The world seemed to pass by in flashes, still images frozen in time. The cold, dark merciless depths of space. The looming mountain, death of the world hurtling toward the earth.
Pain, pain, pain. Suffocation, panic. Struggling for breath.
Fire, burning...something wrong. Nothing had ever burned like this.
The earth flying toward him, instinctively heading for the one person who’d been like home.
A crash, then darkness.
**********
Faces leaned over the crater, staring. Men and women in suits. He could hear their whispers. “It’s him. What do you want us to do?”
Consciousness faded in and out. He felt himself being carried. “Get him inside. It won’t be long.”
It was a long time before he woke.
***********
She stared down at him, the face that had haunted her dreams for years. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Given that his physiology is quite different than that of a normal person, we can’t be a hundred percent sure. It’s fairly clear that he has suffered a head injury. I can’t be clear about a prognosis yet.”
Lois sighed, and slowly sat down by the side of the bed. Everything that had been between them, all the guilt, the recriminations, the anger. None of it meant anything.
The light of the afternoon sun made the room bright and cheery when Lois’s mood was dark.
The rest of the world was celebrating, but she was mourning. She’d lost him years ago, but it felt like she was losing him all over again.
The bitterness of regret was like bile in her throat. She couldn’t change the past, no matter how much she wanted to. She’d made her choices and now she had to live with them.
Not everyone was that lucky.
“Don’t talk to the press,” Lois said quietly. “The last thing he needs when he wakes up is a circus outside the door.”
Her life had been a circus for the past ten years, and his life had been even worse. Much of that was her fault, and she couldn’t help but grimace as the familiar feelings of guilt rose to the surface once again.
There was no point in wondering what her life might have been like had she made different choices. All that existed was now, and she had to make the best of it.
As the doctor left the room, Lois sat down slowly next to the bed.
Her hand found his, and she sat still, a motionless figure lit in the afternoon sun.
************
Waking was painful. Everything was confused, disjointed. Nothing made sense. Then his eyes cleared and he say her above him. She was asleep.
“Lois?” he spoke quietly, and his voice rasped unexpectedly.
She woke, startled, and leaned forward quickly. “Clark! I was starting to think you weren’t ever going to wake up.”
“What happened?” he asked slowly. Where was he? It wasn’t a hospital room. It looked like a private room, and a private bed.
He blinked. Lois looked...older somehow, as though the weight of the world had finally wrung the last bit of innocence away from her. He could almost believe that he was seeing some gray in her hair.
“You don’t remember?” Lois asked. “The doctors said you have a concussion. You’ve been unconscious for a couple of days. I’d better go get him.”
Doctors? Clark felt a moment of panic. His secret!
“I don’t need a doctor,” he said quickly. “I’m fine.”
She was silent for a long moment. “I’m sorry.” she said at last. “I should have said it a long time ago, and I know it’s not nearly enough.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about Lois.” Clark smiled hopefully up at her. “You’ve been the best partner any man could have hoped for.”
He must have been mistaken, but it almost seemed as though she paled for a moment.
************
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked cautiously.
“We were covering the Nightfall asteroid. The scientists were telling us it was going to be a near miss.” Clark frowned slightly. “Why?”
“So you don’t remember anything that’s happened since 1994?”
“This isn’t 1994?” The look of confusion on his face made the dull ache in her chest even worse.
“No it isn’t.” She hesitated.
“The first Nightfall asteroid was ten years ago.”
“First...?”
“We didn’t get so lucky with the second one. Superman had to stop it.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. “Is it going to be ok?”
She nodded. “You...he saved us, Clark. Superman saved the world.”
“Is he ok?”
It startled Lois to hear him speak about Superman in the third person. She’d never had to keep up the pretense, but she didn’t see any other choice now.
“Nobody has heard from him since he stopped the asteroid.”
“Mom...I need to call my parents.”
Lois froze, and she felt frozen and unable to move. A sick feeling in her gut made her wish that she was anywhere else in the world than where she was.
“You must feel tired. You’ve had a long day,” she said at last.
He nodded. She could see that he was already sagging backward onto the bed, his short period of alertness draining his reserves.
She stared down at him for a moment. He didn’t remember anything about the past ten years. For a moment she almost envied him.
He was going to have to relive the pain soon, and she was going to have to be there again, as she hadn’t been the first time.
She slowly rose to her feet and headed for the door. The immensity of the mistake she’d made all those years ago still overwhelmed her at times.
The two men in black suits standing at attention by the door fell in behind her as she entered the hallway. One remained behind to watch over Clark. Lois wondered which one of them had the kryptonite. She would have ordered them to put it away if she could, but on matters of security they didn’t have to obey her.
A third man joined them on their way down the hall.
“What do you want us to do, Madam President?” the third man asked.
“Have the press secretary make a statement applauding Superman and congratulating the country and the world. She can’t say anything about where he’s at; officially he’s still missing. Get me the people at NASA. If there are any smaller fragments of the meteor that are likely to hit populated areas, I want to know about it first. “
She went over the list in her head. It was easier than facing what she was going to have to face.
“I want the FEMA director to have a report ready by 0900 hours. I’ll talk to President Kushkarin after I get everything else taken care of.”
How do you tell the one man that you’ve ever loved that he has every reason in the world to hate you?
“I’ll take care of it right away Mrs. Luthor.”
Nothing was the same as it was.
