Usual Disclaimers apply..
Thanks to Tahu and GuineaPants
TOC From Part 8:Suddenly there were steps approaching quickly. Help, maybe? Superman wouldn’t want any witnesses, would he? Someone was coming and still Clark didn’t dare move. The wind was chilly, making him shiver slightly, wet as he was. He tried not to hit anything by accident, afraid that he would be found as soon as he made any noise. His attempts were ridiculous, given that Superman could easily find him there. But whoever was approaching didn’t seem to see him. A flash of lightning revealed the shape of a man a couple of yards away from him. Clark watched the stranger and considered getting up to warn the man. To ask him for help. But his mouth was dry and his tongue refused to form any words. His knees were wobbly and fear glued him to the place where he was sitting, half hidden behind a pile of garbage. In the light of a second flash Clark noticed that the man held something in his hand that remarkably resembled a weapon. His heart beat madly at the mere thought of what else this night would have in store for him. Separate Lives or Till Life Do Us Part
Part 9:“So there was someone else in that alley? You’re sure it wasn’t Superman?” Henderson asked, after Clark had told him about the new flashback.
Clark nodded. “I saw him only briefly. He was older than Superman, about the same height, but not as athletic. I’m sure it wasn’t him.”
“Clark said he had a weapon. This man must have shot Superman,” Lois interjected, almost cheerful as the appearance of a mysterious stranger offered her an explanation for the strange happenings in the alley.
“That still doesn’t explain why Mr. Kent’s fingerprints were on the weapon Superman was shot with,” Henderson said simply and studied Clark’s face, thoughtfully, searching for any indication that Clark remembered more than he was ready to admit. As an inspector, Henderson had heard about way too many of these nameless ghosts who had committed all the crimes he was investigating. If they ever decided to show there faces all at the same time, the world would be so overpopulated that people couldn’t but help but to step on each others toes. “Is there anything else you remember?” Henderson finally asked. Perhaps anything we could proove? He let that last thought unsaid, though.
“I’m sorry.” Clark shook his head and again looked at his fingertips. “That’s all.” He thought back to his first flashback, the unfair fight and Superman’s obvious anger about something Clark must have done. He wasn’t being honest, but telling Henderson seemed to Clark as a confession of guilt. Not in his worst dreams could he imagine that he might indeed have killed somebody.
“Maybe you could start finding out who released the *false* information about Clark,” Lois suddenly said. “We can’t work that way.”
“Don’t worry! You won’t have to work that way. I’m sorry, but I have to arrest Kent. A mysterious third man isn’t enough to exculpate him. Besides, it’s in his best interest. The streets are no place for him to stay at the moment,” Henderson replied.
“Are you sure the information is false, Lois?” Clark whispered, his face becoming increasingly pale.
“You didn’t kill Superman, Clark.” Lois stated, her voice soothing, but she didn’t have the impression that her words were of much help for Clark. “Didn’t you just tell us that there was someone else?”
A shot resounded in the dark alley, disrupting its silence like a struck of thunder. His body felt numb as if he was going to pass out any moment. But the heavy thud that followed the terrifying sound wasn’t his body falling to the ground but somebody else’s. The urge to run off fought with the weakness that was overcoming him with adamant force. And the weakness was victorious, embracing him in its gentle darkness where fear and pain were buried in oblivion.
When he opened his eyes again, rain drops were welcoming him back in the land of the living. He shivered with cold, his body stiff and protesting against every move as he cautiously tried to get up. He tried to stretch his fingers, hoping that at least some feeling would return into them. A soft metallic sound indicated that he had been holding something his icy fingers had already forgotten about. Clark blinked and gasped. This couldn’t be. He looked at Henderson who gave him a curious glance. The inspector had obviously noticed that Clark remembered something else, something scary. Now that he wasn’t in that dark alley any more, he recognized the metallic sound for what it was - a weapon falling from his hands as he had gotten up.
The implications of his memory struck Clark like a bolt and left him paralysed. His imagination added what the memory hadn’t included. The mere thought of what he had done made Clark sick to his stomach. A burning ache built up behind his eyes, getting stronger by the moment. He wouldn’t be able to live with this, he thought and as panic overtook the headache only became more intense.
“No, no,” he whispered, blindly staring at the head rest in front of him that was between him and the driver.
“Kent, is there anything else you want to tell me?” Henderson asked gently.
“No, no...” Clark repeated, but he hadn’t even really heard Henderson.
Suddenly, the head rest caught fire. It was a small flame at first that grew steadily. The foamed material underneath the fabric started to emit thick dark smoke that slowly filled the car. Someone screamed and Clark felt an almost violent push against his ribs, causing him to loose his balance. He fell - deeper than he had expected – and hit the street. A slender hand grabbed his arm and dragged him, pulled him up and urged him to run, faster and faster. He followed, stumbling and panting, barely realizing what was happening.
Clark could hear an angry scream behind him that sounded very much like “
Idiots. ”
He continued to run, not having much choice since Lois kept dragging him with her, somehow provided with an unbelievable strength. Clark would have liked to know what had happened to Henderson and his driver. The sudden inexplicable fire scared and worried him. There must have been enough time to escape, at least he hoped so. He couldn’t look back, on the one hand because he needed to concentrate in order not to fall, and on the other hand because Lois had dragged him into a crowd that made it difficult for Clark to discern a certain person among so many people. His last flashback was still keeping him busy, scaring him more than anything else had in the past hours. The fact that his headache was gone didn’t offer him relief in any way.
* * *
“Finally,” Jonathan exclaimed as he saw the familiar logo of the Daily Planet.
Another phone call hadn’t changed anything. The answering machine had again refused to record any new messages. But a newspaper stand had given the Kent’s new hope to finally find out what was going on in Metropolis. If Superman was busy somewhere in the world, the newspapers would know. And if Clark was busy at the Planet they would read his byline in the paper.
“Finally,” Martha echoed and followed her husband to the news stand, excited at the prospect of seeing the familiar names – Lois Lane and Clark Kent.
From the distance she could already see, that Superman was on the front page of every single paper on the news stand, except for the Daily Planet. Martha gasped as she stepped closer. Every newspaper seemed to say the same. She closed her eyes, opened them again, blinked and looked away. Whatever she did, the lines didn’t change. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that her Italian was not good enough to be sure she actually interpreted this right, the pictures on the page were more than telling. Superman was dead.
“No,” she whispered. “No, this can’t be. They have to be wrong.”
“What can’t be, Miss?” a young Italian asked her.
“Superman...” Martha breathed and grabbed for Jonathan to steady herself.
The young man’s face fell and he looked back at her, sadly. “Oh, isn’t this awful? I heard it on the radio. The police found his body a couple of hours ago.”
The world seemed to fade around Martha and she sank against her husband. His strength was the only thing that helped her to remain upright. She didn’t want to believe what she had read, what the young Italian had told her. It was the first time in years that Martha was at the verge of crying. She hadn’t cried as the doctor had told her that she couldn’t get pregnant. She hadn’t been happy about it, but had accepted her fate, knowing that life had already blessed her with a wonderful husband. How could she ask for more? But the thought of losing her son was more than she could bear.
Jonathan paid for an edition of the Daily Planet, although he knew that it wouldn’t be the most recent one. But perhaps it would contain one of Clark’s articles, something that would tell them anything about him, whatever that should be. He didn’t have much hope that the newspaper would serve to soothe Martha, or himself for that matter.
Gently, he dragged her away from the news stand, aware that it would raise suspicion if two Americans mourned Superman like their son. They both needed their privacy, needed to talk about Superman not as the hero, but as the son they had both loved with all their heart.
* * *
Lois couldn’t believe that she had actually made it. It was still a mystery to her how she had managed to escape the police without losing Clark in the process. But he was still with her and nobody seemed to have followed them, so far. Of course the fire had been kind of helpful and she still needed to thank their fate for it. But as conveniently as it had appeared, Lois would have loved to know where it had come from. Not a single head rest she had met in her life had ever *decided* to start burning.
“I hope...” Lois puffed and got a bit slower. “Hen...Henderson... and his.... colleague... made it... out of the car.” She shot a glance back into the direction where they had come from, trying not to run into any other people. The streets around them were awfully busy and the police car was long out of sight. Lois had to stop running, but she kept dragging Clark with her, in order to put more distance between them and Inspector Henderson.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Clark complained, not any longer out of breath after their run. “Henderson did his job; there was no reason to...to...” Lois felt that Clark wanted to go back and she tightened her grip on him.
“Clark, I didn’t set the head rest on fire. I just used the opportunity to get away. They would have...” she turned to him and mouthed. “...arrested you.” She started to walk even faster in case someone had overheard them although she had been careful. Louder, she added. “I couldn’t let them do this, Clark. I need you’re help to find out what is going on here.” She was having side stitches and breathing was becoming rather painful. Her feet were killing her. Lois hadn’t actually expected that she would be on the run in the afternoon. Ignoring her aches, she went on. Giving up was no option. Lois needed to set herself a goal in order to make the best out of this terrible situation.
“But Lois!” Clark protested and slowed down, stopping Lois in her tracks. She stumbled and would have fallen, hadn’t it been for him to steady her. She flashed him an angry look, non-verbally asking Clark what had gotten into him. “This is wrong!” he said, underlining his words with an adjuring gesture. “I simply can’t...” he continued and then, lowering his voice, he mouthed. “...run away like this.”
“We’ll discuss this later,” Lois replied firmly and tried to turn her back on Clark in order to go on. But he held her in a firm grasp, unwilling to let her go.
“Lois, I beg you...” He whispered, and anxiously watched the people around him, fearing that anyone thought he would hurt Lois.
With a blow against his hands, Lois disentangled from his grip. “We’ll discuss this later!” she insisted and grabbed his sleeves. “And now come on!”
Lois had no more than a vague idea where they actually were. However, they couldn’t possibly be farther away from the city hall. But attending the press conference was no option right now, anyway. Perry would be disappointed, certainly fuming, because there would be no Planet reporter covering the conference. Or would there? He couldn’t have missed the turmoil in the entry hall, much less Clark being arrested. There would be someone else, taking their places, someone...
Lois realized that she was distancing herself again, doing her best to keep herself from thinking about what she had just learned. Clark was the major suspect for killing Superman. Not in her worst nightmares could Lois imagine that he would do something like this. As for Superman, she couldn’t imagine that he would attack someone either. So what was this all about?
She went on, desperately searching for a place that was less crowded. They needed to talk privately; Lois would make Clark tell her everything, she vowed. He followed her, stumbling now and again. He obviously paid no attention to their way, lost in thoughts and certainly deeply confused. Finally there was a small alley with several dust bins and more than enough places to hide. Lois dragged Clark with her.
“You’re pale as a ghost.” Lois said a moment later, summing up the fear, the trembling lips and the flood of different emotions she saw on Clark’s face. “There is something you didn’t tell Henderson, isn’t there?” she asked. Little was left of the defences Clark usually covered his secrets with. And he didn’t even need to nod for her to know that her not so wild guess had hit the bull’s eye.
“I’ll have to turn myself in, Lois,” Clark replied hoarsely. “I appreciate that you believe in my innocence. But I know now that this is wrong.” His voice broke and he harrumphed, once, twice and a third time before he was able to continue, his voice barely above a whisper. “I killed Superman.”
Lois could see him flinch as he heard himself say what he considered to be the brutal truth. He was pacing around, only her firm grip on his arm keeping him from running away. He barely looked at her, and when he did, he seemed to plea with her to strike him dead, to make his nightmare end. The sight of him was pitiful.
“Oh, come on, Clark. You know, you didn’t,” Lois replied almost furiously. She was at the verge of despair because she hadn’t been able to convince him otherwise. She wondered how Clark could even imagine that he should have something like that, but after all, he didn’t know himself like she did. “Hey, you remembered that third man, didn’t you?” Suddenly she felt an incredible joy at that thought. His memory was quite obviously coming back to him. Until right now she hadn’t really had the time to think about the meaning of this. Everything was going to be all right again soon. And Clark would realize this too when the first shock had worn off.
But he shook his head, sadly. “If only it were so easy,” he muttered, hopelessly depressed.
He still didn’t look up, as if he didn’t dare face her, as if there was something evil he had done. It dawned on Lois that whatever else he remembered had changed his attitude.
“I killed him,” Clark insisted. “I saw myself pointing the gun at him, I saw him dying there. Because of me.”
Lois stared at Clark, blindly. It was as if the waves of a giant ocean would drown her, would bury her in their depths. She couldn’t take in the meaning of his words, couldn’t even consider that he might be telling the truth. This was querying the two important truths she had been relying on. Neither Clark nor Superman would hurt anyone. Not by any means if there would have been any way to handle the situation differently.
Concerning Clark, Lois couldn’t imagine that he might have pulled a trigger for any other reason than self-defence. But this could only mean that Superman had acted cruel. This absolutely wasn’t like him.
“He died because of me... It was my fault... I...” Clark ran his hand through his hair and started to pace around, restlessly. “I...” He told her, haltingly, about his last flashback. Lois could see self-contempt written all over his face. A rush of sympathy filled her as she looked at the man she loved. No matter what he told her, Lois couldn’t imagine that Clark would be deliberately cruel. “Can’t you see what this means, Lois?” he asked, conscious-smitten. “How could I stand here and wait for justice to win over? How could I go on living with what I’ve done? I...I....” He looked around as if the alley would hold a solution. By the expression on his face, Lois could tell that she wouldn’t like any of the ideas that could possibly be on his mind.
“Clark, please sit down and...” Lois helplessly said, but he didn’t even hear her. Instead, he was about to stop pacing around and Lois knew that he would run away, if only she let him. “Clark!” she shouted impatiently and pressed him against a near wall. “Clark, you didn’t...”
“Let go of me, Lois. I don’t want to hurt you!” he warned her, looking at her pleadingly. “Please, Lois, don’t make yourself unhappy, forget about me and...” Clark’s voice broke.
Lois saw him swallow and his eyes got wet, but he did not cry. They struggled with each other in silence and for a moment it looked like Clark would just push Lois off and get away from her and all his chances of exculpation. The prospect of losing him to a system, she ultimately did not trust, was enough to activate her last reserves. Against all odds, Lois was beginning to win over. What had started out as an exertive and hopeless fight was getting increasingly easier. Finally, keeping him pressed against the wall was no more difficult than stealing a blind man’s money.
Clark hung his head in defeat and collapsed on the floor. The emotional turmoil left him drained and depressed. Knowing that he would not run away, Lois let go of him. Her heart clenched in her chest painfully, as she listened to his murmurs of self-reproach. His hands were balled into fists and he hit his head in utter despair.
Lois wasn’t sure how he would handle it when she embraced him in this very moment. But before she had actually managed to think it through, he was in her arms. Kneeling in the garbage beside him, she pressed Clark against her body and frantically searched for the right words to soothe him.
“Clark, Clark, don’t you see it? You don’t remember that you actually pulled the trigger,” she said softly. “And you didn’t take that weapon with you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She felt that he hadn’t done it. If Lois had ever been sure about something, it was that. It might be intuition; a gut feeling that she knew didn’t betray her this time. No matter what Clark thought he remembered, no matter what it was that he usually kept from her, Lois was absolutely certain he hadn’t killed Superman. That sudden clarity scared her and she vowed to herself to be careful trusting her instincts.
“I used it...” Clark replied miserably. She felt that he wanted to pull away from her again. She knew he would leave if only she let him. Strangely that infuriated her more than the thought that he might have killed Superman.
“You’re going to stay,” she stated almost harshly as she felt him move once more. “You’re going to help me solve this mystery!”
“Isn’t it already solved?” Clark asked, staring back at her, blankly. It wasn’t really a question.
“No, it isn’t,” Lois said firmly, the anger within her increasing.
She couldn’t stand the thought that he would be ready to give up – give up hope and himself when Lois still believed in him. It made her mad to an extent that she was about to slap him, beat him senseless for wanting to leave her alone like this. And really, she saw that her hands were balled to fists and before she had consciously decided to do it, she was hammering her fists against his chest - strong enough to hurt him. She heard him moan in protest, but that didn’t stop her.
“You stupid...Do you really think you’re the only one who feels guilty?” she spat. “Hadn’t it been for me, Superman probably wouldn’t have come up to you in the first place, he wouldn’t have hurt you. He wouldn’t...” Lois gasped for air preparing for what she was going to say next. “I made him mad at you by telling him that I didn’t want him. I said that I preferred you over him. He must have attacked you out of jealousy, though I don’t know what could have made him react this way. If one of us is responsible, it’s me! You don’t know yourself like I do, Clark. You can’t have done it.”
For a moment they were looking at each other and neither of them knew what to say. At least, by the look of him, Clark wasn’t giving himself such a hard time anymore. Lois mind whirled, trying to find an explanation that would suit her gut feeling as well as what she knew about Superman. And suddenly the answer came to her, just like that. She could have sworn that she had thought about it earlier, but had put that idea aside. Red Kryptonite!
Lois felt positively giddy. Her momentarily cluelessness had all of the sudden become a plan. She grabbed Clark’s sleeves and pulled him with her, heading for the nearest taxi stand.
* * *
The phone rang, it had to. Jonathan waited, his usual patience seriously stressed. But even after the tenth time no one had picked up the receiver at the other end of the line. He let the telephone ring for the eleventh and then the twelfth time.
“This is Clark Kent.” Jonathan suddenly heard and felt overwhelmed with joy.
“Clark, I...”
“I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now. Please leave a massage after the beep and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.” A beep resounded in Jonathan’s ears and with a sigh Jonathan hung up.
Martha’s hopes had been high for a moment, but then it dawned on her that he had made the same mistake that she had made at least a thousand times before him. It had just been the answering machine and not a sign of their son.
“Martha, I need to know this now. I can’t wait any longer,” Jonathan said. “Secret or not, I can’t stand not knowing what has happened to my son. “I’ll call Perry White now,” he decided and again he picked up the phone, typing in the numbers. Again he waited for someone to take his call, this time much more successful. Only moments later someone answered the phone, his voice sounding distant.
“Perry White.”
to be continued...
