Scraping gently, the razor slid down the length of his throat, rhythmically. It was intimate, almost uncomfortably so, but Clark shut his eyes and endured it stoically.
It was warm here, almost uncomfortably so. Clark had been moved out of the hospital and into a country mansion, with an open window and ornate ceiling fans rotating sluggishly against the high ceiling.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d been moved to some sort of antebellum manor. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out before they’d transported him.
He swallowed, and the blade at his throat hesitated. He looked up at the all too young face above him, at the woman wearing the classic secret service dress, and it brought back memories of another young face.
She much have seen the shift in his expression, because she looked him in the eye and said “We aren’t all fanatics.”
He was having a hard time believing it. Everything he’d learned about this new world had been negative. He and Lois , whatever had happened to make that young girl hate him that much…the changes just never seemed to stop. It was bewildering.
He struggled for a moment to remember her name before it came to him. Tammy. Not exactly the name he‘d have expected from an agent. “Do you know when Lois is going to come back?”
“She’s in Kyoto, at a conference. She waited as long as she could, but the peace talks couldn’t wait.”
“Is there any chance that I could get a newspaper, or at least a television?”
Tammy shrugged noncommittally.
“I don’t make those decisions. I just work here.”
Clark smiled up at her. In the past, charming women had been easy, though he was sure he looked far from attractive at the moment. “Just a magazine or a book?”
It almost seemed as though they were deliberately avoiding letting him know anything about the world around him.
Part of him didn’t want to know. The rest of him felt compelled, though. He’d felt the same need as a child to stare at an open wound.
The people around him were nice, if ever present. It still felt like nothing more than a prison,
The rhythmic scraping of blade on skin continued.
Clark wondered why they didn’t trust any nurses to do this. Was he that hated?
************
The sounds of the wheelchair rolling against the gravel was as sweet as the sweet breath of wind on his face. Clark closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
He was rarely out of the sun these days, and he wondered for a moment what his doctors knew that he didn’t. Whatever it was, it seemed to be doing him some good. He’d managed to stand up on his own and had made it to the bathroom on his own last night.
He felt optimistic for the first time in a while. He still hadn’t seen Lois, and it had been almost a week now.
The thought that he might not be politically acceptable to visit was an ugly one, but Clark had to reassure himself that the office of president was a very busy one, and it wasn’t something that allowed much time off.
Footsteps behind him. Clark didn’t open his eyes, though he didn’t recognize the sounds. He’d become familiar with Tammy’s footsteps, light and quick, and he knew Lois’s by heart. These were heavier and uneven.
They approached, and Clark slowly opened his eyes. He felt his pulse racing, and his face brightened.
“Jimmy!”
Jimmy was wearing a tailored suit and had a cane and a briefcase, but physically he’d changed a lot less than Clark would have thought.
He still looked like a young man, and smile on his face was warm and genuine. If there was a trace of maturity there that hadn’t been there before, it wasn’t filled with the same sort of quiet pain that he’d become used to seeing.
“You’re a hard man to track down, CK.” Jimmy lowered himself stiffly onto the iron bench beside Clark.
“The press has no idea where you are, and they’re looking. If I didn’t still have a little pull with the President, I never would have gotten in, and I’m not exactly sure where we are.”
“What are you up to these days, Jimmy?” It was difficult to keep a note of melancholia from his voice. He’d lost so many memories, missed on so much. Even though there was obviously a lot of pain during those years, he was sure that there was a lot of good as well.
“War correspondent,” Jimmy said. “I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve been published by pretty much everyone. I’m up for a Kerth this year.”
There was a quiet sense of pride in his voice, a satisfaction and self confidence that had been missing from the boy Clark had known. Clark glanced down at the cane.
Jimmy noticed and grinned. “Well, being a war correspondent can be pretty dangerous…but I got this showing off for a girl. The doc says I’ll be good as new in six weeks.”
Clark grinned back. Not everything had changed.
“Lois told me you’ve lost your memory.”
Clark nodded slowly. “I had a pretty bad head injury. I’ve had some concentration problems too.” He’d had increased irritability as well, though he’d kept that to himself.
Jimmy reached for his briefcase and slid it into his lap. “Well, I’ve got something for you.”
He opened the briefcase and pulled out a book. Clark winced. The last book he’d been presented with had been Trask’s biography.
“You gave me permission to do this before.”
Clark took the book and stared at it. Superman was on the cover, his cape whipping dramatically behind him. The title was “My life with a Hero, by James Olsen.”
“I’ve been trying to get this published for years, but nobody was interested. With the whole Nightfall thing, though, you are suddenly a hot commodity. They’re working on a print run of 500,000 copies right now.”
Clark flipped through the book. In the center, there were pictures. Some were of him and Lois. Some were of Superman. A few were of Jimmy himself. He recognized the occasions. Halfway through, the pictures began to change. These were pictures of things he didn’t recognize.
His hand froze as he came across a picture taken from a helicopter, of smoke over Washington D.C. The title below the picture was simple and to the point. “The invasion.”
“What happened?”
Jimmy coughed uncomfortably. “It turned out that you weren’t the last Kryptonian…and some of them weren’t friendly.”
It explained a great deal.
Clark turned the page and saw a picture of the White House burning. “They did this?”
“After Luthor killed Nor, yeah.”
“Lex Luthor?”
“President Luthor. I guess he’d hated you for a long time, so he was ready when Nor and his men broke in making demands.”
Lex would have had Kryptonite. The thought that he’d somehow become President still stunned Clark. He would have thought the American people would have had better sense.
“So they burned the White House.”
“With the President in it.” Jimmy’s voice was grim, and he reached over and turned the page. Clark winced. He continued. “The secret service got Lois out, but…”
Clark froze as he stared down at a picture of Lex Luthor and Lois standing together at a fund raiser.
She’d married Lex.
***************
It was night again. The days had begun to blur together, and Clark had begun to regain his strength. He could walk now, though he was restricted to certain parts of the house.
The doctors had suggested that exercise might be good for him, and so he’d begun to take walks, accompanied by Tammy and a rotation of other nameless agents.
They weren’t nameless, but he had trouble caring what their names were. He’d begun slipping into a bit of a depression.
The world wasn’t what he’d thought it’d be.
He’d begun reading Jimmy’s book, when he was able to concentrate enough, and that was the one glimmer of hope that he had. Jimmy’s book was uniformly positive and upbeat.
A cynical mind might even call it a propaganda piece.
Clark returned to his room. He’d been moved to the first floor, now that he was mobile and didn’t have to be out in the sun every moment of the day.
He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw the shadowed figure sitting in the chair by his bed. It began pounding as he realized who it was.
Lois.
She was crying.
Quickly, he moved around the bed and dropped to one knee beside her.
She seemed almost oblivious to his presence, but then she slipped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
Minutes passed before she could get control of herself. Finally, she pulled away and spoke.
“I had to send people away to die again today.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant, but instinctively realized that he didn’t have to say anything. He stood up and sat on the bed.
“It doesn’t get any easier…I wonder sometimes if getting into it in the first place was even worth it.”
Clark reached for the lamp beside the bed, but Lois shook her head.
“I don’t want the cameras to see me like this.” Lois reached for a tissue by the side of the bed. “I can’t afford to look weak.”
“It’s not weak to cry.”
“It is when you are President.” Lois stared down at her hands. “If Lex taught me anything, he taught me that.”
It was time. There were too many things that had been unspoken between them. Maybe it would be easier for her to talk under cover of darkness, where she didn’t have to look him in the eye.
“Tell me about Lex,” Clark said.
