This is the third story in The Longest Road trilogy. It picks up right where "The Roads They Walked Alone" left off, so you will have to read that story in order for this one to make any sense. The TOC for that story can be found here:
The Roads They Walked Alone TOC The story is rated PG 13 for some violence and adult themes. Thanks for taking the time to read. I hope you enjoy this story.
Rac
The Longest Road: The Long Road Home
"I am young and strong and I think I am brave, and I have also learned since yesterday what force of will means. Alas! Mother, there are those who have suffered so much and yet have not succumbed to their sufferings, but instead have built up a new fortune on the ruins of their former happiness. I have learned this, Mother, and I have seen such men; I know that they have risen with such vigor and glory from the abyss into which their enemies had cast them that they have overthrown their former conquerors."
- Albert de Morcerf, The Count of Monte Cristo
The Longest Road: The Long Road Home
"This is the Comm. Chief," Lok Sim said tersely as he positioned his earpiece. "I need a situation report on the evacuation of the school shelter in North Housing Compound Four." He waited for what seemed like an eternity.
<<Sir, that shelter was successfully evacuated by Captain Enza>> came the response from Engineering.
"Thank the fates," Lok Sim breathed. "Can you put me through to her?"
<<Negative, sir. Captain Enza didn't evacuate with them. We've lost contact with her.>>
"What?" he bellowed, his sudden calm having dissipated in an instant.
<<Captain Enza had the children evacuate through the security corridor running south along the transport line. She stayed behind in the transit engineer's office.>>
"Why? What happened?" he demanded as he ran toward the security corridor.
<<They were pinned down by rebels outside the office; she stayed to seal up the corridor behind the children.>>
"Can you get me a visual?"
<<Most of the monitoring equipment was destroyed. All I can see is that the entrance to the engineer's office has been completely blocked off, it's impassable.>>
"What about the door from the security corridor? How can I open it?" Lok Sim asked.
<<You can't, sir, it's locked down.>>
Lok Sim paced anxiously outside the opposite end of the security corridor. "Find a way," he said tersely as he disarmed the door and ran inside. The ceiling clearance was low; it wasn't so bad that he had to duck, but he could lay his hand flat against the paneling over his head. He couldn't see anything in front of him in the darkened hallway. The only sound was the echoing of his heavy footsteps. He reached the end of the passageway and futilely tried the door. As the other engineer had assured him, it wouldn't budge. He rushed the door, slamming into it with his uninjured shoulder several times. His only reward for his efforts was a good deal of pain. Frantically, he searched the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor for anything that could help him open the door. He reached for his flashlight.
Idiot! He chastised himself silently as his hand closed around the explosive charges on his belt. "Can I blast it open?" he asked the disembodied voice as he pulled off the charges and strung them around the door.
<<No sir, that door is blast proof.>>
He had to try anyway. He finished stringing the charges and ran back a safe distance with the detonator. Bracing himself and keeping his head down, he hit the detonator. The sound and concussive force of the blast washed over him, nearly knocking him down, but he ran toward the door anyway. The damn thing was still intact. He examined it closely with his flashlight. He hadn't even managed to crack it and he was out of charges. Lok Sim turned his flashlight on the walls again, the sound of the blast still ringing in his ears, looking for a doorway or tunnel that might lead him to that office. Halfway down the corridor, he stopped as the beam swept over the ceiling. "There's a vent overhead, is that standard sized?" he asked.
<<Yes sir,>> the voice replied.
"Good," Lok Sim said tersely as he grabbed onto the vent cover with both hands and ripped it from the ceiling. He grabbed onto both sides of the opening and hoisted himself into the vent, oblivious to the pain in his back from the rifle wound that was tearing itself open wider with every movement. Crawling forward on his stomach, he kept going until he reached the venting panel directly over the office. He ignored the way the metal dug into his fingers as he gripped the panel and ripped it off.
He peered down into the room and saw chaos looking back up at him. The office had been destroyed, torn apart by an explosion and who knew what else. And it was hauntingly quiet. "Enza!" he called out, his voice cracking. He was met by silence. Lok Sim rushed to lower himself into the room.
The sight in front of him nearly dropped him to his knees. He grabbed his stomach to keep from doubling over in pain. "Get me a medical evacuation, now!" he yelled into his communicator.
If he hadn't glimpsed her arm, bloodied and motionless and partially covered by the rubble, he might not have seen her. He rushed to remove the twisted, heavy debris from where it was pinning her to the ground. It took every ounce of his strength to move the metal and rubble. He groaned from the exertion, the muscles in his arms and back ripping under the strain.
"Please hold on," he whispered through tears, frustrated by the incredibly slow pace of his progress. He rubbed savagely at his eyes as he continued to work, so careful not to let the weight of the debris pinning her down to shift. After what seemed like a thousand lifetimes, he freed her. He sobbed uncontrollably as he gently placed his arms under her limp form and lifted her up. She was so small and still in his arms, like a sleeping child.
"Enza?" he whispered. Her eyes remained closed. She didn't respond. He placed her delicately on the ground and with trembling hands, searched for a pulse.
The vise on his chest finally eased its grip on him and he drew his first breath in what seemed like days. It was faint and it was weak, but there was a pulse. He knelt down to feel her breath on his cheek and was certain there was no more wonderful feeling in the world. Another sob shuddered through his body as he looked at her. A large cut on her forehead bled profusely, her right arm was bent at an unnatural angle. Pain and panic washed over him in waves, over and over again. She needed help. Immediately.
He reached for his communicator again. "Get me that medical evacuation," he said. "Just get them to the door, I'll get the path cleared."
It tore at him to do so, but he had to step away from her to try to clear the blocked doorway. The office's doorway had been blasted, that much was obvious. Near the debris was the badly burned body of a rebel, he presumed. The sight turned his stomach, but he tried to ignore it and focus on what he needed to do. The door was stuck, half opened, half closed, twisted, warped, and weakened from the blast. The gap between the door and the wall was blocked by debris. Using a loose bit of piping as a crowbar, he forced the door open as far as he could, extracting a few more inches of give from the groaning metal and began clearing out the debris with raw, bleeding hands. Every few seconds he turned back to look at his wife, staring hard to make sure that her chest was still moving with each breath. Soon, the space he was clearing was large enough for a person to crawl through. In the hallway, he could see the medics approaching.
"In here!" he shouted. They rushed to the doorway.
"We can't get the gurney through there," one of the medics said unhelpfully.
"I'll bring her to you," Lok Sim replied, his voice thick with emotion. With extraordinary care, he gathered her up in his arms and gently carried her toward the doorway, moving as slowly as he could. A pair of hands reached through the opening toward him and he gingerly let the medics take his wife from his arms. They moved with remarkable speed and deftness to secure her to the gurney and rush her away from that hallway.
His mind blank, his body numb, he managed to crawl through the opening, stumbling out into the hall. There were more dead bodies here. He picked himself up and looked down at his uniform, soaked with her blood. He staggered as he walked, unable to steady himself under the weight of her injuries. He reached for his communicator one more time. "Could you please find my niece?" he asked softly, a plaintive tone to his voice.
********
Talan watched as the medics worked on Kal El. She stood there helplessly, trying not to get in the way. It tore at her insides to just stand by, useless and unnecessary. She crossed and uncrossed her arms over her chest, not sure what to do. The rescue workers started to wheel his gurney away.
"Is he going to be all right?" she called out as she started after them.
"We're going to do everything we can, ma'am," one of the medics responded.
********
He raced to the site of the explosion, bracing himself for what he knew was going to be the worst moment of his life. Ching didn't want to see this, but he had to be the one to find her. He couldn't leave her here. The lump lodged in his throat made it impossible to breathe and it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. Turning on his flashlight, he followed the corridor back toward to the blast site.
"Zara?" he shouted out her name, knowing she wouldn't answer him, but he couldn't help himself. The beam of the flashlight swept the area in front of him, landing on charred and twisted metal paneling that had collapsed.
She wasn't there.
He'd been directly on the other side of this broken panel when it fell. She was supposed to be here, on this side of it. His heart tripped and fell out of rhythm, his breaths came in shallow, rapid gasps. "Zara?" he cried out her name, turning around frantically. With the flashlight, he swept the ground. She couldn't have simply disappeared
Blood.
There was blood on the ground – not much of it, just a few drops here and there – leading away from the point of the explosion. He broke out into a run as he followed the trail toward the emergency doors. Ching burst through the doors out into the pre-dawn light of the early morning. The wind whipped around him, stinging his skin. "Zara!" he shouted her name again, the sound swallowed up by the gusts of air.
He saw the silhouette of a figure sitting against the side of the building, using it as a windbreak. Ching rushed over to find Lieutenant Rul leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, a pained look on her face. He knelt down beside her and touched her shoulder. "Rul, what happened? Where is she?" he asked anxiously.
She turned toward him without opening her eyes. A large bruise covered one side of her face from eyebrow to jaw. "Went to get help," she managed, her expression still contorted in pain. "The tunnels were full of smoke. My leg is broken."
She was alive.
His breath caught in his throat and a shudder ran through his body. His first instinct was to race after Zara, but he couldn't leave the young lieutenant out here in the cold wind, her body probably already going into shock. They would have been locked out once they'd made their way out of that corridor, which was why Zara had to leave her guard here in order to find assistance.
"I'm going to get you back inside," he said. He grabbed his communicator and called for help. Gingerly, he lifted Rul up in his arms and carried her into the building. A pair of soldiers met him in the hallway to take the wounded officer to help. Ching ran back outside, shouting instructions into his communicator, ordering all available hands to join the search for the First Minister.
The emergency doors were all still locked down when the explosion happened and the hangar bays were still the site of mass confusion. It was a long way in either direction toward a viable entrance to the colony. She would have headed toward the eastern wing, where there were undamaged medical facilities – somewhere she could get help. He ran as fast as he could, desperately hoping to catch up with her. She might have been injured, disoriented from the blast, and suffering from exposure.
His heart stopped beating at the sight of a solitary figure walking slowly away from him, limping and stumbling. It took what felt like forever for him to find his voice. "Zara!" he yelled as loudly as he could. She must have heard him over the gale. She stopped walking and slowly turned around as he raced toward her. With labored, uneven steps she rushed to him as well. It took both an eternity and only a single instant to close the distance between them. Though his vision was blurred by a fine film of tears, he never took his eyes off her.
She flew into his arms and time itself ceased to exist. Mountains soared up from the ground and then crumbled to dust, empires rose and fell, rivers ran dry, stars exploded to life in a bright flame of fire and energy, chaos and noise, and then quietly died, all in the span of the gap between heartbeats, in the moment it took for his breath to catch in his throat and for a sigh to escape his lips in the form of her name.
He held her tightly as he stroked her hair. Her cheek felt frozen against his skin and all he wanted to do at that moment was to shelter her from the cold. "I thought I'd lost you," he managed before breaking down in sobs. His body trembled as he held her. Lowering his head, he kissed her shoulder, before framing her face between his hands and covering her lips with his own. He could feel her clinging to him, and he wished desperately that she would never let him go. Finally, he broke off the kiss and drew in a ragged breath. His eyes still closed, he leaned forward until his forehead was touching hers. He felt her touch his face ever so delicately. There was moisture underneath her fingertips.
"You're crying," she whispered.
He nodded as he tried not to sob. He opened his eyes to see tears streaming down her face as well. "So are you," he replied softly. Ching brushed the tears away with the pad of his thumb. "I love you." Tears fell unchecked from his eyes.
"I love you," she said, breaking down in his embrace. Her slender frame shook as she cried.
Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her just a little bit tighter, holding her up. He would never let her fall. "I need to get you inside," Ching murmured.
"I can walk," she assured him as she stepped back and started to limp forward.
"Lean on me," he replied, wrapping his arm around her. She did. Ching reached for his communicator to radio their position to General Command. Within minutes, a transport descended in front of them. Soldiers raced out to shepherd the injured First Minister into the craft.
********
Lok Sim paced frantically in the hallway. He'd been pacing here for hours and must have traversed the hallway thousands of times. With his long strides, he crossed the length of the corridor quickly and turned around. He was too tall, too big to be confined in this tiny, claustrophobic space. But then, this entire planet was too small to contain the grief and guilt boiling up inside him. The sound of footsteps approaching from behind him caused him to nearly leap out of his skin. He spun around to find himself staring at the old, gray-haired doctor.
"Easy, young man," Tao Scion said.
"What's happening? Is she all right? Can I see her?" he demanded anxiously.
The physician put his hand on Lok Sim's arm. "She's still in surgery. They're working to relieve the swelling and pressure on her brain. She has a chance of recovering consciousness. Once she's stabilized the surgeons are going to have to perform several additional operations."
The younger man dragged a shaking hand through his hair. "More surgery? What, why?"
"Her right arm and leg were very badly broken," Tao Scion explained gently.
Lok Sim closed his eyes as he shook his head slowly. The doctor's words barely penetrated the haze surrounding his mind. They didn't register and instead simply bounced around inside his brain. It was all Lok Sim could do to try to decipher the words and sentences and make them make sense. "You said she has a chance, what does that mean? What kind of chance?"
"The head trauma was pretty extensive. People do recover from these sorts of injuries, but the longer she's unconscious…" Tao Scion replied, his tone calm and even.
The tall, quiet engineer pinched the bridge of his nose, wiping away the tears that gathered in the corners of his eyes. "This is all my fault," he murmured.
"It most certainly is not. That young woman would not be alive if it weren't for you," Tao Scion retorted.
"If I'd done my job, if I'd figured out what they were doing…" he trailed off, too distraught to keep talking. Confession required more strength than he possessed. Fresh tears pricked at his eyes. He looked up at the ceiling to keep the tears from falling.
"The blame for this lies with Nor and his followers. Not with you," the physician replied, but his words gave no comfort.
"Lok Sim!" He looked over the doctor's shoulder toward the sound of the voice calling his name. His sister was running to him. She threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Fine," he replied, knowing how unconvincing he sounded. "Where's Thia?"
"Mother's bringing her; they should be here in about an hour," his sister explained. "I brought you a change of clothes." He looked at her, puzzled. How could she expect him to care about something so entirely frivolous at the moment? "You should get cleaned up; you're going to terrify the poor little girl like that."
"Your wife will still be in surgery for another few hours," Tao Scion said. "I'll show you to the showers."
Lok Sim looked down at himself, he was covered in soot and dirt and sweat. And blood. It covered his hands, almost up to his elbows. Lok Sim nodded mutely in acquiescence and allowed the doctor to lead him down the hall.
The physician left him alone in the locker room, quietly closing the door behind him. Lok Sim stripped off the sparring uniform he'd been wearing since the previous evening, trying not to wince at the brushing of the fabric against the freshly sealed wound on his back. He stepped into the shower, remembering the lighthearted training session with his wife in the officers' gym. The ghost of a smile on his face became a grimace as he sobbed. Under the stream of water, he fell to his knees and bowed his head. His large body shook as he wept.
********
In another part of the hospital, Talan stood in a corridor, quietly relaying orders over her communicator to the officers in the field. The prison had been re-secured, the remaining rebels rounded up. The fires had been put out and emergency crews had taken control over the blast sites. Rae Et's body had been found on a downed rebel transport, though everyone had presumed she was dead a year.
She ended a transmission, only to receive an incoming call at that moment from a familiar source. "Serick, are you all right? How is Ama?" she asked anxiously.
"We're both fine, as is Raya," he replied.
Her brow furrowed. "Raya?"
"Your niece. She was born a few hours ago."
Talan smiled. "It's a beautiful name," she said. "And fitting." It meant 'brave hearted.'
"We thought any child who has the audacity to be born at such a calamitous moment must be quite courageous," her brother replied. "I heard the First Minister was wounded, will he be all right?"
"He's still in surgery," she said, fighting to keep her voice even.
"Should we be expecting you soon?"
Talan chewed her lip. "I should be here when he wakes up. His Chief of Staff is running General Command. First Minister Zara is with her family, her brother was gravely wounded," she rushed to explain, anticipating the disapproval of her brother.
"There's nothing but unhappiness for you there," Serick cautioned, his gentle tone taking the harsh edge off the words.
"He shouldn't be alone," she replied resolutely.
********
He had at least started to look like a human being again, he thought as he regarded his reflection. He'd showered and shaved, but his eyes were still red from crying and a lack of sleep. It had been about a full day since he'd eaten, but he wasn't hungry and he figured food would only make the nausea worse. Lok Sim finished dressing and returned to the corridor outside the operating theater to continue his anxious pacing. He thought about that damage control engineer and the twisted poetry of their situation. Her actions put the entire colony at risk, sacrificing the lives of hundreds of people in order to save the life of her beloved. His failure to act meant that his beloved was lying cut open on a table, fighting for her life.
Before long, his mother appeared at the other end of the hallway, Thia holding her hand. The little girl wriggled her way free and started to run to him. He covered the length of the corridor in long, rapid strides, lifting his niece up in his arms. Closing his eyes, he hugged her tightly, cradling the back of her head with his hand. She clung to him as though her life depended on it; her little body trembled as she cried. "Shhh, it's all right," he soothed, tears slipping silently down his face. "Everything is going to be all right."
"Aunt Enza came to get me…and I was so scared…and she didn't come with me. She got hurt because of me," his little niece said between sobs.
"No, no, that's not true. You mustn't believe that," he said, his voice soft but insistent. "You did nothing wrong, it's not your fault." He gently stroked her hair as he held her just a little bit tighter. "I love you so much, and your aunt loves you. She did get hurt but that wasn't because of you."
He opened his eyes and saw his mother hanging back, watching them with a sad expression on her face. Lok Sim carried his niece over to the bench alongside the wall. He sat down, holding Thia on his lap. She tucked her head under his chin, still crying quietly. Running a soothing hand up and down her back, he rocked her gently. He didn't tell her not to cry. Not only would it have made him a hypocrite, he knew that she needed to be able to let out all the fear and the hurt bubbling up in her little body. And she needed to feel safe enough to do that. He kissed the crown of her hair. Soon, her whimpering cries subsided. Looking down, he saw that her eyes were closed. Her even breathing confirmed that she'd fallen asleep.
"She was too distraught to sleep," his mother whispered as she sat down beside them. "Poor little dear."
Lok Sim merely nodded and continued to rock his niece back and forth slowly. He would keep her safe and protected. He would look after her. He would try to make sure she was never afraid again.
The sound of footsteps startled him. He looked up to see Tao Scion approaching them. The old physician gestured for him to come over. Lok Sim frowned, but the other man nodded grimly and motioned toward him again. He stood up and eased his sleeping niece into his mother's arms. Folding his arms anxiously across his chest, he followed the doctor to the other end of the corridor. "What is it? How is she?"
The grim look on Tao Scion's face caused his heart to sink in his chest like a stone. "The surgeons relieved the pressure and fluid buildup on her brain. They're going to set her arm by inserting a steel rod. It should heal nicely. But there was too much trauma to her lower leg. They need to amputate."
Tears welled up in his eyes as his arms fell to his sides. His hand trembled as he dragged it through his hair. "Can't they…I don't understand…isn't there some other way?" He could hear the panic, thick in his own voice.
"I'm afraid not," Tao Scion replied.
"This isn't right," Lok Sim responded as he shook his head, pacing a tight loop back and forth. "Do you know how ridiculous this is? Are you honestly asking me whether it's all right to cut off my wife's leg?"
"No, young man, I'm not," the doctor replied soberly. "I am telling you that if the surgeons do not amputate, your wife will die."
Tao Scion's blunt words stopped his pacing instantly. Lok Sim clenched his fists tightly as he looked down to avoid eye contact. A sob escaped his lips as his body shuddered. He exhaled slowly as he tried to compose himself. "I can't do this," he murmured, choking back tears. "I can't just sit here while you cut my wife to pieces." A vise closed around his chest, squeezing tightly. He couldn't breathe; he felt like his insides had been kicked out. Folding his arms across his chest, he tried to hold himself together, lest he fall apart into broken, jagged little bits. "Just help her, please." He nearly strangled on the words.
********
"Are you certain you're all right?" Ching asked again.
She leaned heavily on his arm as they walked slowly away from the hospital. "Ching, I'll be fine," she replied wearily. In truth, her head was swimming and it felt like the corridor around them was spinning. The physician who had seen her – a retired pediatrician who had rushed to the assistance of the overworked medical response teams – had informed her that she'd suffered a concussion along with her cracked ribs and sprained wrist. The blast had pitched both her and Lieutenant Rul forward; the collapsing ceiling panels extinguishing the fires that otherwise would have engulfed the hallway. But thick smoke had filled the corridor, nonetheless. They'd been lucky to survive the initial explosion and luckier still that their injuries had been minor enough that they'd been able to get to relative safety outside.
Exposed to the elements, disoriented and in pain, it had seemed for a time that she would be responsible for doing their rescuing, but she should have known that Ching would find her. Her beloved would have torn the entire planet apart if needs be to get to her. The relief that had washed over her at their reunion was soon replaced by anxiety when Ching told her that her brother was wounded when his Interceptor was downed. She'd insisted they go to see him immediately, despite Ching's pleas that she get her own injuries looked at.
They'd been waiting for hours for news on Dek Ra's condition; her entire family gathered in a small room, quiet and disconnected from the chaos that was consuming the world around them. A tearful Tem Ra had sat beside his mother, holding her hand, while her father had paced anxiously up and down the length of the small room. For her part, Zara had been too exhausted to do anything at all. Ching had silently slipped away to check on Clark and to take care of her responsibilities as First Minister. While she'd fretted over her younger brother, he'd coordinated the effort to bring the colony back to order. Zara hadn't slept in two days, the constant throbbing in her head and the inability to focus her eyes made her completely useless as a leader. Ching had stepped in, just like he always had, to shoulder the burden when it was too much for her. After hours of waiting, knowing nothing other than the fact that her brother had been stabilized, her parents had finally insisted that she see a doctor and get some rest. She'd felt like a child, meekly doing as her parents told. Her only protestation had been to tell them that she was going to wait for Ching's return before she would leave.
When the colony was finally secure enough for Ching to turn responsibility over to the military commanders and chiefs of the rescue crews, he returned to the waiting room where the Ra family sat in hopes of any news. In the intervening hours, her injuries had been examined by the overworked and haggard old physician and pronounced minor. He'd insisted, however, that she needed to rest. When he returned, Ching had unsurprisingly agreed with both the doctor and her parents. Her mother and father had extracted a promise from Ching that he would look after her. As best as her injuries would allow, Zara hugged Tem Ra and her parents before letting Ching lead her away from the hospital.
The walk seemed longer than it should have, but they eventually made it to the bay where the transport was waiting. It took them back to the First Ministers' compound, untouched by the chaos and destruction. The quiet was disconcerting. Inside her small quarters, she shrugged out of her greatcoat and slowly started to undress. She drew in a sharp breath as she bent her injured wrist too far. Until that moment, Ching had been hanging back, waiting silently.
"May I?" he asked quietly. She merely nodded. With extraordinary caution, he helped her undress, mindful of her cracked ribs and bandaged wrist. An anguished look flitted across his face as looked at the large, greenish bruise on her side.
"It looks worse than it is," she assured him.
He gave her a stiff, jerking nod, but said nothing. Gently, he caressed her cheek and kissed her forehead.
Ching started to step back and she could feel him pulling away from her. "Please, stay here," she said softly.
"I'm not going anywhere," he replied in a rough whisper, his voice thick with emotion. Ching undressed before turning down the blankets on her bed. She lay down and he slipped into the bed beside her. Zara placed her head on his shoulder, feeling his warm skin under her cheek. Ching ran his fingers softly through her hair.
"I almost lost you," she murmured.
"So did I," he replied. "You nearly…" the rest of the sentence was swallowed in a shuddering sigh that she could feel as it reverberated through his body.
"I love you," she said with tears in her voice.
"I love you," he responded. Ching lifted her hand to his lips.
Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she didn't try to fight them. The sobs that shook her slender frame caused a sharp pain to slice through her side, between her injured ribs, but even that wasn't enough to force her to regain her composure. She tried to anchor herself to Ching, to hold on to him as the squall of emotions threatened to sweep her away. But even her rock seemed shaken by what they'd been through. In the silence in the darkened room, she could hear her lover crying quietly. He gently squeezed her hand as he held it against his heart.
"I was so afraid you were gone," he whispered. "I swear I wouldn't have survived losing you."
"It's all right. We'll be all right," she said quietly. Zara curled up closer to him, needing to feel the warmth of his body to remind herself of the truth of her words. They would be all right. Through all of the horrors they'd seen and the difficulties that lay ahead, they would still be together.
********
Lois chewed thoughtfully on the end of her pencil as she leaned over her notes in the den. A soft knock startled her out of her musings. "Hey," she said as she looked up at her mother-in-law.
"How are you?" Martha asked.
"Fine," Lois said halfheartedly.
"Really?" Martha asked from the doorway, her brow arched.
"Yeah, that's kind of the problem," she replied as she dropped her chewed up pencil on the table. It rolled across the wooden surface as she leaned back against the couch, rubbing her temples. Martha came to sit beside her.
"What do you mean?"
Lois exhaled a shaky breath. "Everything is so ordinary. And ordinary is normal, and normal sounds okay," she said. "But everything isn't okay. I keep doing the same thing, every day. I work on my book, I do my patrols, I read to my son. I live my life and I shouldn't be able to do that." Her voice wavered on the last words.
"Tomorrow is his birthday," Martha replied, her tone quiet.
"And everything is going to be fine and ordinary and normal. But it shouldn't be. The world shouldn't be the same without him. Hell, the laws of physics shouldn't work when he isn't here."
"I know, honey," her mother-in-law said sympathetically. "But we live our lives because it is the only thing we can do. It's what Clark wants us to do."
Lois shook her head. "I feel like I'm losing him."
Martha took her hand and squeezed it gently. "You're not," she insisted.
"Aren't I? I've lived without him for almost four years. I've fallen into a routine that doesn't include him. I think about him, every single day, but it's almost like he's a part of my past." It hurt so much to say the words aloud, to confess to such dark and terrible thoughts, but she couldn't stop herself. Even though it was probably causing Martha no end of pain to hear the awful things that her daughter-in-law was thinking, she had to continue. "Like he came into my life, changed it forever, made me a better person, and then just disappeared. Like the part of our lives that we were supposed to spend together is already over. And that can't be right."
Martha regarded her with eyes brimming with tears. "He will come back," she said. "I really do believe that. But I also know that we can't stop living our lives, doing nothing but waiting. We have to keep doing the best we can. And we can't hate ourselves for finding a way to cope. We're going to get through this. And when Clark comes back, we will be a stronger family for it."
"I hope so," Lois replied tremulously. The thought of never seeing her husband again was still enough to make her heart stop beating. It sent cold shivers skittering down her spine. Martha hugged her tightly, but it wasn't enough to combat the terrible chill that suffused her body. Before Clark had left, if someone had told her that she'd survive almost four years without him, without knowing if he was even still alive, she never would have believed it. Lois Lane would have sworn that that would have demolished her.
Was it strength that kept her alive, or had she somehow grown cold-hearted again? Did she lose the capacity to love as purely and as deeply as she once had, now that he was away? She didn't want to believe it was possible. And the ache that still gripped her, deep inside, was enough to prove to her that she loved her husband every bit as much as she had that morning, watching him leave, feeling her heart crumble to dust. Lois swallowed roughly, trying hard not to succumb to the tears welling up in her eyes. She would find a way to keep holding on to him. To keep clinging to hope. And she'd do so for as long as it took for him to make his way back home.
