Yes, I'm early! Aren't you proud of me? I wanted to post the next new part sometime over the weekend, but then I realized that my weekend is going to be so busy that I won't be home... no less on the internet. So I either posted today or had to wait till sometime on Monday (and Monday wasn't looking good either) so...
<shrug>
I thought you might like it early. <g> Especially since so many of you wonderful readers and feedbackers were begging for Clark to wake up (particularly you, Ann
).
Enjoy!
Table of Contents ************
From Part 4:
Lois turned to look at Clark. She was alone with him again. She walked over to his bed and gently took his left hand. “Hi there,” she whispered, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand softly. “I guess it’s just you and me. Are you still hanging in there?” She reached up and felt of his forehead. It didn’t feel as hot as it had earlier. That was good.
“I brought you some clothes. Probably not what you would have picked out for yourself, but go with me here. I’m not used to dressing a guy.” She smiled at him and squeezed his hand before letting go of it.
“I guess I’d better rearrange the furniture a little bit and see if I can get comfortable,” she mumbled more to herself than anyone. She put two of the chairs together where they were facing each other and then grabbed one of the pillows and blankets from the end of Clark’s bed. She sat down in one chair and propped her feet up in the other.
As tired as she was, she didn’t think she’d have any trouble sleeping in the chairs.
She was right.
**********
PART FIVE
**********
Lois had no idea how long she had been asleep when she was awakened to a soft groaning sound, but judging by the lethargy in her body she hadn’t been asleep long.
The dark room was illuminated only by the lights of the city shining through the window but it was enough light that she could see Clark moving around in his bed. He was making soft grunts and moans. Lois slid her feet out of the chair and stood up. She walked over and laid her hand against his head. It felt hot again. “Shhhh,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
She started to walk over and get some wet paper towels to blot him with again when Clark’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Lois?” he said hoarsely.
Her heart swelled in her chest. He was awake! “I’m here... I’m here,” she soothed, taking his hand from her arm and holding on to it. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”
“Wher...” He cleared his throat. “Where am I?” he murmured softly, reaching up to rub his eyes.
“You’re at the hospital...”
“What?” He pulled his hand away from his eyes and they seemed much more alert than they had a second ago.
Clark was trying to fight through the haze in his mind. What was wrong with him? Why did it seem so hard to focus? He tried to remember what had happened but it was hard to grasp onto a single thought and hold it for very long.
He took a long, deep breath and forced himself to concentrate. It began to come back to him in flashes.
Bright green bars...
Intense pain...
Hard cold floor...
Luthor mocking him...
Freedom...
Luthor...
Fear...
Darkness...
He sucked in an unsteady breath. Why did it hurt so much to breathe? The left side of his body felt like it was on fire. “Ouch,” he moaned.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Lois soothed. “I can go get the nurse, maybe she can give you some more pain medication or someth...” She broke off because Clark was struggling, trying to sit up in bed. “Wait, Clark! Don’t do that! You’re going to hurt yourself. You might rip a stitch!” She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to force him to lie back down.
“No, Lois,” he said weakly. “Please.” He groaned. “I’m gonna... ugh... I’m gonna be sick.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed and began frantically searching for something in the darkness... There! She spotted the outline of a kidney-shaped basin. She hadn’t been in the hospital often but she knew enough to know what one of those pink plastic tubs was for. She snatched it up and held it under Clark’s face. He heaved a couple of times and a little bit of bile came out. Lois wrinkled her nose at the sight of it and then looked away.
She hadn’t ever been a very good nurturer, but she knew how awful she felt whenever she threw up so she used her free hand to rub Clark’s back lightly. “That’s it,” she soothed. “You’re just probably a little nauseous from the concussion, or maybe from the pain meds.”
He took a shuddering breath and lay back in bed. “Thank you,” he told her quietly. He could now add stomach cramps to his list of bodily aches and pains.
“You’re welcome,” she said softly. She grabbed the pitcher from the table next to his bed and poured some water into one of the paper cups. “Here.”
Clark took the glass and rinsed his mouth, spitting into the basin she had offered him again. He lay there speechless while she emptied the basin into the sink and rinsed it out. Then she turned on a light over the sink.
Blinking against the sudden onslaught of light, he held up a hand to shade his eyes. His head was still a little foggy and to compound the problem he had a dozen different questions flashing through his mind.
“Did they stop the wedding?” That wasn’t really the first question he had meant to ask, but it was what came out first.
Lois seemed to pale slightly and held up her left hand. There was no ring. She had given her engagement ring to Lex the day before because he was having the engagement ring and wedding band soldered together before the wedding.
Clark felt a bit of relief wash over him. As he tried to recall the details of what had happened, he vaguely remembered Henderson being there before he blacked out. “Did Henderson arrest Luthor?”
“Clark, Lex is... dead.” She watched his body tense and then almost visibly relax.
“What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. From what I know, Henderson shot Lex... to save you. Lex was going to kill you.” Her voice cracked a little and she swallowed a couple of times. “You should rest.” She tried to smile at him and managed to succeed. “I called your mom and dad. They were here earlier but I sent them to your apartment for the night. They didn’t want to go but I told them I’d watch over you.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly again.
She nodded. Part of her was just dying to blurt out ‘I know you’re Superman!’ But the other part of her knew he still wasn’t well and she didn’t need to add any anxiety to what he was already feeling. “You really should lay back and relax.”
“I’m okay,” he told her and then flinched from the throbbing in his head.
“Oh, of course you are.” She rolled her eyes and then a smart response flitted through her mind. She couldn’t resist. She would probably smack herself later for it but she added, “Who do you think you are? Superman?”
Clark stiffened noticeably and Lois wanted to call him on it right then and there. Instead she went over and stroked his cheek softly with her hand. “I know you’re in pain, Clark. You can’t hide it from me. I can see it in your eyes.” She smiled at him - those big beautiful brown eyes. She had never realized how gorgeous his eyes really were until just then. He always kept them hidden behind a pair of glasses...
Obviously Clark’s mind had gone to the same place hers had because his hand went immediately to his face and he got a panicked look in his eyes. “Lois, where are my glasses?”
“I’m not sure what happened to the glasses you had on, but...” She was about to tell him that she had brought him a pair from home when he interrupted her.
“I need my glasses. Please. We have to find them.”
A swelling of anger seeped out and got the better of her right then. He was still trying to deceive her – still trying to play games. “Why? Did you decide that you can’t see all of the sudden without them? You were fine just a few moments ago. Didn’t seem to have any trouble recognizing me... in the dark,” she grated, cocking an eyebrow at him but silently cursing herself for behaving like she was. She had wanted to wait to get into this with him. But patience wasn’t always one of her strong suits...
And he had started it. He had brought it up.
His face flushed and he looked away from her. “So you know?” She did - he could tell from the heat in her voice and the fire in her eyes.
She sighed in frustration – at herself, at him, at the whole dang situation. “Yes, I know.”
“Do my mom and dad know... that you know?”
She nodded at him. “Why do you think they agreed to leave you alone with me?” Lois fidgeted for a moment in silence, not sure she really wanted to know, but yet needing to. “What happened, Clark?”
Where did he start? He knew she was asking about what happened with Luthor, but it would help if he went back a little further than that.
“Well...”
**********
“Where are you going?” Clark asked her when Lois suddenly got up from beside him and started grabbing her stuff. She had been listening to him explain what had happened, surprisingly patiently, until just then. Had she finally worked herself into a frenzy? Clark had fully been expecting her to be furious with him for keeping his secret from her.
“I’m going to LexCorp,” she stated rather matter-of-factly.
That caught him off guard. “What? Why?”
She slung her purse over her shoulder and came back to his bed. She started to lean down to hug him goodbye but stopped short and stood back up, feeling very tentative about close contact with him right at this second. Her feelings were all jumbled up inside. She felt so confused and after listening to what he had gone through the past few days...
Lois suppressed a shudder. What must he think of her right now?
She pushed that thought away and steeled her resolve. “To get that chunk of Kryptonite and destroy it so they can’t use it against you again.” Instead of hugging him she touched his hand softly and gave it a light, reassuring squeeze. “Henderson is interested in that cage. He thinks it might have something to do with Superman since he found your suit under the stairs in the wine cellar.”
“He found my suit?” Clark moaned. So much for going back for it. “Lois, I don’t think this is a good idea. What if...”
“Well, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to argue with me.” She patted his arm condescendingly. “Oh, and that reminds me. Do you have other suits? Or do we need to try and get that one back from Henderson?”
Clark frowned. “No, I have other suits, but listen to me, Lois. I don’t think you should go there. Not tonight and definitely not by yourself. Just because Luthor’s gone doesn’t mean...”
“I know,” she cut him off, already nervous and not wanting his cautionary nature to add to her growing anxiety. “I’ll be careful, Clark. Don’t worry. You know I did survive quite well on my own before Superman came to Metropolis.”
In response, Clark muttered something to the effect of that having been a miracle and Lois scowled at him. “Listen, we don’t have time to wait. Henderson will still be collecting evidence from the murder scene and also evidence related to the crimes that Lex was being charged with. We don’t need Henderson getting his hands on that Kryptonite. It would become public knowledge and that’s the last thing Superman... err... you need.”
Lois walked around the bed to the table and picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Your parents.” She began dialing numbers.
“Wait. Lois, don’t do that. It’s the middle of the night and I’m...”
“I promised Clark. Your mother told me she didn’t care what time it was, she wanted to know when you woke up. I’m not going to have your mother upset with me.” She put the receiver up to her ear. “And I’m not going to leave you here alone while I run off to LexCorp. I don’t think... Hi, Martha? It’s Lois. Clark’s awake.”
**********
Lois silently thanked the stars that Lex had trusted her enough to give her the entry codes into the LexCorp building, the elevators, and his living quarters. Although, seeing that she was supposed to be marrying him and moving in with him, she had needed the codes.
They had certainly come in handy now. She wasn’t sure that she could have broken into LexCorp without setting off some kind of alarm, not to mention how hard it would have been to move around once she was inside. Lex had all sorts of monitoring systems and alarms in place to guard against intruders.
But with her codes she had moved effortlessly through the building. She felt a little ridiculous in her all black outfit and the scarf she had wrapped around her head. She was sure she looked absurd but she hadn’t wanted anyone to recognize her in case someone took a look at the security tapes for the building. She had worn gloves too, just to make sure she didn’t leave any fingerprints behind.
Everything had gone perfectly so far. But now she found herself face to face with Lex’s desk and the drawer that he kept his personal files in - the one thing she didn’t have a code for. Not that she needed one. This was the one place that her lock-pick skills would finally be of some use. The lock on the file drawer of his desk took her a little longer than she had expected, but after several frustrating minutes she had it jimmied open.
She squinted through the darkness at the files, wishing that she had a flashlight with her. She would have turned on the lights but felt like that might unnecessarily expose her. Thankfully his office had lots of windows and the moonlight streaming in was enough to illuminate the file names.
One file caught her attention – Series K. Lois held her breath as she opened the file and looked inside.
She had been right. Series K did stand for Kryptonite.
According to the notes and detailed reports contained inside the file, Lex had been conducting experiments with the deadly substance. Lois sat down in Lex’s chair and spread the file out on his desk.
Not only had he done a field test of the Kryptonite on Superman to confirm its affects on him, he had been doing tests on the rock itself. He had ground a chunk of it down into a fine powder which had then been experimented on further – its ability to be dissolved in liquid, combined with certain chemicals and paints, and added as a component in a dirty bomb... just to name a few. In fact, the substance appeared to exist in almost every form imaginable inside the vaults of Lex Labs. There was also a report about a proposed process of duplicating Kryptonite through specialized cloning techniques.
They had possibly found a way to create more Kryptonite!
The final notes she found detailed how they had found a way to power it as some kind of force field, which is how Lex had used it on the cage that he had Superman in. The chunk that was powering the force field on the cage was down in the same place as the cage - in the wine cellar.
Lois closed the file. She started to put the file back in the drawer but then hesitated. Clark needed to know this, not to mention the fact that no one else needed to learn about it. She took the file with her as she left the office to board Lex’s private elevator.
She rode the elevator down as far as it would take her, assuming that was where she would find the wine cellar. Compared with the main elevators in the building this thing moved like lightning. The initial movement as she began her decent was enough to momentarily take her breath away and she was soon at her destination.
Lois had come here to find that chunk of Kryptonite and destroy it, but she wasn’t sure any more if that’s what she should do.
What good would it do to destroy this one chunk if there was more?
**********
Lois shifted the telephone receiver from one ear to the other as she glanced down at the glowing green rock inside the small cardboard box she was holding. She probably could have called from her apartment, but she was suddenly feeling a little paranoid about the whole situation and that’s why she found herself standing inside a pay phone booth about three blocks down from her apartment.
The phone had rung twice now. It was still late, would he pick up?
“H...hello?” his groggy voice spoke from the phone.
“Dad?” she answered. “It’s Lois.”
“Lois?” There was a pause. “It’s three-thirty in the morning. Are you okay?” She could hear the genuine concern in his voice and it gave her a warm feeling, just briefly.
“I know. I’m sorry I woke you but this really couldn’t wait.” Her father hadn’t been there for pretty much her entire life. He had attempted to reconnect with her during his involvement in the boxing incident earlier that year. Before he had disappeared out of town, he had given her a number where he said she could always reach him.
And she had. And he was going to be there for her now. She needed him.
She heard him sigh softly. “Okay, princess, I’m listening. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“First, please don’t call me princess. I’m a grown woman. Secondly, I’m not the one in trouble. It’s a friend of mine.”
“What kind of trouble are they in?” he asked, his voice betraying how seriously he was taking this.
“The worst kind. Listen, dad, what I need is a name from you. I need the name of a doctor or a scientist. It has to be someone you would trust with your life... no, with my life...”
“Lois?”
“I know. It’s okay. Trust me, I’m okay,” she tried to reassure him. “But I have to have someone I can trust. I know you’ve met and worked with some brilliant scientists in your day. I need someone here in Metropolis who can do research on chemical components. The kind you might find... say in a meteorite that had been found. It has to be someone completely trustworthy.”
The line was quiet for several seconds and Lois bit on her lip waiting for his reply.
“Klein,” he finally replied with a soft sigh. “Doctor Bernard Klein. He works for STAR Labs. He’s honest and hardworking. He’s one of the few sincere men left in our field. If you can trust anyone, it would be him.”
“Thank you, daddy.”
“Princess?”
Lois suppressed a groan. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the wedding. I bet you looked beautiful.”
Lois sighed, not wanting to get into it but needing him to know. “There wasn’t a wedding. I called it off. The man wasn’t who I thought he was.”
There was a long silence. Lois realized that her dad was probably feeling some guilt over what he considered her distrust of men. But when he spoke again, he didn’t say anything about it. “I won’t ask what you’re involved in. You’re a big girl. But, please be careful. If there’s anything I can do...”
“I’ll call. I promise.” She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath. “Next time I call it won’t be because I need something.”
“It’s okay. Maybe the next time you invite me into your life, I’ll be there to accept.” He paused for a moment and when he began speaking again, she could hear a waver in his voice. “I’m glad I could help you. I hope Dr. Klein can help too. Goodbye, sweetheart.”
The emotion in his voice was unsettling and she forced her voice to remain steady, “Bye, daddy.”
She looked down at her watch and sighed. It was too early to do anything right now. She wouldn’t be able to go to STAR Labs until later that morning, and she wasn’t going to let the Kryptonite out of her sight until then.
That meant she wasn’t going back to the hospital right now either. She wasn’t going to let this stuff anywhere near Clark.
She glanced back up at the receiver. She had another call she needed to make.
***********
Clark lay awake in his bed staring worriedly at the ceiling. The nurse had told him that he should stay awake if at all possible. It wasn’t good to sleep too much right after a concussion. Apparently the pain medication they had given him had knocked him out, so he had opted not to take anymore. And now his side was really beginning to ache. But that wasn’t what was keeping him awake.
Why had he let Lois go off and do something dangerous like that? Mrs. Cox had been arrested, but Luthor surely had other equally dangerous people working for him. Any one of those could be watching over things... could catch Lois. If she got into trouble, there was nothing he could do to help her. Superman was out of commission.
He shouldn’t have let her go.
Yeah, like you had any say in it, he reminded himself. Lois was gonna do what Lois wanted to do... with or without his input.
And he loved her for it.
She was putting herself in danger to do something for him, to help him. But who was she really doing it for? If it had merely been Clark who was in trouble and needed help, would she still have offered herself so willingly? Or was it because she now knew that he was Superman?
Clark didn’t want to play second fiddle, not even to his alter-ego. He knew on some level that he wasn’t being completely rational about the whole situation, but...
Was it so much to want to be loved just for himself? Not for the special things he could do, but just for who he was? Just for the man and not the suit? Was that too much to desire? Should he have just taken what he could get? Been happy with her adoration for her superhero?
He couldn’t do it. And it wouldn’t have been fair to Lois either – to let her love only the superhero. Because one day she would wake up, she would realize that her idol was merely Clark in brightly-colored spandex. She needed to love him for who he really was, otherwise it wasn’t real. He wanted that kind of lasting love. The kind of love that his parents have.
Clark looked over at his parents, who had fallen asleep sitting in their chairs. He winced at how uncomfortable they looked. He wished Lois hadn’t called them and had just let them sleep, but he knew his mom would have been furious if she hadn’t. And honestly, he was glad they were here.
Speaking of uncomfortable... Clark tried to shift a little bit to find a less painful position to lie in, but the movement pulled at his stitches and he had to bite down on his lip to keep from letting out a cry of pain. God, that hurt. He sucked in a breath and tried to relax again.
Clark almost cursed himself for wishing all those times that he could just be normal. Because this being injured and vulnerable to pain thing wasn’t very fun at all. He hadn’t even had the nerve to look at his wound. He remembered how scary it had been just to see his finger bleeding from that paper cut after his first Kryptonite exposure. Clark had made enough disturbing rescues before to have a pretty good idea of what it probably looked like.
The phone next to his bed rang and Clark jumped, eliciting another pain of protest from his side. He hurried to grab the receiver before it could ring a second time, hoping to catch it before it woke his parents up.
“Hello?” he said quietly into the receiver.
“Clark? Did I wake you? I’m sorry. Of course I woke you. I probably woke your parents too. I was just afraid if I didn’t call you’d be worried, and I didn’t want you to worry because you really need to get your rest. Are your parents still there?”
Clark was awake but, even so, he was having difficulty keeping up with her. “It’s okay, Lois. I couldn’t sleep. You aren’t supposed to sleep a lot after a concussion,” he whispered. “Mom and dad must be exhausted because even the phone ringing didn’t wake them up.” He hesitated for a second but when she didn’t say anything, he continued anxiously, “Did you find it?”
There was silence for a couple of seconds and Clark started to worry, when she finally responded, “Mmmm. Yeah. I found it. It’s taken care of. You don’t have to worry about it Clark. Listen, I’ll talk to you about this later. I don’t want to disturb your parents so I’m gonna go sack out on the floor at my place and...”
“The floor?”
“Yeah. My bed had already been moved out, along with half my other furniture.” Clark could hear the frustration in her voice. “But don’t worry. I’ve got a pad I can sleep on. We can all get a little rest and I’ll come up to the hospital later in the morning. Do you need me to bring you anything?”
Clark looked over at his pile of clothes sitting on a table in the corner of the room. He unconsciously reached up and adjusted the glasses that he was once again wearing. “No, you already brought me what I needed, Lois. Thank you.” He was touched by what she had done. She had gotten his glasses to help him protect his identity and she had gone after the Kryptonite to protect his life. No one could argue how much she loved her hero. If she could have only loved Clark...
“Okay then.” He could hear her yawn into the receiver. “I think I’m going to try to get some rest. I’ll see you in a little while partner.”
Partner...
Clark sighed softly. “Okay. Bye, Lois.”
“Bye.”
Clark hung up the receiver and went back to staring at the ceiling. Partner. Is that all she would ever see Clark as? Maybe now that she knew he was Superman, it would change even her view of her hero. Maybe too much had happened between them to go back or even to press forward.
She didn’t love him. She had said she didn’t. And you can’t force someone to fall in love with you. Not even by pretending to be someone that you’re not.
He felt another wave of pain, but it wasn’t related to his injury. He had managed to save Lois, only to lose her all over again.
**********
Lois followed the receptionist back to Dr. Klein’s laboratory. When he had found out that she was Sam Lane’s daughter he had been happy to take the time to meet with her.
She felt a little guilty for not discussing this first with Clark, but Lex Labs was getting dangerously close to finding a way to replicate Kryptonite. And if they did that, Superman was in trouble.
The young woman Lois had been following finally stopped outside a door and pushed a button on the intercom system. “Dr. Klein, Ms. Lane is here to see you.”
A few seconds later the door opened up and an older, kind-looking man peered out at them. He slipped a pair of goggles over his bald head and smiled warmly at Lois.
“Wow. Ms. Lane. You sure have grown up.” He shook his head in appraisal of her. “Your father spoke so highly of you back when I worked with him but that was when you were still in school. He had a picture of you on his desk, but you were just a kid then. Please, please, come in.”
Lois found herself a little amazed to hear that her father had kept a picture of her on his desk. The man never ceased to confuse and surprise her. She nodded her thanks to the receptionist and followed Dr. Klein into his laboratory. She marveled at the beakers full of liquid, the wires and tubes flowing from one to another, some of them being heated over an open flame. It looked like the lair of a mad scientist.
“So,” Dr. Klein said, taking a seat on a tall bar stool in front of one of his experiments, “I assume that this isn’t a social call.”
“No, unfortunately it’s not.” She sat the box that she had been carrying down on the counter in front of her. “But before I tell you the real reason for my visit, I have to get your ironclad assurance that what I’m about to tell you... what I’m about to show you, will never leave this room. I need the kind of confidentiality that you give your government contracts. Can you give me that?”
Dr. Klein raised an eyebrow at her. “For Sam’s girl? Yeah, I can do that. Trust me, I know how to keep secrets, Ms. Lane. What’s in the box?”
Lois took a deep breath, praying that she was doing the right thing and that Clark would forgive her. She tilted the box so he could see the glowing specimen of Kryptonite inside it.
“Wow! That’s amazing... I don’t think I’ve... Where did you get that?” Klein stammered.
“This,” she glanced down at the rock she was holding. “Has been named Kryptonite. It’s a meteorite that fell to Earth, a chunk of rock from Superman’s home planet of Krypton.”
“Amazing,” he mumbled staring appreciatively at it. “May I?” he asked, reaching out for it. Lois handed it to him and he carried it over to a table. He picked up an instrument that resembled a pair of tongs and removed the rock from the box. Then he set it on the table and began examining it.
“This hunk of space rock is...” she started to say ‘deadly’ but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to trust the doctor quite that far yet. “Harmful to Superman. It seems to make him sick when he’s exposed to it. He isn’t sure exactly how the rock effects him or why, but I was hoping that maybe you could study it, determine the extent of its effects on Superman’s biology. It probably wouldn’t hurt to find out if it’s harmful to humans as well.”
Dr. Klein was nodding at her but he seemed totally engrossed in what he was doing, like a kid with a new toy. Lois cleared her throat. “Ultimately I’m hoping you can discover some way that we can combat its effects on Superman.”
The doctor continued his examination, mumbling things quietly to himself.
“Dr. Klein? Are you listening to me?” Lois finally asked exasperatedly.
He looked up and smiled sheepishly at her. “Yes, Ms. Lane, I am. And I can understand why this has to be kept quiet. You don’t have anything to worry about. I will make this a top priority and I’ll make sure that I’m the only one with clearance for this project.”
“Thank you, Dr. Klein, and Superman thanks you.”
He nodded at her. “I will of course need Superman to come in so I can do preliminary work-ups on his DNA through some blood work.”
Lois’s eyes widened in surprise. She obviously hadn’t thought things through all the way. Of course he would need biological information on Superman if he hoped to find a way to combat the Kryptonite’s effects on him. That, however, was going to be tricky. Especially since Clark didn’t know what she had done, and he might not approve of it.
“When I see Superman the next time I’ll let him know that in order to proceed you’ll need him to come in and do some tests,” she assured him.
“Good. Our next hurdle will be figuring out how to get past his invulnerability in order to draw a sample of his blood.”
Lois smiled tightly at him. If only he knew how little of a problem that was right now. Clark had told her that he didn’t know how long it would be before his powers started returning. That meant she needed to talk to him about this soon, while he was still vulnerable enough to get a blood sample from.
She grimaced at just the thought of that conversation.
**********
To Be Continued...
