You wrote Lois's dream amazingly well. It was all so harrowing, and in all probability most of it, or all of it, was true.
Lois could still hear screaming in her mind. When she finally stood, she didn't look down. She knew what was there, and even the glimpses she had out the corner of her eye were going to be the fodder for nightmares in the years to come.
She'd grown used to the sounds of moaning and coughing from the other cells. Now, however, everyone was silent.
The woman in the cell across from her was staring at her, white faced. The look of horror on her face head to reflect the feelings Lois was supposed to have, but all she felt was numb.
Obviously Lois has just killed her guards here.
Hands shaking, Lois bent down slowly, fumbling for his keys. She had to free the others, and they had to get out before others came. No matter what freakish strength she'd found, men with bullets would make short work of her.
Lois remembers how she tried to find her jailer's keys. That reminds me... isn't she supposed to look for another key here, in the waking world outside the crater of Sunnydale?
The keys weren't in his pockets. Lois grimaced and rolled him over. There was a squelching sound that she tried not to think about, and she found the keys underneath him.
That squelching sound is so horrible. That would be fodder for my nightmares for the rest of my life, particularly if I was somehow responsible for it.
Lois staggered toward the first cell, and she tried to ignore how the girl recoiled from her.
And that would be fodder for my nightmares too! I would have to think to myself, What have I become?
Over and over she scrubbed her hands, but somehow the blood was always there. No matter how hard she rubbed, it wouldn't go away.
Lady MacBeth! Or was it MacBeth himself? In Shakespeare's famous tragedy, Lady Macbeth eggs her husband on until he kills King Duncan, so that he himself can be the new King. Upset and shaking and with blood on his hands, Macbeth staggers back to his wife after he has done his evil deed. But there is something else he needs to do in the King's chamber... retrieve the daggers, or put them back inside, or smear blood on the guards' clothing to put the blame for the King's murder on them, or something. But MacBeth can't bring himself to go back to the King's chamber, so Lady Macbeth goes there instead, and comes back with blood on her hands. And then he, or she, tries to wash off the blood on her hands, and it doesn't work. Actually, I think it is Lady MacBeth who keeps scrubbing and scrubbing her hands, and she says to herself: I could wash my hands until the blood on them makes the whole sea red, but I will never make the blood leave my hands. (I shuddered when I read this - how absolutely horrible! And how the guilt of a murderer sticks to him or her, indelibly.)
It was then that she felt herself begin to change. Her skin rippled and her eyes began to turn golden.
There was something inside her, and she began to claw at her face to get it out.
Horrible! Horrible! This is somehow Lady MacBeth again, because she went mad because of the crime she had committed, and the evil she saw in herself!
A dark figure leaned over her bed, and Lois lashed out, feeling her fist connect flesh. The figure flew backward several feet and landed in a heap on the floor.
Lois struggled out of her blankets, then realized that the figure was familiar.
“Oh my God, Clark, are you all right?”
Oh wow! Yes, Clark is all right, but he sure begins to suspect a thing or two about you now, Lois!
“Wow,” he said. “That's some right hook you have.”
“I grew up around boxers,” Lois said absently. Clark wasn't dead. He wasn't even bruised. “What were you doing in my room?”
“I could hear you moaning in here. It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”
“I think this case is getting to me,” Lois said. She stepped toward Clark and in the dim light cast by the lamp tried to examine his jaw.
When she'd hit the men in the Congo that hard, they hadn't gotten up again. Ever.
“Are you sure you are all right?” she asked quickly.
“When I was doing bodyguard work for the Nigerians, I was taught to roll with a punch,” Clark said.
I love how they both try to find "natural" explanations for what happened. But I'd like both of them, not least Lois, to be honest with the other one.
“Are YOU all right,” Clark asked.
“I'll be fine. I'm surprised that you haven't been having nightmares.”
She expected a quick denial, but instead Clark was silent. Most men would have felt insecure and would have been quick to put up a macho front.
“I dream about the city collapsing.” Clark said slowly. “I wish I could have helped.”
“Well, even if you'd been here there wouldn't have been anything you could do.” Lois laid a hand on his arm. “The way you help is by finding out what happened and making sure it doesn't ever happen again.”
I like how Clark confesses he has nightmares too, and I like how Lois touches him.
“You aren't what I was told you would be,” he said.
I'm very glad he brings the subject up.
“I can't help but feel like something is wrong,” Clark said. “You are a lot quieter than people said you would be, and I haven't heard you make a joke since you got here. You don't smile, and you look more and more exhausted every day.”
“I don't see what business it is of yours,” Lois said, stung. “Whether I smile or not.”
“I've seen pictures of you smiling,” Clark said. “When you do, it lights up the entire room.”
You give us a feeling here that Clark loves Lois because of the pictures he has seen of her. I love it.
“Did something happen in the Congo?”
The words were out there, and Lois felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. She'd been running from the truth for days, and it kept being thrown back at her.
I'm glad he asked.
“I've come across some things that still haunt me,” Clark said. “People that didn't get out of burning cars, disaster victims, victims of war. It helps to talk about it.”
“I'm not ready yet,” Lois said.
In all likelihood, she never would be.
He's inviting her to talk, and Lois is admitting that there are things she might want to talk about. Then again, she probably never will.
Impulsively, she leaned forward and hugged Clark. He melted into the embrace almost immediately. There was no hesitancy, no reluctance.
I love that!
“I've got a feeling you'd make a great friend, Clark Kent.” Lois said.
“Why don't we find out?” Clark said.
They talked for half the night.
I love that, too! No, Lois hasn't confided in Clark, but maybe, hopefully, she will.
She should have been exhausted, but she felt curiously revitalized. Clark's stories about a Norman Rockwellesque life in Kansas and about some of the exotic things he'd seen on his travels had been strangely soothing.
It was good to know that somewhere out there were places untouched by darkness.
This is so beautiful. Lois so needs Clark as an ally in her fight against darkness.
It was odd. Despite her suspicions that something was off about Clark, she believed his stories. She believed him.
Not that it would keep her from finding out his secret, in time. It's just that if he was really the good man he presented himself as being, she wouldn't share them with anyone.
She'd spend her entire life hating secrets, always wishing she was on the other side of the closed door. But now that she had some of her own, she was starting to realize why people reacted so violently, why they went to such lengths to protect them.
It just meant she was going to have to work harder to discover the truth.
I love Lois's musings about keeping and finding out about secrets, and sharing them, or not.
Very good chapter! You gave us a lull in the onslaught of evil. Much appreciated, Shayne!
Ann
