing, and then tested the foot flat on the floor. A scythe of pain jolted up the inside of her calf and she muttered a sharp curse. Then she glanced at the front door, which Clark had closed behind him. She looked at the stairs a second time. Her eyes drifted to the door again. Then, pushing heavily against the sofa's arm, she levered herself to her feet. Well...one foot. Half hopping, half hobbling, she made her way to the door. Just as she'd suspected, it hadn't been locked.

"Farm kids..." she grumbled and hastily turned the lock over. She didn't think that alligators could navigate door handles, but she wasn't taking any chances. Feeling a little more secure, she pressed her face to the small window in the door, scanning the clearing. But there seemed to be nothing out there but trees. They were not surrounded by gun-toting lunatics. Not unless they were really well camouflaged gun-toting lunatics.

She let out a small breath, then glanced at the expanse of glass beside her, her analytical mind momentarily envisaging it shattering inwards under an explosion of gunfire, splinters flying, chopping through the air like blades. She shivered a little. You know, it was all very pretty, but maybe, once Clark found them some alternative light source, it would be a good idea to close over those shutters again, she considered uneasily. And lock them too.

She had to admit though that, for the moment, they provided a breath-taking view. She stood for a moment, favoring her swollen ankle, arms wrapped loosely around herself as she scanned the lawn outside. In the touch of soft moonlight that had finally cleared snow-laden clouds, nothing stirred, and the silvered beauty of the clearing, snowdrifts glistening in the pale light overhead, stirred something elemental, even in her.

Which only confirmed her life-long conclusion, that the only true way to appreciate nature's spectaculars was from inside, preferably next to a roaring fire.

She glanced over her shoulder at the black, cold and lifeless hearth next to the sofa. Okay...well, the fire was obviously next on her list.

She limped her way into the kitchen, intending to search for firewood. Candles, too, with a bit of luck. She found the latter after a fruitless search of almost all the cupboards in the small, narrow galley kitchen. Naturally, they had to be kept in the last but one she searched. Fat, white, utilitarian candles, stored neatly in a box, next to a flashlight. She gathered them up and frowned as the box of matches next to them came up feeling light. She opened it and sighed. Empty.

<Let the team down there, guys> she thought wryly.

It was the first sign she'd seen in her search that the cabin's owners didn't have a TO for Totally Organized tattooed on their foreheads. Curiously, this little slip made her feel much better. Cheered her up no end. All that dedicated, obsessive compulsive emergency readiness had been beginning to make her feel inadequate. Did she *know* where the candles were in her apartment? Actually...yes, she realized in surprised triumph. At least, she was *pretty* sure there was a stub of one in back of the kitchen drawer. The flashlight lived...er...well wherever it had been used last. Which *was* organized, she told herself firmly. And logical. So long as you could remember where you last used it you'd find it no problem at all. So, for someone like her, who had an A-grade memory, that made perfect sense.

Mind you - she pursed her lips, her sense of triumph fading - the contents of her refrigerator would probably do well in saving a family of mice for a week, if they were trapped with her in a power cut. A very small family. On a health farm diet. Certainly, emergency rations at her place rarely came packaged with the name of a gourmet delicatessen, she considered, remembering what her search of the refrigerator and cupboards had turned up.

She sighed. Then she shook the matches box again and tossed it back in the cupboard, feeling distinctly cheerful for the first time that evening as she turned away.

"Lois!"

She sighed again at the sharply disapproving bark behind her, but made no protest this time as a muttering Clark dumped what he'd been carrying to the small table by the stairs and hurried over to usher her back to the sofa, chiding her all the way.

She wasn't about to admit that her ankle had been aching up a storm just with the small exertions of the last few minutes. Or that Clark's mollycoddling was actually...kind of comforting. Nice. Provoking a warm little glow in the center of her chest. But she couldn't help the small sigh of relief that escaped her as she was firmly pushed back on to the sofa and he raised his head to look at her in concern.

"I'm okay," she assured him.

He nodded without comment and then went back to retrieve what he'd dumped on the table. Lois blinked and then gaped as he set it down on the sofa beside her, hardly noticing as he tossed a couple of heavy chenille blankets over her shoulders. She clutched their edges around herself absently as she stared at the box lying beside her.

"What is *that?*

"First aid kit," he said, looking at her askance as though wondering why it wasn't obvious.

Lois reached out a wondering hand to touch the lid of the white box, conspicuously marked with a bright red cross. It was fully twice the size of any she'd seen before. Clark had been carrying it in both hands. A large, white, professional red cross affair - one of those buy it all, pre-packed collections containing every item of medical care that someone in some far off Health Department had considered absolutely essential to cure everything from a migraine to beri beri. The first aid kit of someone who had listened carefully to the Health Care infomercials advice and believed them when they said such a box was an absolute necessity in the modern home. Someone who had approached this Health Care matter in the same haphazard, hasty and throw it all together way that they might well have put together a bath salts collection. In short, it had city professional, weekend hunting enthusiast written all over it.

Lois's feelings of inadequacy immediately reared up again, as she envisaged the half-empty pack of band aids and two thumb tacks that currently resided in the empty shoebox at the bottom of her wardrobe and served as her own kit.

"Are you sure it's not a small ambulance?" she said and heard him chuckle as she threw back the lid and began to rummage inside it. "My god, *look* at all this..." she said, awed at the mess of bottles and potions, pads and boxes crammed into the interior. "Surgical mini-saw? Malaria pills? Who the hell owns this place? Steve Irwin or the board of Gwangasaki International? Do you know they have a garlic press and cappuccino-maker in the kitchen?!"

She half expected Clark to defend Japanese businessmen everywhere in response to that. She waited for the chiding, 'Lois, they aren't *all* obsessed with gadgets and being ultra-organized'. But there was nothing. She glanced at him and he offered her a thin, tired smile.

"I'll just be happy if there are bandages in there." His hand lifted, unconsciously, she thought, to press around his injured arm, kneading fitfully at the muscle there, and she could see the tightness at his jaw deepen.

Instantly contrite, she nodded. "Right. Bandages. Sure." She found them a moment later and he took them from her as he reached to pull her foot onto the support of his knee.

"Okay, let's see what the damage is here." He took hold of her ankle in firm hands.

She opened her mouth to suggest that his arm might be in need of more urgent attention than a twisted ankle, then closed it, knowing she'd be wasting her time, that he'd just deny he was in any real pain if she tried. Best to let him just get on with it. He wouldn't let her deal with it until he was ready in his own sweet time anyway. Men. Why couldn't they just admit when they were in trouble and accept they needed help? Would it kill them to let you know they were hurting, for pity's sake? Why did they have to stick to that macho bull?

"It doesn't hurt much," she said, hoping he didn't hear the tightness in her voice as she did. But he made no comment to that lie, barely registering he'd even heard it. In reality, she felt as though she'd plunged her foot into a lake of fire. Out in the cold, the numbing grip the snow had had on her ankle had actually been something of a blessing, dulling the pain in the end. But now, as the difference in temperature and the slight raising of heat in the air surrounding it registered with skin and nerves, it had begun to shriek steadily. She could almost swear she saw it throbbing in her partner's hands as he gingerly tugged off her boot and sock.

She watched him, face drawn, trying not to wince, as he went about his ministrations. His touch on her swollen ankle was deft and sure, careful of the pain she'd denied. His head bent to his task, a light frown of concentration puckering between his brows, he was oblivious it seemed to her watchful gaze as she studied him in the weak moonlight that penetrated the room. His hands on her skin were cool – cold – but she made no protest as he gingerly but deftly pressed questing fingers against the curves and bone of her ankle as he tested it.

Soon enough, she began to relax, feeling herself turn boneless and limp in his grasp. Despite the pain, there was something almost soothing about the way his hands played against her skin, his touch gentle, delicate, the coolness of his fingers as they sketched patterns of welcome ice against the uncomfortable, painful heat in her ankle...she closed her eyes with a soft sigh and gave herself over to the sensations, a small murmur of approval escaping her lips as she leaned back against the sofa's comforting embrace.

The fingers paused. "Hurts?"

She shook her head without opening her eyes and after a hesitation the feathered touch returned, touching delicately here, prodding softly there...caressing her skin like a....

Whoa!

She sat up straight with a jerk, her eyes snapping open, feeling her cheeks heat as Clark looked up on her with a start.

"What?" he said, alarmed, snatching back his hands.

"N-nothing...just...jabbed a bit there, that's all," she said, breathlessly and to her relief he seemed to accept that explanation.

"Sorry." He went back to his ministrations.

"No. No, it's okay...it's just fine..." She made herself stop, aware she was on the cusp of babbling suspiciously, and relaxed only when it seemed his attention was firmly back on her ankle.

<Like a lover's?!> she asked herself in horror. <What were you *thinking*?!> The turn of her thoughts, the realization of how her body had begun to respond to her partner's hands, to his touch, heated her cheeks up further. But it didn't mean anything, she defended herself firmly. It's just...it's been a tough night, that's all. That's *all*. She felt drained, the evening had been devoted to an emotional rollercoaster that had left her...vulnerable, she supposed. Yes, that was it. Her defenses were down, that was all. Perfectly natural. A little bit of warmth, some comfort, an ankle massage...that was all it took to destroy her guard completely. Under the circumstances, she shouldn't be so hard on herself. Who wouldn't find that...

Sensual?

No, no, not sensual. Definitely not sensual.

Welcome. That was it. Welcome.

She stared down at the bent head of her partner, wishing he would finish. The growing urge to start squirming under his fingers was becoming unbearable. As was the struggle not to give in to that soothing massage and just let sensation rule her.

And who knew where that would lead?

Well, she knew where that would lead. A thousand battered novels had shown her that path in all its variations. Deserted cabins? Snowy landscapes? Roaring log fires? Oh yeah, she knew where they all led if you let them.

And while she might find such hormonal lapses of good judgment all just fine and dandy to read about snuggled up under her comforter with a mug of hot chocolate of an evening...they usually didn't make for happiness in the real world. And she wasn't about to risk her friendship with her partner, nor their working success for that matter, on a one night stand prompted by the fact that she couldn't control her body. That would be...pathetic. She wasn't some animal to be ruled by her base emotions. To mistake the false intimacy of their situation for something real. Or mistake a friend for a lover. And just because she'd – they'd – come close to dying out there tonight, just because she might need a little...comfort...didn't mean she had to give in and surrender to it. Not at all.

She frowned, struck all at once by something in the pose of her partner. Something familiar. A moment later, she had it and, perhaps bolstered by the need to distance herself from those unsettling sensations and emotions and...desires...that were clamoring for attention deep within her, she let herself find more amusement in it than she might otherwise have done. Suddenly, in fact, it struck her as being too funny for words. Dimly, she was aware that the rising giggle in her throat was partly the product of her wildly fluctuating emotions, the adrenaline surge that had kept her going all night was fading now, and a tide of weary lightheadedness was left in its wake. She felt almost...intoxicated.

Which was not really much better than...aroused. Which she hadn't been. At all. Uh uh. Still, whatever it had been, whatever it was she was feeling, she suddenly discovered she didn't much care.

Nope, considering that she was, against all expectation, hope and wish, still alive, she just didn't care at all.

~@*****@~

A small sound from above him lifted his head. He stopped the gentle prodding at her ankle with a frown. "What?" he said as he saw she was fighting back laughter.

Lois shook her head. "Nothing. I mean…" She waved a hand at him and he looked down at himself and then back up quizzically. "It's just you look like…you know...like you're about to -- "

Confused, Clark glanced down again and then caught her meaning. There he was on one knee before her, her foot balanced against his thigh. He looked back up on her with a small grin.

"Prince Charming? We're missing a glass slipper, I think," he said.

She nodded, giggles fading all at once. A new intentness seemed to spark into her eyes all at once. "Every woman's fantasy…" Her voice had taken on a huskiness all at once and suddenly the air around them was charged with...expectation. Her color was high, no doubt due to coming into the heat from the cold outside; her cheeks pink, her eyes sparkling above them. Whatever the mundane reasons for it, she looked...enchanting.

Adorable.

Enticing.

Utterly desirable.

Whoa. Down, boy. Don't go there.

Clark cleared his throat and then looked back down with an artfully casual shrug, going back to his gentle massage of her injured ankle. "The Kansas Farmboy? I don’t think so, Lois."

"Hey…" Her hand was soft against his shoulder and he looked up at her, startled. "Don’t sell yourself short," she said.

Clark's breath caught in his throat at the look in her eyes, then she grinned, destroying what had seemed to be hidden there. "I happen to know there are a lot of girls who fall for that hick Kansas charm," she told him, brightly encouraging. "I mean, geez, half the office had the hots for you first day you started work."

"They...they did?" He shook his head, unable to stop the miserable addition: <Why didn't you?> from blossoming in his head. "Can't say I ever noticed."

Lois took back her hand with a shrug. Clark felt the loss of its warmth immediately. "Yeah, well, that's only because I warned them off...." She paused looking a little off balance for a moment, as though she hadn't meant to qualify her actions, and then went on blithely with a wave of a dismissive hand, "You know, because I figured you wouldn't want to be dealing with all that tacky office romance stuff while you were just starting out, trying to establish yourself with Perry. You don't need that kind of distraction. You need to focus."

Clark blinked. "Oh," he said. And then, tentatively, "Thanks."

Lois beamed at him. "You're welcome! Hey," she patted him on the arm, "that's what partners are for – right?"

"They are?" Clark nodded as her smile faded slightly into a look of hurt. "I mean, they are. Definitely, they are."

She nodded, seemingly pleased with his appreciation of her riding shotgun for him, as he mulled over the various convolutions and meanings that had seemed to be hidden in that conversation. It had been somewhat disturbing – on a whole lot of levels – and he found himself strangely relieved that he was able to sit back on his heels, his need to touch her done with for now. What should have been a simple examination of a twisted ankle had somehow seemed to become something charged and...dangerous. Not to mention that the pressure of her foot against his thigh had been more than a little...disconcerting. And yet, despite the relief, he found himself vaguely disappointed as he lifted his hands clear. He coughed slightly as he pronounced a slightly hoarse diagnosis.

"Don't think it's broken. Let's just get some circulation into it and then I can strap it up."

Without waiting for an answer, he began chafing the foot between his hands.

~@*****@~

Lois bit against her lower lip until he was done. He strapped her foot with the bandage with practiced, deft hands and grinned up at her as he caught her look of surprise at his dexterity.

"Farm kid, remember? I spent a lot of my formative years taping up strains in the herd. Those cows were devils for getting their fetlocks trapped...places they shouldn't."

The implication in that was obvious. Fetlocks? Lois glanced down at her leg. Trapped in places they shouldn't? Like...snow-covered roots maybe? Her eyes narrowed, not exactly sure she quite liked being compared to Daisy and Bossy, not to mention she hadn't been anywhere *near* as reckless as a wandering cow! It hadn't been her fault she'd gotten stuck in -

Her rapidly developing outrage ground to a halt as she suddenly caught the buried twinkle in her partner's eyes and understood she was being suckered.

"Clark!" she half-wailed.

He laughed. And to her surprise, a small spreading warmth ignited in her chest. It was the best sound she'd heard for hours. It said that everything was going to be all right. That they'd come through. Survived again. They were going to be okay.

They were alive.

She grinned back at him. She knew that she was finding his teasing far more amusing than it had any right to be, but relief and the sudden easing of the anxiety and fear that had dogged her for hours now left no room for austerity in her emotions. She felt dizzy with it. Against all odds, they'd survived another Lois Lane day.

"Sports related injuries," he told her, taking pity. "You tend to get to know one end of a bandage from the other once you've played college football for a term. Well, actually, I never really played..." He'd always been far too afraid of getting caught up in the moment and ending up hurting someone with his strength. Or, almost as bad, subconsciously using his powers to lend himself the edge against the opposition. But he'd felt left out – the student years were redolent with paranoia and feelings of being a social misfit as it was, without adding to those feelings of isolation and inadequacy by removing himself from a huge part of the campus's social and peer group activity. "...but I worked with the trainer, helping out." It had seemed the best compromise and it had worked, by and large.

"Oh," she said sheepishly. "Right."

He tied off the bandage and then sat back to eye her questioningly. "Okay, how's that?"

Lois was uncertain whether she was relieved or disappointed that his hands had stopped. "Feels good," she said, putting her weight on it gingerly and then nodding approval. "Thanks." She glanced at him sternly. "Okay...now get that sweater off."

"Huh?" His startled face made her want to laugh again.

"Your arm?" she reminded, patting the sofa beside her in invitation.

"Oh! Oh, yeah."

He sat on the sofa and pulled the sweater, together with the t-shirt he'd been wearing beneath, over his head awkwardly, as one item, favoring his wounded arm and grimacing as he finally had them clear. Lois sucked in a small breath – it wasn't too often that she was given the chance to remind herself just how...well-developed Clark was – and then sucked in an even sharper one as her surreptitious appreciation of that muscled chest and six-pack stomach was distracted by her first sight of the wound in his bicep. Any salacious thoughts that had started forming in her head as she ogled her oblivious partner were swept into oblivion as she paled.

She could see that it wasn't anything serious – at least not so long as they kept infection out of it and got him to a doctor and proper attention before too long – but the gash, though shallow, was long and an angry red. And way, way too close to her partner's throat than she liked. Another couple of inches higher...

Her hands shook as she dropped her gaze and searched through the first aid box. It had stopped bleeding though and it looked clean enough. Carefully, she cleaned it out with antiseptic pads and then dressed it. Beads of sweat stood out on Clark's forehead when she was done and he looked a little green around the gills. But he hadn't made any protest, even when she'd been sure she was hurting him.

"You'll need to have it stitched up when we get out of here," she said at last, voice shaking as she watched him ease gingerly into his t-shirt and sweater again. "But those butterfly clips will hold it till then. Hey, who'd have thought we'd ever be grateful to sissy lawyers, huh?" she said more lightly, as she cleared away the debris of her amateur first aid.

"Hey..." Clark reached out, startling her as he took hold of her chin and lifted her head from where it was bent over the box. It was only as her gaze was forced onto to his that she realized there were tears prickling at the back of her eyes. "Everything's going to be fine, Lois," he said softly, as his hand shifted to lie lightly against her cheek. "We made it."

She nodded and offered him a slightly tremulous smile as she put up a brief hand to cover his. "I know. Hey, Lane and Kent, right?" she said, more firmly now as she fought for control. "Machinegun-toting smuggling lunatics don't stand a chance against us."

He smiled a little. "Right."

She nodded again and then snuffled before straightening. There was a moment's silence as he dropped his hand. Then she said, awkwardly, "Um...maybe we should get the fire going?"

"Right...yes...the fire...sure..." He frowned and then, "Oh...I found..." He jumped to his feet and crossed to the table by the stairs. "I didn't think we should...um, you should...one of us should...use the bed," he told her, sounding flustered as he picked up the heap of clothing he'd left there. "It didn't seem...right. But with the fire and the blankets we should be cozy enough down here and the sofa looks comfortable. And these were in the bedroom wardrobe." He handed her a pair of blue jeans and a checked flannel shirt. She took them from him automatically and then glanced up at him in confusion.

"You need to get out of those wet clothes," he said, sounding more embarrassed by the moment. Whether at the thought of her changing or because he'd had to mention the cliché she had no idea. He was right though, she realized, suddenly becoming aware of what other considerations had blanked out of her awareness till now. She was sitting in a decidedly damp patch, soaked through by their flight through the trees.

She struggled to her feet and looked up at him in surprise as he put out a hand to her shoulder, shaking his head. "No, don't try going upstairs. Stay down here. Keep off that ankle. I'll go outside, look out some firewood, while you..." He gestured vaguely and to her growing amusement she realized he was blushing.

Which she wasn't. Absolutely not.

"Okay," was all she said though as he headed for the door as though it offered him an escape from a fate worse than death. As he opened it, he paused, turning back apologetically. "Uh...I didn't include...erm...I didn't think borrowing...underwear would be – "

She nodded. "Right. I'll...cope."

He echoed her nod, his expression settling into relief, and then he was gone, drawing the door to a solid close behind him, before she could even add a soft 'be careful out there'.

tbc...