Although this is the last part of this story, I'm far from done with these characters. I've started work on a sequel, so be looking out for that coming up in the near future. Thanks as always to Nancy for BRing this thing. Your suggestions made this much better. And just for the sake of tradition, I would like to remind people that flashbacks are outlined in ***.
PART THIRTEEN
“What do you mean she’s not in custody yet?” I shouted angrily into my phone as I paced the lab.
“We’re still verifying the information you gave us,” Carl Porter replied. He was the Metropolis agent I had given all my notes to earlier this evening in the understanding that he would act on them. Obviously, I had been wrong.
“There’s nothing to verify!” I shrieked. “I verified it myself.”
“We have to follow protocol in cases like this, Agent Watson,” he told me with infuriating patience.
“Well, maybe I should’ve followed my own protocol and brought her in myself. Then this whole thing could’ve been avoided.”
“That’s not your job. You’re supposed to get the information we need and then let us deal with her officially. You know that.”
“She’s got my brother! A fellow agent, if you don’t remember.”
“He’s no longer an agent, Kaylie,” he reminded me gently. “And although that doesn’t mean we’re not going to look out for him, it does mean he is free to go wherever he wishes. And he has to be gone for a minimum of twenty-four hours before we can consider him a missing person.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Porter. He wouldn’t just leave. I know that. Someone took him.”
“Prove it to me then,” he replied. “Show me that he was forcibly taken and we’ll look into it.”
I couldn’t believe him. He wanted me to find proof that Jay was attacked and taken from STAR labs, and then just hand it over to some drone in the NIA who would spend the next hundred years ‘verifying my information’? I didn’t even bother to respond. I just shut the phone off and went to join the entire family assembled in the lab. “Any luck yet?” I asked them.
“There’s no sign of a struggle,” Lois told me.
“I can’t find any fingerprints that don’t belong here,” Clark added.
“So we have nothing to go off of,” I concluded sadly. That seemed to be the case as we looked at each other blankly.
“Kaylie, are you sure he didn’t just-” Lois began to suggest gently.
“He wouldn’t leave.” I insisted. “He knew that Jon and I were coming with Ellie.” Why hadn’t I just finished the job I was supposed to do last night instead of letting this happen?
“Ellie’s computer has been tapped,” Jon announced, breaking the silence.
“Really?” Ellie asked as she joined Jon at her workstation.
“More than just her computer,” Jon continued. “The whole STAR labs network is feeding into another.”
“STAR labs is the leading research lab in Metropolis. It makes sense that Fleming tapped into their system to see if anyone might be treating Jay,” I guessed. “She’s probably been watching Ellie’s computer ever since she started working on this. Did you enter anything into the computer after you found out how to bring back Jay’s memories?” I asked Ellie.
“Yes,” she whispered guiltily. “I always enter the data I get right away and store it safely so there’s no chance it’ll go missing.” She gazed woefully at the computer. “It’s my fault they found him.”
“Of course not,” Lois comforted.
“You were doing what you were supposed to do. There’s no way you could’ve known.” I added.
Then Brad and Lucy entered the lab together. “We checked the service entrance,” Brad told us. “The lock on the door has been busted open.”
“Explains why the front desk never saw anything,” Clark commented.
“We called the front desk and asked them to send us the security camera footage from that area,” Lucy said.
“It just popped up on the computer,” Jon told us. “Ellie, you said you left the lab at around 8:15?”
“About then,” she confirmed. Jon skipped through the footage until he found the appropriate time. A blank screen.
“Someone cut the feed?” Lois asked
“Looks like it,” Jon muttered. “It’s like this for twenty minutes solid. That must’ve been when Jay was taken.”
“Try going just before it cut out,” I suggested. Jon complied, and played the footage frame by frame up until it cut out. I had to smile a little when both Clark and Jon removed their glasses simultaneously and leaned closer.
“Hold on a second,” Clark interrupted when we got to the end. “Go back a couple frames and zoom into that corner. As the picture magnified, I was able to see what Clark had noticed.
“That’s Gertrude,” I said, confirming what I had suspected from the beginning. And although this solved the mystery of where Jay had gone, it meant that he was in great danger.
“Fleming must’ve sent her to take care of him before he could tell anyone what he remembered,” Jon added.
“She must’ve taken him to that research lab Winslow talked about,” I guessed. “LuthorCorp wouldn’t be as safe for her.” I looked over at Jon. “Will you help me bust him out?”
“Of course,” he replied as he stood up to take me. I was throwing caution to the wind in running over to this lab, however I was far past the point of caring.
“Actually…” Ellie interrupted hesitantly. “I don’t think that’s where she took him.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well...” She seemed unsure of how to continue. “Jay and I went there already today,” she finally finished, deliberately not making eye contact with any of us.
“What?!” her parents simultaneously exploded.
“Isn’t that the same place that that doctor narrowly escaped from? Why would you do something that risky?” Clark demanded.
“Ellie, how many times have we told you to be more careful?” Lois implored.
Lucy let out a terrific snort, and all heads turned to look at her. “Sorry,” she blushed as she tucked her body against her large husband for protection.
“The information Dr. Winslow gave Kaylie was incomplete,” Ellie defended. “I needed to find out more. And we were really careful!”
“That’s something I haven’t heard before,” Clark muttered sarcastically under his breath.
“Anyway,” she continued, “it wasn’t anything more than a little shack with some fancy equipment. I remember Jay making a comment about how there’s no way they could’ve kept Kaylie and Mom there for any length of time. Apparently, it’s not built like a prison.”
And that’s something that Jay would know. “Where else would they take him?” I wondered.
“The basement of LuthorCorp,” Lois told us authoritatively. “We never got a chance to actually poke around down there.”
I nodded. “That must be it.”
Clark conferred silently with his wife, and then turned to face Jon and me. “We want to come with you,” he said. “You’re going to need some help dealing with Fleming and finding Jay.”
“Thank you,” I replied gratefully. Although I had originally been worried about how Jay would be accepted by the family, it appeared that they did care about him, despite his unexpected arrival.
“I’m coming, too,” Ellie spoke up. I guessed she was still blaming herself for Jay’s disappearance. One look into her eyes stopped me from voicing any objections.
“Lucy and I will be waiting here,” Brad told us.
Although I usually got Jon to fly carefully with me, we couldn’t go fast enough this time. My guts clenched coldly as I thought of what Jay could possibly be going through. The five of us arrived in the bowels of the LuthorCorp building, this time bypassing the front desk altogether. “I think we want to round up Fleming and any of her employees before we go looking for Jay,” I told them. There was no sense in finding my brother only to be caught ourselves.
“Can you take a peek and try to find her?” Lois asked Clark.
“That’s strange…” Clark replied after a moment.
“It looks like a lead lined room over there,” Jon told us.
“And that’s a sound proofing device installed outside of it,” Clark added.
“Obviously someone was expecting us,” Ellie commented as she jogged towards a door down the hall. Any other time, I would’ve questioned her haste, but now I was happy she was working this quickly. We all raced to catch up to her as she twisted the doorknob, forcing it open.
It was an office that we stepped into, and despite the fact that it was in a basement, it was finely decorated with expensive furnishings and thick carpeting. The woman who sat at the desk looked up when we burst in, but to her credit she only seemed surprised for a brief moment before she collected herself again. Although I had never seen her in person, I did recognize her from pictures. She was Sharon Fleming.
Fleming stood up in greeting, proudly showing off the glowing green crystal hanging around her neck from a chain for us to see. I had seen it once before, so I recognized it instantly. Kryptonite. “I have to say that although I thought one of you might show up, I wasn’t expecting the whole family. This is a real treat.” Her voice was pitched low, and she held herself with a natural grace that made her appear younger than she probably was. “By the way, how’s your head feeling, Supernova?”
“I know what you did to my son, Ms. Fleming,” Clark informed her sternly, yet I could see the strain the Kryptonite was starting to have on him. “And you should know that your plan won’t prevent you from facing the consequences of what you did. They’ll… They’ll only make it worse for you.” Although I disliked seeing Jon and his family in discomfort, I knew there were better ways to solve this than running to their aid. Slowly, I began to inch away from the group. Fleming didn’t even glance in my direction.
“Well, I don’t know about that, Superman,” she replied smoothly. “This old friend will certainly help to sway things my way.” She fingered the necklace lovingly.
“Put that away!” Lois begged, viewing the effect the crystal was having on her family.
“I don’t think so,” Fleming replied. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am today. I’m not going to just roll over and give up. Especially after it’s already been taken away from me once before, right, Ms. Lane?”
“What are you talking about?” Lois asked warily.
“I was so close to getting to the top all those years ago. But then you ruined it all. And I will do whatever is necessary to get there again.” She fixed Lois with a deadly stare
Lois frowned, concentrating on Fleming’s face. Then finally, something clicked for Lois. “Mrs. Cox?” She asked incredulously.
Fleming, or Cox, I suppose, laughed triumphantly. “Do you know, I’ve been waiting these past few years for someone to recognize me. You’re the first. And even then, I had to help you along. I guess that just means that the measures I took to disguise myself worked.” It made sense. Jon and I had even brought up the fact that Mrs. Cox would be unable to get anywhere while using a notorious identity. Changing her name and appearance would give her a fresh start, and enable her to get everything that she wanted. She was confident in her win.
Yet she had failed to take me into account. I had gotten as close as I could without drawing attention to myself, so I covered the remaining distance with a run. Tackling her to the ground, I snapped the chain of her necklace and removed the pendant. Lois was quick to join me and took the Kryptonite. She began pawing through the desk, searching for something to put it in. I twisted Cox’s arms behind her back, holding her in place. I was scanning the room to find something to tie her up with when Jon came up beside me and took her off my hands.
“How are you feeling?” I asked anxiously.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “The Kryptonite’s been put away.” He lifted Mrs. Cox up and plopped her in the desk chair. Lois produced a set of handcuffs, and within seconds she was properly restrained.
“Who are you?” she asked me spitefully. “Some kind of next-generation Lois Lane wannabe?”
“Hardly,” Jon replied with smug amusement.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
“Who?” she asked petulantly.
“The agent you kidnapped from STAR labs,” I snapped.
“You’re NIA?” she sneered. “You don’t look it.”
“Just tell me where he is!”
“If you think I’m going to tell you where a prime witness is then you’ve grossly underestimated me.”
“If you won’t cooperate, then I’ll make you tell me!” I started towards her, not really sure what my plan was. All I knew is that I had to get her to tell me where my brother was. But I was prevented from getting any closer to her by the strong hands that wrapped around my arms and held me in my place. “Let me go!” I commanded Jon.
“No,” he spoke softly in my ear. “Kaylie, you’re not thinking clearly and if I let you go, you’re going to do something you regret.” Of course, struggling against him was ridiculous, but that didn’t prevent me from trying.
“She knows where he is!” I spat angrily.
“We’ll find where he is, Kaylie, I promise,” Jon whispered. “It’ll be okay. Please, just trust me. We’ll deal with this together, okay?” Trust. Yeah, I could do that. He had kept me safe from the day I had met him, and I knew he would continue to do so for the rest of our lives together. That’s just what he did. “Trust me, Kaylie,” he whispered again. “We can handle this together.” I stopped fighting him, and instead collapsed against him, hoping desperately that Fleming wouldn’t see this as acting too intimate with Supernova, but at the same time being far past the point of caring.
“I love you,” I whispered in the quietest voice possible. There was no chance of Fleming hearing it, but I knew that Jon would.
“I know,” Jon replied, aware of the audience we had of Cox/Fleming.
I’m not sure that awareness would’ve kept up if we weren’t interrupted by the sudden arrival of the illusive Gertrude Brenner.
Gertrude strode into the room, already talking. “I’ve been working on him for the last twenty minutes and he still won’t-” She stopped in her tracks when she witnessed the scene in the office.
Ellie zipped over to her and grabbed her arms appearing much larger than she actually was. “Where is he?” she demanded coldly.
“Who?” Gertrude asked, looking truly terrified.
“You know who!” Ellie exclaimed, shaking her slightly. And I saw a glimpse of the same terrifying expression I must’ve worn echoed in Ellie’s face.
“Down the hall,” Gertrude squeaked in fear. “The fourth door on the left side.” Ellie dumped her unceremoniously on the floor.
“Superman and I will look after these two,” Lois offered. “You three go find him.”
I sagged with relief when we entered the room that Gertrude had directed us to. Jay was tied in a chair in the corner of the room with his hands cuffed behind him. Although his face was bloody and his hair was hopelessly mussed, he lifted his head when we entered and cracked a small grin.
“Knew it wouldn’t take you long to find me,” he mumbled. Happily, I started towards him, but was stopped by the whirlwind that beat me there.
I blinked and saw Ellie kneeling in front of him, kissing him with more enthusiasm than I thought possible. They broke apart, and I thought Jay would utter some snide comment or something to shoot her down. But he surprised me.
“Not that this doesn’t have interesting possibilities,” he panted. “But do you mind taking care of the…” he shifted in his seat to bring his handcuffs to the front.
“Oh! Yeah, of course.” She reached around and snapped the cuffs off his wrists.
“Much better,” he said. And then he took her in his arms and they were kissing again.
I stood and watched them for a moment, dumbfounded. Earlier today in the lab… so *that’s* what I had been walking in on. Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Early prejudices based on what I had seen before? But Jon didn’t remember that from before… “Did you know about… about this?” I asked him, gesturing wildly at the pair.
“Well, I thought that something…” he trailed off. “But I didn’t know it was *this*.”
“Yeah,” I replied faintly. “Me either.”
* * *
“It wasn’t as if we planned it,” Ellie explained to us sheepishly. Jon and I had personally dumped Fleming and Gertrude off at the NIA, leaving Agent Porter to figure out the paperwork. So now we were all back at STAR labs watching Ellie poke and prod some of the injuries that Jay had incurred during his liaison with Gertrude. And listening to their explanation behind the interesting turn their relationship had taken.
“It was fate,” Jay continued melodramatically. “We had taken one look at each other and knew instantly that we were destined- Ow!”
“Shut it,” Ellie commanded. “I think everyone here knows that’s not how it happened. It was a bit more gradual than that. I learned that although he tries hard, he’s not a complete jerk.”
“And you’re not as controlling as you seem,” he shot back.
“Anyway,” she continued, talking over him, “we didn’t really want to tell anyone yet. Everything was still pretty crazy and we weren’t even sure what was going on between us yet.”
“We weren’t trying to go behind your back,” Jay told us. “But we just wanted to hold off for a bit.”
“I see,” Clark spoke. Yet he was still frowning slightly.
“Dad, we didn’t do anything rash,” Ellie rushed to explain. “We were just… spending time together. Getting to know each other. And we wanted to do more of that before everyone else knew.”
“But I guess that all flew out the window tonight. You just couldn’t control yourself, could you,” Jay teased.
“I was worried about you!” Ellie snapped.
“Yeah, I know.” He replied seriously.
She softened. “We had just gotten your memories back and then you were gone…” Her eyes snapped up to meet her brother’s. “Jon, I almost forgot! We can get your memories back now! I figured out how to do it! I can’t believe I forgot.”
“Well, in your defense, I can be very distracting,” Jay told her flirtatiously.
“Oh, stuff a sock in it, why don’t you?”
* * *
***
Jon sat on the tractor in the barn, feeling self-conscious and nervous. Didn’t people normally do this type of thing in the cemetery or something?
But the place where Jon felt his grandfather’s presence most strongly wasn’t in a field with a cold stone to mark the spot. It was here. Where they had spent countless hours together and where his grandpa had coached him through controlling his developing powers, plus a variety of angst that the more average teenager goes through. Hesitantly, Jon wet his lips and began to speak.
“Hi Grandpa. It’s… it’s me. Jon. I’m sorry I haven’t visited here in a while. But, um… Things just got kind of busy, you know?” He took a shaky breath. “Actually, that’s a lie. I wasn’t too busy. I just didn’t come because I couldn’t stand walking in here and finding it empty. It was probably pretty stupid of me to get this upset. You were sick for a long time before… before it happened. I should have been expecting it, right?” He hastily wiped the corner of his eye and sniffed a little.
“Hey guess what? Supernova is going to get the key to the city. You would’ve been proud of that, wouldn’t you? You always wanted me to be Supernova. Even when I was fighting so hard against it. You knew that it was a part of me. But you never pushed. You just let me come to that conclusion on my own time. And I remember when you first saw me in the suit…” Jon smiled at the memory. His grandfather had looked so proud. “You know, Grandpa, I didn’t mean for things to get so out of control with Supernova. But I just couldn’t bear the thought that you weren’t going to be around any more. And when I was Supernova…
“Did I ever tell you that whenever I use my heat vision, I think back to the first time you taught me how to use it? It’s true. I always see this pan of water sitting on the ground in the barn, and I hear your voice coaching me. And when I’m Supernova, it’s like you’re along for the ride. And that’s how I remember you.
“But I forgot that even though you liked Supernova, you loved me. Jon. And you wouldn’t want me to give up any part of myself for Supernova. You would’ve wanted me to have a life of my own. Go to school, spend time with family, have a job that means something to me. Maybe even get married someday. And I’m going to do all those things, Grandpa, just you watch!
“But I want you to know… That even though Dad’s the one who flies around and rescues people and all that stuff… You were always my Superman. And you always will be.”
***
* * *
“How are you feeling?” I asked Jon as we strolled down the street together. I couldn’t get over how wonderful it felt to be with my fiancé once again. A man who remembered me.
“My memory’s still a little jumbled,” he told me. “But it’s sorting itself out fast enough. For instance,” he told me, his eyes twinkling, “I remember that your favorite ice cream flavor is Maple Walnut and that my mother almost demanded I stop dating you when she found that out.” Grinning at the memory, I tucked in closer to him, running my hand along his back. Which also felt pretty wonderful.
“I’m so happy you’re back,” I murmured into his shoulder.
“Me too,” he agreed. “It was so confusing to be missing all that time. And the worst part of it was that I was missing the best part of my life.”
“Really, Jon?”
“Of course, Kaylie.” He leaned over to kiss me tenderly.
“Jon,” I began hesitantly, “I need to thank you for what you did earlier when we were with Fleming. If you hadn’t stopped me, I don’t know what I would’ve done. But you were right when you said I would’ve regretted it.” I chewed on my lip apprehensively “Do you remember what I said yesterday after you caught me… uh, trying to enter my apartment through the balcony?”
“About how you try to push through your fear all by yourself?”
“Yeah. I was… really scared tonight. But you helped me through that and kept me from making any mistakes. And I just… Well… Thanks. For doing that. I haven’t exactly had the best track record with that kind of thing,” I admitted. “Even with this case as a whole. You said you felt like I was shutting you out when I was working for the NIA. And even though I never meant to, I ended up doing it anyway. And I’m sorry for that, Jon.”
“But now that we’re together, Kaylie, neither of us will have to do that. We can rely on each other to help with our fears,” he told me.
“Let’s see if I can remember that,” I said wryly.
“Don’t worry, I’ll remind you. And of course now, we have the rest of our lives to live together,” he reminded me happily.
“About that,” I said. “I think we should pick a date.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Jon, just think about everything that’s happened to us since we started dating. If we don’t pick a date soon, who knows what will come up? A crazed politician, or a murderous celebrity, or an alien abduction, or…”
“An alien abduction?”
“You never know,” I defended.
“Well, I don’t know about all the other stuff, but I’ll have you know that I am half alien.” He leered comically towards me. “And I’d be more than willing to take you to some far-off distant place any time you please.”
“Only half alien?” I crinkled my nose to feign disappointment. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to take what I can get, huh?”
“The things you have to put up with! But I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Glad to hear it,” I grinned.
“So where to? A nearly deserted beach off the Pacific? Or how about Paris or someplace equally romantic?”
“Home,” I decided.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Take me back to your place. And from there… We’ll see how out of this world things can get.”
