Sick Day
By MetroRhodes metrorhodes@sbcglobal.net
Rated: PG
Submitted: January, 2007
I have no excuse for this except that I was feeling sorry for Sue S. She is so sick and no Clark handy to bring her his pillow. Sue, forgive me, but this came to me in a fit of insanity and I just had to write it. Please don’t call the nurses on me. I’ll be good. I promise to behave...
Oh, and I promise this is a LNC fic. It just takes a little bit to get it going, that’s all. Not sure how many parts yet, but there will be at least a couple more.
And last, but not least, this is unbeta’d. Any and all mistakes are mine... Sue is my beta and I couldn’t exactly ask her to beta this story for me, now could I?
Disclaimer – this is a work of fiction – do not hold Sue to any of the characterizations I make or actions I write her doing in this fic <wink> Sue this was just a little something to cheer you up – I hope you feel better soon.
<DJ - who posts this fic with a shaky hand - hoping Sue doesn't come after her and kill her... but, oh well, if she does, Sue knows enough of '50 First' that she can finish writing it on her own... The least she could do is write DJ a nice obit though...>
**********
Sue pulled another Kleenex out of the box beside her bed. She lifted it to her nose and made a face. It really didn’t matter how soft they claimed these tissues to be, or whether or not they had aloe, lotion, or some other moisturizer in them, by the time you blew your nose for the fiftieth time, it still hurt. It might as well have been sandpaper.
She bit down on her lip and blew a short, hard blow.
What was even worse was the fact that as stuffy as her nose was, the blowing didn’t do much good. She tossed the used sandpaper at the trashcan she had next to her bed. It hit the rim and threatened to lean the wrong way.
“Don’t you do it,” she threatened. The Kleenex apparently decided it didn’t want to mess with her, not with the mood she was in today, and it obediently fell into the can.
Sue looked down at the laptop on her lap. She had work she was supposed to be doing. After all, she had told her boss that she was going to work from home today. But she just couldn’t seem to get motivated to do it. Who wants to work when they’re sick? Who wants to do *anything* when they’re sick? She couldn’t even come up with the energy to work on her latest work of fanfic – even with all the good feedback she had read on the boards earlier that morning.
Personally, she’d just as soon stick in a good B-movie with Dean Cain in it, curl up with a bottle of Nyquil, and call it a day.
But only one of his steamier movies. What movie was it she had watched the other evening? It had been very forgettable, plot-wise – but, oh, that love scene. That five minutes had totally made up for the rest of the otherwise pathetic waste of the man’s talents.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the better her idea sounded. Work was overrated. It would still be there for her to do later... Where had she put that bottle of Nyquil anyway?
After scanning the room and feeling around the bed for the fugitive bottle, she saw the plastic cap peeking out from underneath the covers.
Ah, yes, she had gotten up in the middle of the night last night to take a dose and had brought it to bed with her. She reached over and fished the bottle out. Now to find that movie.
After a few minutes of sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to get the room to quit spinning and her head to quit throbbing, she managed to stand up and walk a few feet towards her bedroom door.
Where had she left that movie? She started to go downstairs. No, no she wouldn’t have left it down there. Not where her son could find it. How embarrassing would that be? No. It had to be in her bedroom. That would have been the only TV she would have watched it on.
She walked back into her room and began to hunt for it. But to her disappointment, she couldn’t find it. She instead found her season four DVD’s for ‘Lois and Clark’.
Sue made a face.
She wasn’t in the mood for season four. Sure, there was a lot of kissing and touching – oooh, and there was that ‘thigh’ scene from ‘Sex, Lies, and Video’ – but there just wasn’t enough conflict in season four for her taste. It just wasn’t believable.
And it was probably better if she didn’t watch season four while she was working on her latest fic. She needed inspiration not frustration – and season four only made her frustrated.
A glint caught her attention and she looked over at her TV to see a DVD sitting next to it, upside down. She picked it up and turned it over, hoping it was that *other* movie she had been looking for. It wasn’t. It was a season one DVD of ‘Lois and Clark’. Hmmm. Season one. Well, it wasn’t what she was hoping for, but it would do. That other movie probably wouldn’t have helped her get to sleep anyway...
She looked at the label on the disk again. Disk Four. Had this disk really been sitting here that long? The last time she remembered watching this disk was to do research on ‘All Shook Up’ for that last epic monstrosity she had written.
She shrugged and the movement made her feel a little dizzy. Time to get back in bed. She inserted the disk into her DVD player and crawled back in bed. As the ‘Federal Warning’ flashed across the screen, Sue took a big gulp of the cherry Nyquil she was still holding and wriggled down under her covers.
She chose the ‘play’ option, which would begin with the first episode on the disk and play through all the episodes in order. Sue had barely made it through the credits on ‘Honeymoon in Metropolis’ when she fell asleep.
**********
The sound of a doorbell awoke Sue with a start. She glanced over at her alarm clock – 10:50 a.m. She wasn’t expecting anyone, who could possibly be here at this time of day, on a workday no less?
She frowned. A salesman. Probably wanted to show her the latest vacuum cleaner he had. Or girl scouts – wait, no, it wasn’t the right time of year for that.
Sue slowly climbed out of bed as she heard the doorbell for the second time. “I’m coming,” she yelled in disgust, continuing to mutter something about never getting any peace and quiet. If her luck held true, it was probably her boss coming by to bring her more work to catch up on.
When she got to her door, she peered out through the peephole. Funny. There was no one there. Had they already left? She was about to turn around and go back to her room when she heard the sound of a large truck driving off down her street. It sounded very much like the rumble of a UPS truck.
She opened her door and stuck her head out. Sure enough, there on her porch was a UPS package. Not a large box, just one of those little plastic sack thingys.
She wasn’t expecting any packages. Late holiday gift, perhaps? She picked it up and checked the name on the address label. It was addressed to her.
Realizing that it probably wasn’t good for her health to be standing with the door wide open on this cold morning - with nothing but her thin pajamas as a wind breaker - she shut the door and made her way to the kitchen to get a pair of scissors.
The exertion of moving around like this was about to get the better of her, but the need to satisfy her curiosity was even greater. There was no return address on the package. Who could it be from?
She grabbed a large pair of scissors out of her kitchen drawer and when she swayed unsteadily on her feet she decided maybe she should open the package in bed.
After climbing back into bed, she held the package out in front of her and shook it a little. It made a muted clunking noise. She felt of the contents through the package. It felt like a small box. Well there was no reason to sit here and try to guess what was inside. She slit the plastic with the scissors and reached in to pull the box out. A card was taped to it.
Never being one to read the card first, Sue opened the box on one end and turned it upside down in her hand. After a few shakes, a metal box slid out. There were no marks or insignias on it, no identification of any kind. She pulled the metal lid off and the item that greeted her inside surprised her.
It was a pen. One of those fancy, shiny, gold-accented, black ballpoint pens – the twist kind. She hefted it in her hand. It felt pretty heavy, which probably meant it was a good one.
Definitely a belated holiday gift. But from whom?
She slid a finger under the envelope flap of the card that had been attached. She pulled out the card and read it.
“To a good friend: May your writing never cease - may your joy always increase. If your heart is wanting and it lacks desire, if you find your circumstances are quite dire – you’re but a pen-stroke from igniting a fire.”
That was it. No name. Nothing else.
How bizarre! Sue glanced over at her Nyquil bottle. Maybe it would make more sense to her if she read it while she wasn’t ‘under the influence’.
She wondered if the pen was any good. Her last favorite pen had found its way into a new owner’s grasp. She still wondered whatever could have happened to it. Maybe this pen would become her new favorite.
If it was any good, that is.
She grabbed her notepad from where it lay beside her laptop on her bed. She put the pen to the page and drew a few doodles. It wrote like liquid silk. This was definitely going to be her new fic-writing pen.
Just then, a ding sounded from her laptop. That would be her e-mail notifier. Someone was online. She lifted the lid and glanced at the screen. It was DJ. DJ was checking on her to see if she was feeling any better.
‘Not much,’ she typed. ‘Wish I wasn’t sick. Ugh! This blows – in more ways than one.’ Sue inserted a frowny face after the sentence.
‘Poor Sue. <hugs> You know what I wish? I wish I hadn’t had to go back to work,’ DJ typed back. ‘No. You know what I really wish? I wish I could write fanfic for a living.’
‘Heh – me too.’
‘Now, come on, Sue. Be honest. What do you really wish?’
Sue had picked up her pen again and was looking at it while she had been waiting for DJ’s response. Sue put her pen to her notebook and wrote a quick sentence. Then she typed the sentence into the chat window.
‘I wish I really did have Clark Kent in my closet – snort.’
‘ROTFL. Me too – but then hubby might get jealous <wink> Okay, Sue, well I’ll leave you alone so you can get some rest. Feel better, okay?’
‘Thanks. I’ll get your beta back to you soon. Promise. Just as soon as I feel up to working on it. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
Sue looked back down at the sentence she had written with her pen. Clark Kent in her closet - now there was a happy thought.
With that pleasant daydream in her mind, she drifted back to sleep.
**********
Bam! Bam, bam, BAM!!!
Sue turned over in bed, putting a pillow over her head. “Go away and come back tomorrow,” she muttered.
“HELP!” a voice shouted. A male voice.
BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM!!!
“Please! Anybody out there?”
Sue sat up in bed. ‘Out there’? Out where? Where was that voice/sound coming from?
She drug herself out of bed, once again, and listened for the pounding.
BAM! BAM!
It sounded like it was coming from the hallway. There was someone in her hallway, hollering for help? How absurd! How much of that Nyquil had she drunk anyway?
She was about to turn around when she heard the voice again. “Help!” Bam, bam! The voice sounded vaguely familiar.
Now she was a little alarmed. She might be drugged up on Nyquil but she was awake enough to know the difference between a dream and reality.
“Who’s there?” she yelled, stepping out into the hallway but staying close enough to her bedroom door that she could beat a hasty retreat. “Where are you?”
“Clark. My name’s Clark and I’m not sure where I am. I seem to be locked inside a small compartment – maybe a closet? Can you get me out?”
<I wish I had Clark Kent in my closet...>
Sue began to laugh. A laugh that all to quickly turned in to a rasping cough. Dang that cold. “Oh, oh that’s good. That’s funny. Okay, joke’s over, come out.”
“Miss, this is no joke. Please, can you get me out of here?”
Sue turned around and ran back into her bedroom. Oh god. There was a strange man in her closet! What if he was a burglar or a rapist... a serial killer?
One thing was for sure – he certainly wasn’t Clark Kent.
She looked around her bedroom. Weapon... weapon... she needed something she could use as a weapon. After all, she couldn’t leave whoever it was in her hall closet.
Her eyes fell on the pair of scissors she had used to open her package. Weapon located. As she started to head back towards the hallway, the phone in her bedroom caught her attention. The police. She should definitely call the police.
She picked up the receiver and started to dial 911, but she hesitated. What was she going to tell them? That somehow someone had broken into her house and had somehow gotten locked up inside her hallway closet? How absurd did that sound? Wait a minute – was she really concerned about that when she could potentially have a criminal inside her house?
Yes. Yes, she was.
She put the receiver back down and walked cautiously back into the hallway. “Are you still there?” She almost smacked herself in the forehead. What a dumb question.
“Yeah, still here. Can you help me?”
“Listen, I have no idea who you are, or how you got into my hall closet, but I’m going to call the police if you try anything funny...”
“No, please don’t. Here, hang on.”
Sue could here a few muffled sounds and some banging around, it sounded like he was moving around inside the closet. She raised the pair of scissors up over her head in an attack position, just in case.
When the sounds stopped, she saw something being slid underneath the door of the closet. It looked like some sort of plastic card.
“What’s that?”
“My driver’s license. Please, just look at it. I’m not armed and I’m not dangerous. I swear. I just seem to be trapped in here and can’t get out. If you’ll let me out, I can try to explain.”
Sue walked a little closer to the closet. “It’s not locked, why can’t you get out yourself?”
“My hands are tied.”
“Then how did you get your driver’s license out?”
“They’re tied behind my back. I was able to reach into my pocket and get my billfold, then I dropped the license to the floor and kicked it under the door...” Sue wasn’t sure but she thought she heard a frustrated sigh. “Look, are you going to help me or not?”
She finished her careful approach to the closet door and bent down to pick up the driver’s license – except it wasn’t a driver’s license, it was a credit card.
“You dropped the wrong thing.”
“Huh?”
“You dropped a credit card.” She examined the card more closely and felt her jaw drop when she read the name on it - ‘Clark Kent’. No, no that wasn’t possible. Someone was playing a joke on her.
But who? None of her family or her friends – at least the ones living close by – knew that she teased about having Clark locked up in her closet.
She had a feeling she was going to regret this but, raising her scissors once more, she put a firm hand on the doorknob. On the count of three, she told herself.
One... two...
She turned the handle and jerked the door open.
When her captive turned his face to look at her, blinking at the sudden onslaught of light, Sue passed out.
**********
(To Be Continued... <g>)
