Okay, part three is done! Yay! Unfortunately, I won't be able to post part four until Sunday or Monday. I leave for the weekend to spend the holidays with family, and I won't have net connection! Woe!
Anyhoo, thanks again to LaraMoon and Saskia for the Beta! And to CapeFetish for kicking my butt when I went 'Woe I cannot type this anymore be gone with you!'
And also, I realize that a name below may sound a bit familiar, but I could not for the life of me figure out a last name that went along with it better... sheesh.
***
Part Three
Inspector Bill Henderson was, as usual, working late.
Unlike usual, however, he was actually missing the assistance of the press. In particular, the assistance of a generally annoying woman and her more congenial partner.
Of course, it was not as though he could go up to Lane and ask her whose body it was that rested in a grave with her name on it. Or rather, which used to rest there.
The morgue, as always, smelled of death and formaldehyde. He tried not to look too closely at the exhumed body resting on the large metal table in the center of the room. It wasn’t as though his lunch threatened to evacuate his stomach at the sight of dead people; he saw more horror in his line of work than any one man ought to. Instead, it was the eerie resemblance to the award winning reporter that made him queasy, even after all this time buried in the ground.
“I don’t get it,” the mortician said as she walked around the table. “Mr. Kent himself ID’d the body. How would he not realize that she wasn’t actually his wife?”
“No clue, Moira,” Henderson replied as he lifted the flap to a case file, studiously avoiding the table just to the right of him. “I take it there’s too much decay to run fingerprints, right?”
Moira Taggert nodded, sighing behind her cloth mask. “There are other tests, though. I’ve gathered some samples for DNA and I’ve ordered to have a dental record comparison, but the results won’t be back in for a few weeks at least.”
“Weeks? Why not sooner?”
“There’s a backlog, Bill. For some reason, crime rates have gone up. Murder’s at an all time high, especially in Metropolis.”
Henderson grunted. He knew, as did Moira, the reason why crime was on an up rise. Without the big boy in blue, the criminals were having a celebration at the expense of everyone. While it gave him some great overtime, it also made him realize just how dependent everyone had become on the Man of Steel.
“You know, Moira,” he began slowly. “If they could be done sooner, we could probably get a message to Superman that Lois is alive. And if she is alive, it may be incentive for him to come out of retirement.”
“Bill Henderson! Are you implying that I use some connections to place this investigation before others that have been waiting weeks to go through?” She placed her hands on her hips and gave him an insulted glare.
“Of course,” he replied.
Moira grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
-
Martha waited nervously for the nurse to move out of her way. All the way here, on the plane and in the cab, she had been in a cloud of numbness. She hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up, hadn’t wanted to imagine the possibility that her daughter-in-law was indeed alive. However, now that she was here, she couldn’t help the fluttering of anticipation that rose in her chest. Her palms were sweating, her mind was racing.
Finally, she entered the small room and her doubts were erased. It was not only that the woman looked like her, but the way she held herself was undeniable and heartbreakingly familiar.
She had been told what to expect, about the amnesia Lois was once again suffering from, but her heart broke a little when the love of her son’s life looked curiously at her with the eyes of a stranger.
“Who is she?” Martha heard her whisper to Perry.
“That’s your mother-in-law, darlin’.”
-
Clark stared up at the ceiling, eyes wandering over the now-familiar patterns in the spackle. He knew, from experience, that if he looked at this one particular spot just right, and allowed his eyes to blur just so, he could almost make out a shape that vaguely resembled the globe that rested above the doors of The Daily Planet.
Several hours rolled by, or maybe it was just a few minutes, before he decided to move again. His mother had warned him on more than one occasion that if he stayed in one position for too long he would develop bed sores. He didn’t really care about that at the moment, but he figured that if he did stay lying still for too long things would catch up with him.
Right now, he was enjoying the comfortable haze of utter nothingness.
Logically, he understood that some people would view his hiding, both from the world and from himself, as being pathetic. However, that side of him was currently being squashed along with almost everything else that he should be feeling.
The phone rang downstairs, which he ignored. His father was home, so the incessant noise was sure to stop at any moment. It kept ringing, though, long after the point where the machine should pick up.
Annoyed at the interruption of his safe cocoon, he slowly got up and reached for the door handle. As soon as he turned the knob, the ringing finally stopped. Shrugging, he turned back towards his bed.
The phone began to ring again before his knee bumped against the edge of the mattress.
Now frustrated, he spun back around and yanked the door open.
Instead of the hallway, he found himself in a place that he desperately tried to keep himself from remembering.
And in front of him stood Lois Lane.
He found his body moving of its own accord, slowly, as he pulled her towards him. Relief washed through him as he placed his lips on hers, grateful to find her alive. When he found the note, written in her own shaky handwriting, he had feared that whoever had taken her had planned on harming her.
There was something off, though. A movement of her body that did not feel right, the taste of her lips against his. Pulling away, he looked at her in confusion as she brushed away a strand of hair with her left hand.
“You’re-” Before he could finish his thought, his hands were at her throat, squeezing.
Her eyes went wide as she began to choke, eyes bulging as her lips began to turn blue.
It was then that he realized his hands were at his sides, and that there was someone else in the room-
Clark bolted awake with a scream before he crashed down onto the bed. His body was covered in sweat.
Shakily, he got up from the bed and ran his hand through his hair, trying to think. A flash of gold caught his eye, and he brought his hand back down to his line of sight.
The dimming light of the setting sun caused the wedding band to glow. Confused, he yanked it off and threw it down onto the comforter.
It was then that he noticed the dried mud streaked across the old blanket.
Looking down, he saw it streaked across his clothes.
-
“So, I heard that I’m marr – that your son and I are-” Lois cut herself off with a sigh, not sure how to continue.
Perry and Jimmy had both excused themselves from the room shortly after the arrival of this Martha Kent. She had tried to get them to stay, pleading as discretely as she could to not leave her alone with this woman who was virtually a stranger to her, but they had instead made their excuses to leave with a promise to be back.
“Yes,dear, you are,” Martha replied to the unfinished question kindly. Then, to Lois’ utter terror, the woman’s face crumpled slightly as her eyes took on a bright sheen of tears. To add to the uneasy moment, the older woman placed a loving hand over her own. “You cannot begin to understand how good it is to see you, honey.”
The emotion on her mother-in-law’s face, coupled with the eerily comforting weight of the warm hand over her own, set off an uncomfortable feeling in Lois. Abruptly she stood up and walked across the room, trying to grasp the fact that this woman was supposedly related to her through marriage. She stood silently for a moment before all the confusion seemed to bubble up her throat and spew out her mouth in an almost irrepressible tirade.
“How? When? Why? Where? I mean, I just met him, nice guy, too nice, and Perry says he’s not here because he doesn’t know, but even if he didn’t know, why couldn’t anyone tell him? And how on earth did we get from a guy who seems like he’ll shape up to be a semi-decent reporter one day to married in some sort of matrimonial bliss the next.” She stood there, gesticulating wildly with her hands, trying to sort through everything.
“A lot has changed in the last five years, Lois. Both for you, and for Clark.” Martha’s voice was calm and gentle, and for a moment Lois could easily picture Clark being raised by this woman.
“So people keep telling me,” she grumbled. Lois crossed her arms in front of her chest and glanced over at the still sitting woman. “I have a question for you, Mrs. Kent.”
“Martha, dear. Call me Martha.”
At the offer, Lois fidgeted for a moment, not entirely sure whether she felt comfortable with the woman’s offer. “If Clark is as in ‘love’ with me as everyone keeps insisting, then why isn’t he here? Isn’t that a part of what the whole married thing is about? Or so I hear?” She hated the resentment that she heard in her own voice.
Martha sighed wearily. “He doesn’t know about you yet.”
“Why not?” Incredulous, Lois found herself beginning to pace. “Shouldn’t he have been the first person that they called? Why hasn’t anyone told him?”
Guiltily, Martha held up a hand to stop the tirade. “I’m afraid that was my doing.” Ignoring Lois’ indignant expression, she pressed further. “You have to understand, dear, that when he found you dead, or, who he thought was you dead, a part of him seemed to go along with you. He loved you so much, and his heart just seemed to shatter before our eyes. If I had told him that it was possible that you were still alive, to have that hope come alive in him again, and it had turned out that it wasn’t you…” Martha gave a small self deprecating smile. “I don’t think my boy would have survived having his heart utterly destroyed.”
Lois found her legs were suddenly hollow and found the nearest chair to sit in. It was an alien thought to her, to be loved so much by someone that her supposed death could absolutely destroy them. She wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted that kind of immense responsibility. Especially not to someone that she had treated the way she did. “But I was awful to him,” she admitted quietly.
To her surprise, Martha laughed. “Lois, honey, you weren’t horrible. He said you were fiery. It’s a part of what made him fall for you.”
“It must have taken him a while to get there.”
Again the other woman surprised her by shaking her head, smiling brightly. “He loved you from the beginning. Of course, it took you awhile to see it, partially because of Superman.”
Caught off guard, Lois snorted loudly through her nose at the completely ridiculous name. “Super who?”
-
Fortunately, Lois discovered that she had certainly not lost her edge. Getting past the nurses had been surprisingly easy, and she really needed a breath of fresh air; a chance to clear her mind.
Everything appeared to be exactly the way she remembered, but there were certain things that just felt off. At first, she couldn’t quite grasp what it was, but then she found herself staring at Lex Towers. It was then that she realized that the name on the building, which had once shone like a beacon in the night sky, was now something completely different. Racking her brain, Lois was certain that she had never heard of SAS Towers.
She sighed, remembering what Martha had said about the downfall of Luthor. She also remembered stories about a strange man with otherworldly abilities and a name that she herself had apparently chosen.
Her mother-in-law – and Lois was still getting used to the idea of having one of those, especially one that she seemed to get along with – had stayed with Lois until the nurses had come and said that visiting hours had ended almost an hour before. During that time, the woman had shared with Lois stories about the past five years, most about her husband, some about Superman, and all completely absurd. Not in the way that they weren’t exactly true, but how they all had happened to her. Growing up, the last thing on her mind had been falling in love, let alone getting married.
There seemed to have been something that Martha wasn’t saying, though. Every time the super hero would come up, Lois would catch a glint in her eye, and there was a way that the older woman looked that screamed to the reporter in Lois that she wasn’t getting the whole story. However, when she would ask about it, Martha deftly changed the subject.
And now, everything was just swirling beneath the surface, screaming to somehow be released. It had finally gotten to the point where she had to escape the confines of the hospital, if only for awhile. The brisk air of the night helped to clear her mind, and the familiar smells of the still bustling city helped to calm her jittery nerves.
She rounded the corner at the next street light, casually taking in the sight of a coffee shop through a large pane glass. Lois tried to ignore the couple in the far booth, obviously engrossed in one another, and blushed at the thought that she was intruding on a private moment. Which, of course, felt odd to her. She did not blush at these sights. Usually, if nothing else, they annoyed her to no end. What sort of sane woman would allow her life to be completely overshadowed by that of a man?
Apparently, you did, an annoying voice whispered in her mind. She swatted her hand near her ear to brush the voice away, finding the comment to be unfair. From what she had learned from Martha, Clark had certainly not taken over her life. Why would she tell you any different? That voice asked, sneering. He is, after all, her beloved son. Wouldn’t it make sense that she would try to protect him?
Growling at herself, Lois spun on her heel in an attempt to escape the voice. However, in doing so, she ran right into a person who had been walking behind her. Too close, really, to be considered polite.
“May I help you?” she asked, suddenly on the defensive.
The man leered down at her. “I think you can, actually.” Grabbing her by the arm, he tried to pull her into an alleyway.
Not in the mood to be mugged, or worse, by this low-life creep, Lois wrenched her arm back. His grip did not loosen.
The frustration that she had been feeling ever since waking up at the hospital seemed to snap all at once. “Let. Go. Of. Me!” she screamed, more from rage than from fear. She twisted herself so that she could elbow the goon in the solar plexus, then stomped down hard before bringing her foot up sharply between his legs. As a final measure, she brought the heel of her palm up hard towards his nose, feeling a rather satisfying crunch beneath her hand.
As he crumbled, Lois kicked him once in the stomach for good measure. Then, realizing just how good that felt, she kicked him again before huffing down at him.
“I think he’s been properly subdued, Ma’am.” A soft voice drifted towards her from behind, and she spun to face the newcomer. He was silhouetted by the light shining in through the mouth of the alley, but she could tell from where she stood that he seemed to favor the color black and ridiculously tight clothes.
“Yeah, well, I was just making sure he wouldn’t try it again,” she replied icily, warning him with her voice not to attempt the same.
She heard a slight intake of breath before he slowly moved towards her. “Who are you?” he demanded, accusingly, as he drew near.
“I could ask you the same question.” As much as she would have loved her voice to remain steady and calm, she could hear the nervous waver.
An instant later, the gap between them was swallowed up by an unknown source, and he had her pressed against the wall. His large hands were like two metal vices against her upper arms, and she could tell that she would have bruises tomorrow.
Lois felt the fear fluttering in her chest as her heart began to race wildly. This statue of a man, still shrouded in darkness, created by the light behind him, seemed immovable.
“Who are you?” he demanded again, though this time she could detect a hint of desperation in his voice. “Who hired you? Are you a trick? Are you real?”
It was just her luck that, on her first night out, she would run into a fellow escapee of a hospital. Mental ward, if she wasn’t mistaking. “Listen, buddy,” she growled as she brought her knee up sharply. He didn’t seem to notice her attack on his more tender region, and that, more than his hands, scared her. Still, she tried to act braver than she felt. “I don’t know who you are, or where you come from, but that does not give you the right to man-handle me. Now let go of my arms before you tear them off!”
His hands were off of her before she could even finish the sentence, and she took a moment to rub at her sore limbs. She was still surrounded by him, unable to flee, trapped in a situation that she really did not care to be in. Clearing her throat, she glared up to where his eyes almost seemed to glow in the absent light. “Now, if you will be so kind as to let me go, I promise I won’t kick your ass.”
He laughed softly, a shaking sound that barely reached her ears, and were it not for the gentle puff of warm air against her skin she would have believed to have imagined it. It was then that she noticed his shallow breaths and belatedly realized that his hands had been shaking when they had gripped her. “You…” he trailed off before brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek.
Lois was frozen, not sure if she should try to flee. Everything in her screamed to try, to run away, but her feet remained firmly planted on the ground. Even her hands hung limply at her sides.
She was still rooted in the same spot when he bent in to brush his lips against hers. It was soft, an ephemeral whisper before it was suddenly over. He pulled back, and she could just scarcely make out the bewildered expression on his face.
Then, without warning, his lips were devouring hers with a hunger that shook her to the core.
She had been kissed before when she didn’t want to be, and it was usually an awkward thing, all sloppy and wrong. But this, the desperation and familiarity with which he was attacking her, was more disturbing than any of those times. More troubling than that was the undeniable sense that if this continued, she would respond just as ardently.
Lois brought her hands up to the smooth, almost silky material covering his chest before giving a harsh shove. Her fingers scraped against the edges of a coarse design as he finally stumbled back.
Affronted, and finally free, she brought her hand back before delivering a resounding slap against the side of his face. She was almost surprised when he actually stumbled back.
“It's? not… it can’t…” he said in a frenetic whisper, gasping for breath. Then he growled, and she could feel the anger in his glare.
Then he was gone, and Lois was left alone in the alleyway, gasping for breath.
A short time later, she ran all the way back to the hospital.
-end Part Three
