Hope everyone is having or has had a very nice Valentine's Day. Sorry that this chapter doesn't quite fit the mood of the day.
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Chapter Twenty-five
>>>Monday, 2:16 PM
Clark wiped his hands together and straightened. “Okay, Dad, I think the fence will keep Mr. Jansen’s sheep out of this pasture now.”
His father sighed. “I sure hope so. I’d hate to see them getting hurt over here, with all the gullies and holes they can step into. And thanks for replacing those two posts, too, son. I didn’t realize how badly rotted they were.”
“You’re welcome, Dad. Do you have anything else going that I can help you with?”
“Not right now. If you’re still here tomorrow morning, though, expect to do some work on the roof of the barn. The west side of the roof needs repair, but I have to go into town to get the boards and shingles first.”
He frowned. “That’s quite a project. Were you planning to do all that by yourself?”
Jonathan shook his head and grinned. “No, of course not. I was going to wait until your next extended visit, but since you’re here now – “ and he lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug.
Clark laughed. “Okay, barn roof tomorrow. I’ll see you back at the house for supper.”
“Good. Oh, and be sure to let your mother know if there’s something that Lois doesn’t particularly like so she won’t fix it.”
Clark’s eyebrows rose at his father’s concern for Lois’s preferences, but he didn’t say anything about it. “Lois will eat almost anything that anyone cooks, Dad, and I don’t think Mom’s going to serve anything raw.”
“Not if she wants me to eat it, no.”
*****
Lois sat on the porch and tried not to hear everything. Her experience with the link between herself and Clark helped her control her reactions to the waves of sound overwhelming her, but she still heard every move Clark and his father made while repairing the fence. She heard them shout at the sheep in the next pasture to frighten them away from the property line. The whisper of the soft breeze was like the roar of a thousand angry lions in beside her head. A delivery truck on the highway with a hole in its muffler became a rapid-fire cannon. She heard Martha canning fruit in the kitchen, and every click and clank and hiss became violent explosions inside the house. She even heard the house settling, every tiny creak and every little twitch of the wood and the earth below.
Never knew how noisy Kansas was, she thought ruefully. Makes Metropolis sound like a sensory deprivation chamber.
She couldn’t wait to ask Bob to get rid of these stupid powers.
Martha’s soft footsteps boomed across the living room, and the tiny squeak of the hinges on the screen door screamed in her ears.
Suddenly it all went quiet. She’d found the control key in her mind, somehow, and her relief at the lack of noise was palpable.
“Lois, dear, are you all right?”
Lois leaned back in the rocker and sighed. “Yes, I think so.”
Martha hesitated. “Would you like something to drink? I have some fresh tea brewed.”
Lois almost declined, then realized that Martha was trying to make her as comfortable as possible, so she said, “Yes, thank you.”
Martha smiled. “It’s not as sweet as Clark’s last batch was. I hope that’s okay.”
Lois chuckled. “He’s the newsroom’s resident sweet tooth. I’m sure everyone else there is stunned that he still has all his molars.”
Martha laughed in return. “I’ll be right back.”
Lois rocked slowly, reveling in the almost inaudible creak of the rocker against the wooden porch. When Martha pushed open the screen door again, Lois was almost surprised.
“Here you go. And I put a thin slice of lemon on the rim, just in case you wanted some.”
“Thanks, Martha. Mmm, that’s good.”
“I’m glad you like it.” Martha hesitated, then spoke. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Not at all. I’m glad for the company.”
Martha settled in the porch swing and watched Lois as she shifted the rocker to face her. “So, Lois, how are you really?”
Lois lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
Martha smiled and lowered her gaze for a moment. “I’m sorry if I seem abrupt. I’m just concerned about you.”
“I appreciate it,” Lois answered. “Any particular reason?”
“You’re Clark’s friend, you’re our guest, and you’ve just been through a very traumatic experience. If you’re not all right, that would be perfectly understandable.”
She sighed. “I don’t quite know how I feel just yet. There are a couple of things we haven’t told you yet, but I – Clark may not want me to share them right now.”
“Oh.” Martha spoke quietly, in her conspirator’s voice. “Is it something – personal – between you and Clark?”
Lois’s eyes widened. “What? You mean like – like romance and going out on dates together and stuff like that? Oh, no no no! Nothing like that, at least not with me and Clark, although I can’t speak for him and Rebecca, and I kinda have a boyfriend, or at least a guy who wants to date me, and – “
“Lois!” Martha laughed and put her hand on the younger woman’s knee. “Honey, it’s okay! I wasn’t trying to pry! And I really didn’t think you and Clark were romantically involved.”
She took a deep breath and made herself relax. “Yeah. Right. Of course. You’re not like my mother.” She closed her eyes, took another deep breath, counted slowly to ten to calm herself, and let it flow out as she pictured her stress floating outward with it.
Then she opened her eyes and saw a cadaver with no skin sitting on the swing next to her rocking chair.
The glass of tea splashed onto the porch unheeded. She cried out in fear and tipped the rocker over backwards in her attempt to get away from the horrid sight, but she stopped falling before she hit the ground. Her hands found wooden planks under them, but she couldn’t see them. She stared past her hands and for a moment she saw earthworms slowly tunneling through the soil. She saw the roots of several small plants searching the ground for water.
She saw a plastic toy soldier buried in the ground. Must have been Clark’s at one time, she thought wildly. I wonder if he knows it’s there?
The tiny part of her mind which was still rational tried to tell her that her x-ray vision had just kicked in, but the rest of her mind was still screaming in fear inside her head. She barely felt hands on her shoulders, and almost heard Martha’s voice calling to her, asking her what was wrong and what she might do to help.
Martha. Lois had seen through Martha’s skin into her body. She had been the skinless cadaver on the swing.
The thought calmed Lois slightly, but she couldn’t function if she couldn’t see. She closed her eyes tightly and collapsed onto the porch. “Clark,” she murmured. “I need Clark.”
“Okay, honey, I’ll go get him. Will you stay here? Will you be okay while I’m gone?”
“Never mind, I’m here.”
*****
Clark leaped up to the porch beside Lois. “What happened to her, Mom?”
“I don’t know! We were sitting here talking and suddenly she cried out and fell over backwards! She’s shaking like a leaf, the poor thing! Do you think she’s having a reaction to what happened this morning?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Clark listened in to the link, but all he could pick up from Lois was fear.
He thought quickly, then made a decision. “Mom, I’m going to take her to the Fortress.”
“Honey, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
He gently maneuvered her into his arms. “I don’t know, but it’s as good as anything else I can come up with right now.”
Martha nodded and tried to help settle Lois in his grasp. “Okay. Please let us know if we can do anything to help.”
“I will, I promise.”
He glanced around quickly, saw no one, and flashed away towards his treetop fortress.
*****
She felt herself go airborne for a brief moment, then felt herself sitting on wood again. That pesky rational part of her mind noted that neither the snap of acceleration nor the deceleration had had any effect on her.
She felt Clark’s strong hands on her shoulders, steadying her. His voice was warm and soft. “You’re safe, Lois. You’re in my Fortress of Solitude. You can open your eyes now.”
The tension began to melt, but she still didn’t want to see living autopsy subjects. “I don’t want to see your insides!”
“You won’t. Your vision gizmo won’t penetrate my skin.”
A single bark of laughter escaped. “My ‘vision gizmo?’”
He began massaging her shoulders. “Sure. That’s what you called it when I used it. The name should work both ways, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I’m not worried about seeing your guts.”
“You wouldn’t, Lois.”
“What about your clothes? I bet I could see through them.”
His hands stopped for a moment, then continued. “I’m behind you. And as powerful and useful and versatile as my vision gizmo is, I’ve never seen anything that was behind me without turning my head.”
She sniffed. “You just want me to look at you in your underwear again.”
He laughed softly. “Only if that’s what you want to do, Lois.”
“I don’t!” She tightened up again. “I don’t want to go around looking at people without their clothes or without their skin or without anything but their bare bones!” She shook her head. “How can you stand it?”
“Simple. I learned to turn it on and off. I don’t look through things unless I want to.” He kept massaging her shoulders and speaking softly. “All you have to do is open your eyes, Lois. There’s nothing in front of you that can hurt you. You won’t fall and I won’t leave you.”
She took a shuddering deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I’m going to open them real fast, take a quick look, and then close them.”
“That’s a good idea. Any time you’re ready.”
She nodded. “Do you want to count to three?”
He chuckled. “I will if you want me to.”
“N-no. I’ll do it.” She lifted her head and counted, “One. Two. Three!”
Her eyes snapped open and then shut again.
And she checked out the image in her memory. It looked for all the world like a peaceful meadow across a small stream. The trees looked normal, the water looked normal, the grass and the ground under it looked normal.
So she opened her eyes again, slowly, ready to snap them shut if the world suddenly turned crazy again.
It hadn’t. She sobbed with relief. Clark gripped her shoulders and rubbed them gently but thoroughly. “I know, Lois, I know. It’ll be all right, I promise.”
Clark’s voice had a calming effect, and his hands made the tension in her neck and shoulders melt away like ice in an oven. How was it that this super man who could bend steel bars with his hands, could fly, could survive horrific explosions, and could command such respect and fear from the bad guys, could also soothe her with his voice and with his touch?
He was such a wonderful friend.
And it was so comforting to lean on him, both figuratively and literally. His body was at once as firm and unyielding as a mountain, and also supple and lithe as any South American anaconda. And she trusted him, not only to do what he was supposed to do, but not to do what he wasn’t supposed to do.
Which made her realize that leaning against her partner and enjoying the feel of his body on hers wasn’t something she was supposed to do. With a start, she sat upright and shifted away from him.
“Are you okay, Lois?”
Funny, he didn’t sound like she’d thought. She’d almost hoped that he’d sound disappointed that she’d moved away. He only sounded concerned, like a good friend should sound.
“I’m fine. But I think we need to have some super-power training sessions before I find my heat vision and set the world on fire.”
>>>Monday, 5:50 PM
“That’s it, Lois! Focus on the target and burn a small hole right through it.”
She frowned in concentration, squinted slightly, and sent a narrow beam of intense heat from her eyes into the log stuck upright in the stream. A thin wisp of smoke floated up from the wood as a tiny hole appeared and deepened.
Just as the hole reached the back of the log, she shut off the heat and the smoke slowly dissipated. Clark smiled at her. “That’s great, Lois. You’ve got it. The right target, the right intensity, the right focus, and perfect control. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
Despite her distaste for obvious flattery, she smiled. “Thanks. Is there anything else I need to work on?”
“Flying, but I think that daylight is a bad time for that. We can try it after dark if you’re up to it.”
She ducked her head and almost smiled. “Actually, I think that’s the coolest part of all of this. Is there anything you can do that we haven’t tested me on?”
“Let’s see. Strength we’ve done.”
“I still say it’s not fair that you’re still stronger than I am.”
“Not by much. And no one else will know that if we don’t tell them.”
She pouted for a moment, then relaxed. “Okay, that’s our secret. What else?”
“You can run like nobody’s business. If you tried out for the next Olympics you’d take every individual racing medal, men’s or women’s events. Or even both.”
“Wouldn’t be fair. And once again, you’re slightly faster than I am.”
“That’s probably gender-based. Besides, you can hear a little better than I can, and your sense of smell is more acute. That’s probably gender-based, too.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe so, but being able to smell a skunk from farther away than you can isn’t what I’d call a real positive.”
He tried to restrain a smile. “You can freeze things with your breath just like I can.”
“That’ll come in handy the next time I run out of ice. Just fill up the trays with water and blow on them.”
“You have to be careful with that one, though. I blew up a glass Coke bottle once by freezing it accidentally.”
“Like that could hurt you.”
The smile faded from his face. “The one thing I can warn you about but can’t teach you is how to take care of the people around you who don’t have super-powers. If my parents had been in the barn with me when that bottle blew up, they might have been injured by the flying glass.”
“Oh.” She nodded in comprehension. “I see what you mean. Oh, that reminds me. You might want to fix a doorknob or two in the house.”
He nodded back. “Already done. Actually, I thought you showed excellent restraint once you realized what was happening.”
“Well. Thanks, Clark.” She glanced at the setting sun. “How long till dinner? I’m a bit hungry.”
“Not long. We’ll head back soon. But unless you want to work some more on your powers, I think we’re done for the day.”
“Huh. Does that mean I’m now an expert user?”
“No. It means you have all the tools I can give you to control them. The actual control part will come with practice.”
She nodded. “Do we have time to go see Bob before dinner?”
He frowned. “No. I think we should leave that conversation for later this evening. Unless, of course, you think we should talk to him sooner.”
“No. Later this evening is good for me.”
He turned to walk away from the stream. “Okay. Why don’t we go back to the house now?”
She didn’t move. He took two steps and turned back to face her. “Lois? Is something wrong?”
She sighed. “Have you noticed anything about your powers that might be odd? Like, today you have half the strength or speed or flying ability that you had yesterday?”
He frowned for a moment. “No. My powers are at full strength.”
“That’s what I thought. So why do I have these powers too? They weren’t split from you. It’s almost as if they were copied somehow.”
Clark’s eyebrows danced a jig. “I see what you mean. I’m still the same, so what happened to change you?”
“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar super-question, isn’t it? And if we don’t know what happened to cause it, how can we undo it?”
He paused. With his voice at its lowest volume, he asked, “Is it so terrible to be like me, Lois?”
“That’s not what I meant. You – you’re Superman! You know what to do when the bad guys do bad guy stuff! You know how to rescue mugging victims and stop burglars and catch bullets and – “
“Lois, you – “
“A-a-and I don’t have any idea how to do any of that and people look up to you and you have a charitable foundation, which, by the way, does lots of good things, but who’d buy an action figure of me – “
He grabbed her shoulders and gave her the tiniest of shakes. “Lois! It’s okay! Really. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
She took a deep breath and he released her. “Okay. Good. Because I have no idea what I want to do yet.”
“No problem, Lois. Please don’t think that I’m trying to train you as my sidekick or something, because I’m not. I don’t want to put any pressure on you at all. What you do with these powers is your decision entirely.”
She looked into his face, and his sincerity shone through his chocolate brown eyes. No wonder Rebecca likes them so much, she thought.
She smiled. “Okay. I’m sorry for the rant back there, but this has been a pretty eventful day.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her back to the house. “Yes, it has.”
*****
Clark sat back and covered a burp. “Excuse me. Dinner was great as usual, Mom. Thanks.”
Lois smiled and nodded her agreement. “Yes, Martha, it was delicious.”
“Thank you, both of you. Did everyone get enough?”
Jonathan patted his stomach and said, “Oh, I suppose I could manage to eat another plateful or two.”
Lois and Clark laughed. Martha smiled and waved at him playfully. “Jonathan Kent, you’d better not put one more thing in your mouth tonight! Your doctor will tan your hide if you don’t drop eleven more pounds before your next appointment.”
Jonathan laughed. “Okay, Martha, okay! Clark, what are your plans for the rest of the evening?”
“Um. Actually, Lois and I were going to have a talk with Bob.”
“Oh? What about?”
Clark glanced at Lois, who gave him a microscopic ‘no’ head shake. “Uh, I think we need to talk about that after Lois and I talk to Bob.”
Jonathan frowned slightly, but didn’t press them. “Okay. I’ve got to be up early in the morning, so I’m going to hit the hay pretty soon. If I don’t see either of you before tomorrow, good night and pleasant dreams.”
Martha started. “Oh!”
Her husband put his hand on her arm. “What is it?”
“I completely forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“To fix Lois a place to sleep tonight. Unless she wants to bunk with Clark.”
Lois tried to cover her stunned astonishment with a coughing fit. Clark merely stared slack-jawed at his mother. With a perfectly straight face, Jonathan said, “Probably not, dear, but you should at least let them make the choice.”
“Oh, no, Martha, I couldn’t – “
“Mom, no, I’ll sleep on the couch – “
“No, Clark, I won’t run you out of – “
“It’s fine, the couch is comfortable enough to – “
“But it’s your bedroom and I wouldn’t – “
“HEY!” yelled Jonathan.
Clark and Lois both fell silent. “That’s better. Clark, you take the couch. Lois gets the bed. And if you’re here tomorrow night, you’ll switch. Is that acceptable to you two paragons of unselfishness?”
Clark felt his mouth twitch. “I think that’s fair, Dad. Good idea.”
“Yes,” Lois added nervously, “that’s a very good idea.”
“Good. Now that the sleeping situation is settled, shouldn’t you two go have your conversation with Bob?”
*****
Lois didn’t speak until they got to the barn door. “I can’t believe what your mother said about me bunking with you.”
“Oh? Am I that unattractive?”
She gave him a ‘look’ and pushed the door open. “You know you’re not, Kent, but I’d hate to confess to Lex that we slept together while we were hiding out here in Kansas.”
He chuckled. “Yes, that would be awkward.”
“About as awkward as you having to explain it to Rebecca.”
He gave the ‘look’ back to her, knowing that she could see it, even in the dark. “Careful, Lois. I think we’re getting close to dangerous ground.”
“If you stay off the subject, so will I. Agreed?”
He sighed. “Agreed.”
“Good.”
He waited until she was almost all the way across the floor to the basement entrance. “Of course, that does eliminate a lot of advantageous taunting on both our parts.”
She stopped beside the palm panel which controlled the door. “I sincerely doubt we’ll run out of conversation in any case.”
“You’re right, as usual.” He palmed the panel and the door began to open.
“Don’t patronize me, Kent.”
Her prickly attitude finally got to him. “And you shouldn’t be so fiddle-winking sensitive, Lane.”
She stood still, watching his face for a moment. He could tell that she was listening to the link. Finally she exhaled noisily. “I’m sorry, Clark. You’re right. I’m on edge, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“No. You shouldn’t.”
“I’ll try not to.” She tentatively put her right hand out towards him. “Still friends?”
The corners of his mouth flickered and he relaxed as he shook her hand softly. “Still friends.”
“Then let’s go see what Bob has to say.”
He gestured for her to precede him, and she stepped off the edge of the opening and floated down to the lower level without touching the stairs. He lifted his eyebrows at her display of her powers, then floated down beside her.
He decided that a little light-hearted teasing was in order. “Do you want me to turn on the light, Lois, or are you going to keep showing off?”
She must have picked up on his tone. “No, turn on the light. That way you won’t trip over anything.”
He flipped on the light switch as Lois stared at the bare 100-watt bulb in the ceiling. “Interesting,” she said. “I can stare directly into the bulb without blinking or flinching.”
“I can, too. And it’s one more thing you’ll have to watch out for. You’ll have to remember that staring directly into things like the noonday sun isn’t something other people can do for any length of time.”
She nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right.” Then she looked at him with compassion in her face. “You’ve had a hard time hiding your abilities, haven’t you?”
“Yes. It was why we created Superman, so I could use my powers openly but not have people run away from me in fear.”
“At least people aren’t scared of Superman.”
“You haven’t seen some of the expressions I have. Most people are in awe of the Superman persona, but some are actually afraid. If I’m in certain parts of the world, I have to spend a good part of my time convincing people that I’m there to help before I can actually help them.” He shook his head. “You’ll see.”
She didn’t say anything, but he picked up through the link a definite ambivalence about her using her powers openly. She turned away and said, “So let’s see if Bob’s busy tonight.”
