Thanks again to Kathy! I'm also up to 12 on BIII so...
Last time:
She took a sip of the wine she'd picked up as she'd walked off the dance floor, wondering where Clark was.
He was nowhere to be seen the rest of the night.
She pasted a smile on her face. Nate escorted her around the room, offering one glib excuse after another for Clark's sudden disappearance and introducing her to some of Metropolis' elite. She'd never expected to rub elbows with the likes of Arthur Chow or Tim and Amber Lake.
After several hours, she excused herself. Most of the other guests were gone, Sam and Ellen were talking to another couple and Nate had gone to the kitchen, she thought.
Her feet hurt as she climbed one of the main staircases to her room. She was sure there was a shorter, more efficient way, but she didn't know what it was.
With a final sigh, she headed into her room to call it a night.
*~*17*~*Clark sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped.
He wasn't sure if this was the right place for him to be but he didn't want to be alone and he didn't know where else to go.
The door opened behind him, but the light didn't come on. For that he was grateful.
"Clark?" He could hear the surprise in her voice as Lois shut the door behind her but he still didn't move.
He could hear her walking into the bathroom and a few clinking sounds followed by two thunks.
"My feet are *killing* me," she called from the bathroom. "Where've you been anyway? You disappeared and no one knew where you were. You weren't supposed to abandon me, you know. Did you hear something? A rescue?" she asked, walking back out and towards him. She tipped his chin up so she could see him. "Clark, what's wrong?"
He fiddled with the end of his cape as she sat next to him. "It was bad," he finally said.
Her arm wrapped around his back and her head rested on his shoulder. "Tell me about it?" she asked softly.
"I heard the bulletin. Not the crash or the sirens. There was a three-car pileup on the turnpike near the state line. I listened to the dispatch and there were no major injuries or anything so I figured the authorities could handle it. It's a fairly rural area out there and it took the highway patrol a while to get things moving and traffic was backed up about a mile or so – maybe a bit further. There are no exits for about twenty miles before the accident so there's no way for anyone to get off and you can't cross the median there to turn around."
He stared at the red material between his fingers. "The traffic was just sitting there. It was at a complete standstill by the time the big rig ran over at least three cars. He didn't even touch his brakes. He just ran over the top of three cars and knocked into other cars which knocked into other cars. One guy saw it happening in his review mirror and threw his car into drive and yanked the wheel to the side and when he got hit he moved to the shoulder and not into the car in front of him."
He took a deep shuddering breath. "I've seen a lot of things since I became Superman, but I think this was one of the worst. The cars were crumpled underneath the semi. It was almost like a tornado hit. At least one of the cars was absolutely unrecognizable as anything but a mass of metal. I got there as fast as I could when I heard that bulletin. I scanned the vehicles near the truck but there was nothing I could do for any of them – not then. If I'd been there in time to stop the truck maybe but not by then. There were another dozen people in other cars hurt, needing medical attention. The closest hospital actually wasn't even in New Troy. The wreckers had to take a forty-five minute detour through two other states to get there."
He was avoiding it. He knew he was. He didn't want to tell her the worst part, but he also knew he had to.
"We got the rest of those folks to the hospital or paramedics," he told her. "Then we turned our attention to the truck and the cars underneath. There were sixteen people total. One car had an elderly couple and their two grandkids in it. It wasn't too bad as far as the grisly factor went."
He stopped.
"The others were worse?" she finally asked softly.
He nodded. "The second car he hit was a family. Mom, Dad, three kids in an SUV. They were all crushed. All of them – all the ones who died – had to have died instantly or nearly so."
He wasn't sure when she'd moved but she was sitting behind him, one leg tucked underneath her, the other leg alongside his. He barely noticed how far up her leg the skirt had hiked. Her arms were wrapped around him and her cheek rested on his back.
"The first one was the worst?"
He nodded. "The car was just a mangled pile of metal. It was a minivan. It was so hard to tell where they were, who they were, how many of them there were. By the time it was all said and done, we think Mom was turned around in her seat and probably saw it coming. The car was stopped. Traffic was stopped. There was no real reason for her to think that it wasn't safe to turn around. The kids..."
"How many?" she prompted.
"Five. The oldest was probably only seven or eight. A boy. The little girl was about five. Another boy of three and twin baby girls. Still in their car seats. It was two and a half hours before I even realized the oldest boy was there. I thought we'd gotten everyone out. I could have moved the truck much sooner, but we waited until the wreckers got there to help and it shifted in the meantime and crushed that part even further. One of the troopers found the license plate and found the family. They were contacting the next of kin and that was when they found out there was probably one more person in the vehicle and I went to look again."
Her arms tightened around him and he found himself linking his fingers with hers, drawing strength from her.
His mind was replaying everything over and over. There was nothing he could have done once he arrived. None of the other victims were in life-threatening condition. None of the three other accidents in the west-bound lanes – caused by rubbernecking – were much more than fender benders though he'd helped clear those off, too.
She stood and moved in front of him, stepping in between his legs and wrapping her arms around him and drawing him to her. His arms went around her waist, pulling her even closer as the tears began to fall.
"I should have been there," he said after long minutes in her arms.
"What?"
"I should have been there in time to stop the truck. I should have responded to the first accident," he said with more conviction.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I was here. Because I didn't know that it had closed the turnpike. Because I was dancing with you."
She moved back from him and when he looked up, her eyes were flashing fire.
"Don't you dare," she hissed. "Don't you dare blame yourself or me or anyone else. The *only* person at fault is that truck driver and then only if he didn't have some kind of unpreventable mechanical failure. You are *not* pinning this on you or me or your grandfather for having a fundraiser in the first place."
"I still should have gone."
"Clark, you are entitled to a life. Or are you going to feel guilty every time you miss some accident or something?"
He didn't respond.
"If we're on our honeymoon, on our wedding night and we're going to *really* bunk together for the first time and you hear something that the authorities should be able to handle and you turn off your hearing and you focus on me and on being together and making love and then later find out that it turned out worse than you thought, are you going to blame yourself for that? Because if you are, this isn't going to work. You are entitled to have a life, to choose – for whatever reason – not to respond to emergencies and that's okay. Otherwise you will never have a vacation or a moment's peace as long as you live. And if it's not okay for you not to respond then Clark Lane needs to disappear into the ether and you should go be Superman full time because that's ridiculous. You already don't respond to everything you *could* because you have a life and a job and a family who loves you and if that's not okay then that's a decision you have to make. It's the wrong one, but only you can make it."
*****
TBC
One article about the accident this is based on Another article
