Table of Contents from part 27
"Where's Luthor?" he managed to choke out.
Another voice with a faint accent answered, "In Hell, hopefully." It was the woman, holding a gun with a determined, yet satisfied scowl on her face.
But then she started trembling and let her grip fall slack, the gun clattering to the floor. "I killed him," she whispered. "I killed him."
~~~Part 28~~~ Lois couldn’t quite breathe. She just stared, and she still hadn't gotten up off the floor. None of it seemed real. Oh, it'd seemed all too real while it was happening, but once the last gun had clattered to the floor, she'd gone numb. Been in shock.
It should be raucous right now. Chaotic and noisy. The ambulances. Paramedics. The S.W.A.T. team trooping in and out. Doors opening and slamming shut. A man being led away in handcuffs. People were crying, too. She was probably one of them, but she wasn't sure. Across the room, a man was being loaded onto a stretcher. Something tugged at her memory at the sight of him, but she couldn't grasp at it.
There was another body, too. It was him. The guy... Luthor. Dead and surrounded by a puddle of blood. She felt...
She wasn't sure what she felt. Angry? Relieved? Numb. Everything was so muted, surreal, and she was frozen to the spot as she watched two paramedics heft Clark onto a stretcher. His shoulder had been bandaged; she didn't know when. He'd been shot.
No. *She* had been shot... shot at. And Clark had taken the bullet for her.
The paramedics started wheeling him away, and suddenly everything snapped back into place. The sounds, the smells, the pain all flooded back, rushing in on her senses. They were taking Clark away.
Lois tried to yell for them to wait, but her throat was hoarse and it didn't come out as more than a squeak. She scrambled to her feet and started to rush after them, but something stopped her. A hand on her shoulder. Not forceful, but it was startling and she stopped.
"Ma'am?" a male voice from behind her asked.
She turned to find a tall, lanky man wearing a brown suit. His hand had fallen from her shoulder, but he still looked as if he would stop her if she tried to leave. From the corner of her eye, she watched Clark being wheeled through the doors, getting further away...
"Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms." The man flashed a badge at her and then tucked it back in his coat pocket. "Special Agent in Charge, Henderson. I'm afraid I'm going to need you to answer a few questions."
Everything was moving too quickly around her. Or at least it seemed that way. Clark was outside already, and Henderson had appeared in front of her from... somewhere. Any second, the sirens would start wailing and Clark would be gone. She didn't know what hospital they were taking him to. What if she couldn't find him? What if he wasn't all right and needed... something? Anything.
Lois looked back to Henderson, the agent was staring impatiently at her. She could feel the wet heat of the tears rolling down her cheeks and her heart thundering in her chest. "Please, you don't understand. I can't leave him."
He shook his head. "You're the only witness at the scene, and I need to know exactly what happened."
Only witness? "What about that girl?" Lois whipped around in the direction she'd seen her last. "The one who shot Luth-" She was gone. "Where did she go?"
Before he could answer, the wail of an ambulance cut through the air as the vehicle sped off.
"She *shot* someone, and you let her go with the other guy?" Her voice was trembling with a mix of incredulity and fear, beyond caring what the man thought of her.
Henderson shrugged. "Not my decision. Some rookie cop let her go."
A shout came from the doorway. "Detective! Superman's asking for the woman. He won't let us leave without her."
Henderson grumbled something under his breath and nodded at the paramedic.
Lois breathed a sigh of relief and turned hurry over to the ambulance, but Henderson's harsh voice stopped her again.
"Ma'am! I can question you just as well at the hospital, but I need your name now before you leave."
She hesitated a moment, then took a chance. "Lois Lane." And before he could say anything, she rushed over to the ambulance. One of the medics helped her inside in a hurry and pointed to where she should sit. She flinched when the door clanged shut, and her anxiety slammed back into her.
Lois turned from the door to look at Clark. Two paramedics were hovering over him, one with quick, fluid movements and the other was pressing tightly on Clark's shoulder. There was blood, too. It'd soaked through the bandages. Clark had his eyes squeezed shut, and he was biting his lip.
She stared for what must have been several minutes before the paramedics stilled. They even sat, though the one keeping pressure on Clark's shoulder was still doing so. That had to be good news, right? They wouldn't stop working if there was still danger of him bleeding to death or going into shock or something.
A gentle touch against her hand brought her attention back to Clark. He was looking at her now through heavy-lidded eyes. She took a deep breath, then another and wrapped both her hands around his. He was still conscious, though he looked far worse than he had back in the cell. He grimaced, and she watched him struggle to take a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, Lois." His voice was feeble, but his eyes were imploring... for forgiveness, maybe. But there wasn't anything that needed forgiving. Not anymore.
The squawking of the radio and the paramedics talking faded to the background as she focused on Clark, shaking her head at him. She bit her lip, not saying anything for a moment.
She could feel his regret bleeding through as he spoke again. "I should have d-"
"Done exactly what you did, Clark. There's nothing to apologize for." She gave his hand a squeeze to reassure him.
He smiled at her, though he didn't look to have believed her entirely. But he didn't contradict her, either.
The ambulance made a hard turn, and he winced. "You know, this hurts. A lot more than I imagined it would."
Her heart hurt, and there was a faint echo of a throb in her shoulder. She had to be imagining that, though. "Is there anything I can do?"
In the barest of movements, he smiled and shook his head. "You're already doing it."
Lois bit at her lower lip. She wanted to ask what, just to be sure... but she didn't.
She also wanted to know what happened now. Where did they go from here? How were they supposed to wrap up the case with Luthor dead and no proof that linked him to the invoices they had? Who was the woman? The man who'd been shot? Had they been the ones to call the S.W.A.T. team? What did they know? Who did they work for?
But Clark wouldn't know the answers any better than she would.
And then there were the harder questions. When would Clark recover? Would he have permanent damage? Would his powers still come back?
And the most burning question of them all...
Why had he thrown himself in front of the bullet meant for her?
Lois closed her eyes against the fresh tears, but the sight of Clark bleeding to death in front of her had burned itself in her mind. In a flash, she opened them again and sought out Clark's face. She watched his chest rise and fall. Even though he looked as if he was still in a great deal of pain, seeing him alive was far better than watching the replaying image of blood pouring from his unconscious body.
"Lois?" His voice still sounded weak.
"Yeah, Clark?"
His eyes held a whisper of doubt... and of hurt.
"Why..." He glanced away for a moment, but then looked her in the eye again, as if he was trying to find the courage to say what he wanted to say. He took another shaky breath before continuing. "Why were you going to leave earlier?"
Leave? She furrowed her brow in confusion and opened her mouth to ask why, but he rushed on before she could.
"Back at the hotel room. Before all this mess. If I... did I do something wrong?"
The uncertainty in his voice tugged at her heart strings, and then it registered. He'd thought - still thought - she'd wanted to leave. "No! Oh, Clark." She reached her free hand up to cup his cheek tenderly and shook her head. "It wasn't that at all. I... It hurt too much. I needed some space. It felt like I was suffocating."
His face contorted and he started to look away. "Okay." He didn't understand.
She threw a glance to the paramedics, who were trying to look disinterested while going about their business. It didn't really matter if they heard, but she lowered her voice to a whisper nonetheless. "The connection, Clark." She brought his gaze back to hers. He had to understand. "You, me... we were both too upset and only fueling what the other was feeling. I just... I couldn't think about... everything when I could feel how much it was hurting you."
"So, you weren't..."
"Walking out on you? No." She felt more than watched the tension flood out of him. "I just needed space... to thi-"
Lois whipped her head around to the door as it was thrown open. She hadn't even noticed they'd stopped.
"C'mon, miss."
One of the paramedics was offering her a hand to get down. Reluctantly, she let go of Clark's hand and let the man help her down, then she followed at a brisk pace as they wheeled Clark inside.
***
Clark's right shoulder was throbbing from all the jostling around. They were trying to be gentle, he could tell, but any movement was too much. Hopefully they'd stop soon. And then maybe he'd be able to think clearly. It was hard to focus on anything but the pain at the moment. That, and the feeling of his empty hand since Lois had let go.
She hadn't been walking out on him earlier, though. He'd heard that, and now he held on to that, tried to concentrate on it instead of the stabbing fire in his shoulder. She still cared and she was still by his side.
They were inside and there were more people now. Doctors and nurses. Everyone was talking over his head, talking as they pushed him along.
"Gunshot wound."
"Got a name or is this a John Doe?"
"It's Superman."
"Whoa. Superman? But he looks so slo-"
"His name is Clark Kent." Lois sounded tense, distraught.
"Same thing, lady."
"No, it's not. His name is Clark Kent." The anger in her voice was evident, but why was she insisting? It didn't matter, really. Clark Kent. Superman. SuperClark. Mr. Kent. People always called him what they wanted.
"All right. Clark Kent. Gunshot wound. Right shoulder. He's lost a lot of blo..."
The rest faded away into the background, and he attempted a smile. It was a little thing - her insistence on his name. Maybe it was the sense of a small triumph that he was picking up from Lois, but he felt like he'd won something too.
Now if only he could win the battle against the pain, because it really was killing him.
TBC...
