Clark watched as the look in Lois’ eyes went from relief to adoration to confusion to…something?
He wasn’t sure what he was seeing in her eyes. But it made his stomach turn.
When he had finally realized where she was, he had raced across the city at top speed, following the sounds of the sirens to the four alarm blaze. By the time he arrived, the whole building was nearly engulfed and firefighters were escorting out the last of the workers who had still been in the building when the fire began. But Lois wasn’t among them.
She was in that building somewhere. He knew it. He could feel her calling for him, and then finally, finally for the first time all day, he heard her heartbeat, fast but strong.
He had been so relieved he had nearly collapsed to the ground. But he knew his window of time to rescue her was limited. He had to find her and get her out before it was too late. He scanned and scanned, going lower and lower, until finally, there she was, tied to a chair, sitting at an executive desk. If it weren’t for the blood running down her forehead or the gag in her mouth, she would have looked like any other young, successful executive.
He dove from the clouds, through a glass door and then down through the burning building in a race against time. He burst through the locked door that held her and freed her from the ropes and gag, checking her quickly for injuries before whisking her out of the building back the way he had come. She was injured. Her head. Her wrist. Her lungs. She was coughing and weak, limp in his arms, and he begged her to stay awake as he ran as fast as he could toward someone who could help her.
He slowed to a more reasonable speed when Henderson spotted them, screaming silently in his head with frustration as each step seemed to take forever.
Finally she was in the capable hands of the EMTs, the oxygen mask filling her lungs with clean air, and he took a breath of his own. Henderson was droning on, asking questions about her time with Luthor. Clark couldn’t begin to process those, because all he could see was the look in her eyes. The look that he knew was her analyzing everything that had just happened and coming to one conclusion.
What he had done? It wasn’t human.
He took a step back, dropping her hand, giving her space. He didn’t want her to be scared of him. He couldn’t bear it if she was disgusted by him. He loved her so much. This wasn’t how he wanted her to find out. He knew she must have so many questions. She must be so confused.
He only hoped she wasn’t also horrified.
The EMTs were sliding her stretcher into the back of the vehicle, and he looked up abruptly. “Better safe than sorry, ma’am,” the male EMT was telling her. “They might want to do a chest x-ray. And you’ll need to have that wrist x-rayed too.”
Her wrist was fine. Swollen and sore, but not broken.
“Clark!” she called, alarmed, and his eyes snapped to hers. He stepped forward, out of the crowd to the back of the ambulance where they were reaching for the doors.
“I’m right here,” he said, his heart in his throat.
“Do you want to ride with us, sir? Or do you want to meet us there? We’re going to Metropolis General.”
He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. Not if she would allow it. “I want to come,” he said. “If that’s okay?”
He directed the question to the EMT, but his eyes were on her. Asking her permission.
She nodded immediately, her eyes full of fear, and he barely waited for the EMT’s confirmation before stepping up into the truck and kneeling beside her.
“I’m right here,” he said again as she reached for him.
“I thought…you left,” she said softly. “I thought…maybe I just dreamt you. And you were never really here.”
“Oh, honey,” he reached out and stroked her hair. “I’m here. I came as soon as I could. I would never leave you. I was…giving them space to take care of you.”
He had also been giving her space. That was the truth, though he didn’t say that to her. But maybe she was so confused, she really didn’t know what had happened. Maybe she thought she had imagined it. Maybe she wasn’t scared of him or angry with him or disgusted by him.
“I should have listened to you,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I should have been more careful.”
“You were careful,” he said, his heart aching at the guilt in her voice. “He’s a monster. It’s not your fault.”
She closed her eyes and squeezed his hand, and he felt an answering squeeze from his heart. He loved her so much. He had been so scared for so long. And now she was safe. He wasn’t going to leave her side unless she made him. He didn’t care how long it took to catch Luthor, he would stay by her side night and day until the threat was neutralized one way or another.
When they arrived at the hospital, it was a blur of faces and words. Nurses and respiratory therapists and doctors and hospital administrators were in and out of her room, one after another, wielding clipboards with consent forms and insurance documents and then switching her from the oxygen mask to a nasal cannula and producing an endless string of needles and blood pressure cuffs and pulse oximeters. He tried to stay out of the way, but still in her line of sight, so she knew he was there.
Finally she was whisked off for x-rays, and he paced the room, his mind whirling. Her breathing had improved significantly in the hours since they had arrived at the hospital. The doctors were no longer talking about keeping her overnight for observation and were willing to release her if her chest x-rays came back clear. It would still be a few hours, but there was a good chance she would sleep in her own bed tonight.
He could see how desperately she wanted out of the hospital. He knew she longed for the safety and privacy of her apartment. And he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, so he could hold her in his arms and feel for himself that she was whole and unharmed.
But his stomach turned at the thought of the conversation that was surely coming once they were alone. She hadn’t mentioned their escape from the building once since telling him she thought she might have dreamt him.
But that look in her eyes in the ambulance…. She might be confused now, trying to explain away what she saw and felt as a hallucination or dream. But for a moment, she had known. He saw it in her eyes. And it terrified him.
Less than a week ago, he had been so sure he was ready to tell her. He had believed their love was strong enough to weather the revelation. But now…. Now he knew how it felt to lose her, to believe that she was gone and realize he was going to face a lifetime without her.
This week had been the best week of his life. Hearing her confess to loving him. Seeing the look in her eyes when he touched her. Waking in bed beside her. It was better than any dream he had ever had about his future. It was more than he could ever have anticipated. And he wasn’t ready to give that up.
He wanted more. He wanted that future they had whispered about while they laid in bed Saturday night. He wanted a lifetime of kissing her, loving her, and falling asleep with her in his arms. He wanted a lifetime of renting crappy movies, and of eating meals he cooked while she watched. He wanted a lifetime of reading books on the couch and running in the park and planning holidays with his family. He’d had a taste of life with her, and now the thought of going back to a life without her was unbearable.
Now that he had her back – now that she was safe and on her way to being cleared to go home – he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her to this revelation. Any chance that it would be too much for her, and would lead to her walking away, was too much. He couldn’t roll the dice for his future. He hated lying to her. He wanted her to know. But he couldn’t bear the risk of telling her and losing her.
She was the most brilliant person he had ever met, and the most tenacious. He knew that it was only a matter of time before she uncovered his secret. But he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to take that risk. He couldn’t lose her. He had to find a way to make sure she loved him enough before she knew that she wouldn’t leave him. Except, maybe that would be even worse. Maybe he had already waited too long.
He was trapped. He had either waited too long or not long enough. She was either going to hate him for making her fall in love with him under false pretenses, or she would realize she didn’t love him after all, not this full version of him.
There was a knock at the door, and his head whipped up just in time to see the door open a crack and Perry stick his head in.
“She’s getting x-rays,” he managed to croak out.
Perry opened the door the rest of the way and stepped in. “How’s she doing?”
“Okay. Her breathing is a lot better. If the x-rays are clear, they’re going to release her.”
“How’s her head? That was a lot of blood.”
“Just a small gash at the hairline,” he said. “No signs of concussion. It didn’t look too bad once they got it cleaned up. No stitches, just a bandage.”
“Good. Good,” Perry said. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” he asked, confused by the question.
Perry chuckled softly. “Yes, you. You were also in a burning building. Did they check you out?”
He shrugged. “I’m fine. I was only in the building for a couple minutes…. I… I’m not the one who was hurt. I don’t need to be examined.”
Perry raised an eyebrow and nodded skeptically. The silence stretched between them, and Clark squirmed, unsure what the older man wanted from him.
“How are you doing about the other thing?” he asked finally, his voice gentle and soft.
Clark’s mouth went dry. His stomach roiled. Did he know? Had he figured it out? “The other thing?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“I don’t even want to know how fast you drove to the airport,” Perry said gently. “You made it halfway across the country in record time. You ran into a burning building.”
“I should never have gone home,” he said, his voice agonized. “If I’d stayed, she wouldn’t have even been in that burning building.”
Perry shook his head. “Don’t do that. You can’t know that. He might have just found another way. Besides, Lois would never have let you stay and bodyguard her. It’s frankly pretty amazing that she consented to as much protection as she did. One time she threw a hotel key in my face and told me she wasn’t going to let some two-bit clown run her out of her apartment.”
Clark laughed, picturing it. She was a force of nature.
“You risked your life to save her,” Perry said, serious again. “Running into that building like that.”
Clark paused, searching for a way to downplay his heroics. Finally, he settled on the truth. “If I lost her…my life would be over. It wasn’t a risk.”
Perry was quick to cover the surprised look that immediately flitted across his face. He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the door swinging open. The nurse, a kind but exhausting woman in her forties who talked incessantly about her children, pushed Lois through the doorway and into the room. She looked so vulnerable in the wheelchair, wearing two hospital gowns – one forward and one backward in an attempt at modesty – and a large bandage over her left eye.
“Well, looks like you’ve got another visitor,” the nurse said cheerfully.
“Hey, darlin’,” Perry said gently. “How are you doing?”
“I’ll be better once I get out of here,” Lois said tersely, shooting Clark a look and then glancing meaningfully at the nurse out of the corner of her eye. “My head is throbbing. I could use some peace and quiet.”
Clark smiled, encouraged by her snarkiness. “You sound like you’re feeling more like yourself,” he teased. “You want some help getting back in bed?”
“No,” she said immediately. “And I don’t need this wheelchair either. There’s nothing wrong with my legs. I’m perfectly capable of walking.”
He noticed she was cradling her wrist against her stomach and knew it was probably sore from being stretched and twisted for the imaging.
“Can we get an ice pack for her wrist,” Clark asked the nurse, flashing her a smile.
“Sure! I’ll be right back!” she said, parking the wheelchair and heading for the hallway.
“No rush,” Lois muttered as the door swung shut behind her.
“Lois,” he chided gently.
“That woman did not take a single breath the whole time we were gone,” she said, coughing twice and then wincing and rubbing her forehead.
Clark shook his head and reached for her. “Come here, you can sit on the loveseat,” he said, gesturing to the hospital-issue loveseat under the window.
She stood, but came to him rather than walk straight to the loveseat, and he hugged her for a minute while she rested her head against his chest, her good arm around his waist. “My head really does hurt,” she said softly, her voice contrite.
“I know, honey,” he said, stroking her hair. “That’s the drugs working their way out of your system. And the smoke. Do you want me to see if we can get them to give you something stronger than the ibuprofen?”
She shook her head against his chest. “I just want to go home.”
“I know, sweetheart. Soon, I promise.”
Perry cleared his throat. “Well, I just wanted to check on-”
“Don’t go,” she said, lifting her head. “I want to hear what we missed. The TV in this room doesn’t get any news channels.”
She squeezed Clark’s waist in a one-armed hug and then stepped away, walking to the loveseat and sitting. Clark gestured for Perry to sit as well, content to lean against the hospital bed. But Perry slid out the doctor’s stool from under the computer desk and sat there instead.
Lois reached an arm in his direction, and he was more than happy to join her on the small, uncomfortable couch. He rested his arm along the top of the wooden backrest, and she curled into him immediately. He let his arm slide to her shoulders, and his thumb began to stroke her arm automatically. He felt her sigh, some of the tension leaving her body, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head for just a second before straightening and looking to Perry for an update.
“No fatalities,” Perry said. “That’s a credit to the quick response time of the fire department because there were dozens of people still in the building. The fire is mostly out, but there are still some hot spots and it’s too unstable for investigators to get in there yet. No sign of Luthor. The Churches have been arrested on…other charges.”
Lois made a displeased noise, and he was unsure if it was about Luthor still being free or about the fact that she wasn’t the one to bring down Intergang.
He filled them in on a few more details about the fire and the search for Luthor – half the police force of the city was in the sewer tunnels, apparently. They had found the room where he had been holding Lois, but he wasn’t there, and there was no evidence to suggest he had been there for more than a few hours. They didn’t believe that was where he had been spending his days and nights since the escape.
Perry stayed for a few more minutes, keeping them company and chatting with Lois, who seemed to appreciate having a visitor to take her mind off things.
Even after Perry left, clearly itching to get back to the newsroom, Clark was quiet. His mind kept wandering back to the details of their escape from the burning building, wondering just exactly how much she saw and understood.
Lois coughed softly and cleared her throat, then laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, and he cuddled her closer. “Just rest for a while,” he whispered, rubbing her arm gently.
He could feel his anxiety building as he contemplated the confrontation that surely must be coming. The fact that she was waiting until they were alone seemed to bode well. But then he wondered again if she was just in shock, if she hadn’t allowed herself to think about it too closely. It was entirely possible that she was too stressed and tired and foggy to think clearly tonight and this would be the last time he would hold her like this. His arm tightened around her shoulders automatically, and he felt his heart race.
There was a knock at the door, and he looked up, expecting the nurse with her ice pack. Instead, Henderson stood there, a uniformed cop beside him.
After a quick round of greetings, he turned to Lois. “Sorry to do this to you, Lane. But we really need your statement. Yours too, Kent.”
Clark’s stomach dropped and his mouth went dry.
“Mine?” he said, trying to make his voice sound normal.
“Yeah,” Henderson said, giving him a funny look. “You were at an active crime scene. You pulled her out of the building. We’re going to need your account of how you found her; how you got her out.”
“It was all…kind of a blur,” he said. He saw Henderson exchange a look with the other officer, and he hoped they thought he was in shock or traumatized by the event rather than intentionally trying to hide something.
“That’s fine,” Henderson said. “Just tell us what you remember.”
He nodded, his mind racing. He should have anticipated this. Why hadn’t he anticipated this?
“There’s a family room down the hall we can use,” the man in uniform said, directing his statement to Clark.
“Why don’t you go with Jenkins,” Henderson said to Clark. “I’ll interview Lois here.”
Clark couldn’t bring himself to respond. He was frozen with terror. He had no idea what Lois was going to tell the detective.
This was it. This was the moment his father had spent twenty years warning him about. They were going to know. They were going to put him in a lab and dissect him like a frog. They were going to arrest his parents for harboring him for all these years.
His fight or flight response had kicked in, and it took every ounce of restraint not to take off running. He was unnaturally still, stiff as a board. He had forgotten how to breathe.
“Sure,” he heard Lois say as she uncurled slowly beside him. “That’s fine. I’m going to have Clark help me get into bed before he leaves. Can we have a minute? This hospital gown is…” She let her sentence trail off and then shrugged.
Henderson looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah. We’ll just wait in the hall. When Kent comes out, I’ll come back in, and we can get started.”
Henderson hustled the other officer out of the room, and Clark tried to pull himself out of his stupor. “Do you need help-“
“Look at me,” she hissed. His eyes snapped to her face.
“I wasn’t gagged,” she whispered. “I was screaming. That’s how you found me. You followed my cries. The door was unlocked. The flames hadn’t reached the room I was in. You untied the ropes that bound me, and we ran. The stairwell was full of smoke, but no flames. Upstairs, there was smoke and flames but we made it through to the glass door. The floor didn’t collapse until after we were out. When we got outside, I fell, and that’s when you carried me.”
He stared at her unseeing. Unable to process what she was saying. Not just the words but the fact that she was saying them. She was crafting a cover story for him, making sure their statements matched. She knew. And she was protecting him.
“Clark!” she hissed. “You have to snap out of it. Right now.”
He nodded, trying to make sense of this.
“Repeat it back to me,” she demanded.
“I…I heard you screaming. I followed the cries. The fire hadn’t made it that far. It was smoky but no flames. I untied you and we ran up the stairs. Upstairs there were flames, but we were able to make it to the door. After we got out, we saw the floor collapse and you stumbled, so I picked you up and ran.”
“Good,” she said. “Don’t get creative. Don’t add a bunch of details. Tell them it’s all a blur. That’s plenty.”
He nodded again, numb.
She stood and walked to the bed, lifting the cover and sliding in. “Go, Clark.”
“Lois,” he said, his voice tight with fear, desperate to apologize, to explain.
“Go!” she whispered. “Before they start to wonder what’s taking so long.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then he nodded, and strode across the room, opening the door to the hallway and the waiting police officers.
*****
The interview with the police officer was easier than anticipated. Lois had been right that the information he gave the officer had been plenty.
He had fielded a few questions about how he came to be at the scene of the fire – explaining briefly that he had taken the first flight from Kansas when he heard she was missing and had gone straight to the newsroom upon his arrival, only to hear about the fire at the CostMart headquarters. Because he was familiar with her investigation, he knew immediately Luthor had set that fire, and he could only assume there was a good chance she was there.
And then he had parroted the story Lois had fed him.
The officer wrote down everything he said, nodding perfunctorily. There was no cross examination, no trick questions. This was just a formality, he realized. Lois’ rescue was not the focus of their investigation. They were far more interested in questions he couldn’t answer — how she got into the building and where Luthor had gone after depositing her there – than the details of how he got her out.
Once he was finished, he paced the hall outside her door, listening to the conversation inside while the officer flirted with a redhead in scrubs at the nurses’ station down the hall. Lois was spinning the same tale for Henderson, emphasizing her efforts to free herself from the ropes while screaming for help once she awoke in the smoky room.
When she spoke with relief of the door swinging open, he panicked for a second, remembering the splintering of the wood when he had thrown himself through the door at nearly full speed. Surely, he thought, there would be evidence to contradict this story. Then he remembered the fear in her eyes as she watched the flames devour the door, blocking their exit. There would be no evidence of anything left in that room. There would be nothing left in that room.
He tried not to think about what this meant. She knew. He wasn’t sure how much she knew, but obviously a lot. She knew he found her over the roar of the flames despite the gag that had kept her from being able to scream. She knew he carried her through the flames and they both came out unscathed. She knew that the floor did not collapse after they were already through – that there had been no smoky stairwell or dramatic run. She knew he had flown her to safety.
He crossed his arms and shoved his hands under his armpits, trying to stop their shaking. He was nauseous and lightheaded, unable to think straight. She knew everything. Or at least almost everything. He had to tell her the rest. As soon as they left here, he would have to tell her exactly what he had done…and how. He was going to have to tell her all the secrets he had never said out loud in his entire life.
Finally Henderson emerged, giving him a quick once over. Clark realized he must look like he was about to have a full mental breakdown, and tried to smile reassuringly, but Henderson’s reaction told him that did more harm than good.
“Has anyone checked you out?” Henderson asked. “You look terrible. Are you having trouble breathing?”
Clark shook his head. “I’m fine. Really. I just…It’s better when I can see her.”
Henderson gave him a pitying look. “She’s going to be okay. She’s already bossing me around and demanding exclusives. You take care of yourself too. Get that nurse to check your blood pressure and oxygen levels.”
Clark nodded, happy to agree to anything to make Henderson go away so he could see Lois. He knew, logically, the fact that she had just lied to the police for him meant that she didn’t hate him, wasn’t terrified of him, wouldn’t write a story that would ruin his life. But that didn’t mean she still loved him. Even if she was willing to spare his life, that didn’t mean she wanted to share his life.
Henderson retrieved Officer Jenkins from the nurses’ station, and they took off. Clark took a deep breath and opened the door.
Lois was propped up in her bed, her left arm resting on a stack of pillows under an ice pack. She looked up when he entered, holding his gaze, her face expressionless. He hovered in the doorway, waiting for some indication that he was welcome to enter. He was holding his breath again, he realized, too scared to remember how to inhale and exhale properly.
“Can you turn off the overhead light?” she asked quietly. “It’s hurting my head.”
He reached out immediately and flipped the switch. The room was plunged into a peaceful twilight, the only light coming from the hallway behind him and the window on the other side of the room where the city skyline stretched out before them. It was a beautiful view, he realized, noticing it for the first time.
His eyes went back to her face. She was watching him, her expression gentle, her eyes concerned.
“Come sit,” she said, tilting her head toward the chair beside her bed where Henderson must have been seated to take her statement.
He stepped inside and shut the door gently behind him, careful not to let it slam. He crossed the room quickly, walking around her bed and perching on the edge of the chair.
“Lois,” he said, his voice shaking.
She flipped over her right hand in an invitation so familiar his body reacted before his mind had a chance to second guess. He threaded his fingers through hers and bent his head to kiss her hand, overwhelmed by his love for her.
He raised his gaze to hers and took an unsteady breath, his hands trembling again. He knew he should say something, but he had no idea what.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
He let out a soft cry, a whimper of relief, and dropped his head forward to her lap, resting his forehead on her thigh. Then slowly, she slid her hand from his and began to stroke his hair.
He took a deep shuddering breath, trying to hold back the tears. She said nothing, just continued to soothe him with her touch, running her fingers through his hair, caressing his neck with her fingertips, tracing the back of her fingers along the line of his jaw. He laid there, eyes closed, soaking in her touch. He shut out all the background sounds of the hospital – the footsteps, and voices, and beeping machines – and focused only on her heartbeat. He took another deep breath, steadier this time, and felt his breathing find a steady rhythm.
Each minute began to blur into the next, until he had no idea how long they stayed like that. When they were finally interrupted, by a doctor with the results of her x-rays, he had to blink repeatedly until his eyes acclimated to the sudden bright lights and his mind remembered where they were. As he came back to himself, she slipped her hand back into his, so that by the time he remembered to worry, he could feel her hand in his, her thumb tracing gentle patterns on the palm of his hand.
The results were good. Her lungs were clear. Her blood tests were normal. Her wrist was only sprained. The doctor wrapped her arm in a removable splint and helped her adjust the sling to keep it immobilized while it healed. Then he wrote her a prescription for ibuprofen and an inhaler and told her to take it easy and come back in if she had any difficulty breathing or chest pains or nausea.
And then they waited endlessly for the paperwork that would set her free. They spoke only the bare minimum while they waited, discussing logistics like changing back into her clothes and picking up her prescription from the hospital pharmacy and whether they needed to call a cab or if there would be taxis waiting outside.
Once the last of the forms were signed and the nurse had given them supplies and instructions to rebandage her head wound and the prescriptions were picked up and they were in a cab on the way home, his anxiety began to mount.
The moment of truth was coming. She said nothing on the ride home, except to give the driver her address, but she sat beside him with her hand on his thigh and her head on his shoulder, and he tried not to think about the last time they were in a cab like this together, on the way home from her birthday dinner. That felt like a lifetime ago. He could hardly believe it had been only three days.
He watched the city go by out the window and took a shaky breath.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly.
He let out a tiny, helpless laugh and then swallowed back his tears. “How much I love you,” he whispered. It was true. It was always true.
“Clark,” she whispered, and he could hear the tears near the surface of her voice as well.
“And how much has changed in three days,” he said sadly. “Everything has changed.”
“Not everything,” she said immediately, her voice pained. He turned to look at her, fear and hope battling inside him. She shook her head and reached up to stroke his cheek. “Not everything.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her the rest of the way home, desperately hoping the most important thing hadn’t changed. As long as she still loved him, he could figure out the rest.
