Firstly, this fic has nothing to do with the Weekend in Smallville series. I tried - honestly I did - to drag my muse away from this story, but failed dismally.
Secondly, I'm doing this story differently. Every other time, I've posted Part 1 only after the entire fic is written. This isn't finished yet, but I do have a buffer.
Therefore I can make no promises regarding posting schedules, but I'll try for two parts a week.
Thirdly - the very premise upon which this fic is based is highly improbable. I hope you can get past that and still enjoy.
Lastly ... to my BR extraordinaire, IolantheAlias ... my sincere appreciation for your wonderful efforts in improving this story.
AWAKEN MY HEART
Rating - PG 13
Disclaimer - Some characters, themes etc are not mine.
Warning - there is a slightly gruesome bit in Part 1 - but it is resolved very quickly.
Prologue
Lois Lane was excited.
More excited than the day she’d landed her job at the Daily Planet.
More excited than the night she’d won her first Kerth.
More excited than the moment she’d known she had brought down Lex Luthor.
Eight months of exhaustive tests, nerve-racking interviews and interminable submissions had come to this.
There was one remaining vacancy on EPRAD’s Mission To Mars – a vacancy to be filled by a reporter.
From the moment she had heard, Lois’s life had been wholly devoted to ensuring she would be the reporter on that spaceship. Her focus had been unwavering, her drive relentless and her resolve uncompromising.
The head honcho of EPRAD walked to the microphone and the tension in Lois’s stomach spiralled upwards, squeezing the air from her lungs.
He scanned the full one hundred, eighty degrees of the crowd before him, obviously relishing his moment in the spotlight. “Thank you,” he said. He cleared his throat. “EPRAD’s Mission To Mars is the result of many years of ...“
Lois tuned out. Her brain cells were already saturated with every single aspect of the Mission To Mars. She knew everything there was to know. Everything except the one detail that mattered.
A swell of anticipation rippled through the gathered crowd and Lois’s attention leapt back to the man with the microphone.
“It is my great pleasure to announce that the reporter who will be joining us on the Mission To Mars is ...”
The tension around her lungs squeezed tighter.
“... Ms Lois Lane, Daily Planet.”
The world stopped.
There was time ... as those around her caught up ... for the reality to permeate her mind.
She was going.
She was actually going.
She had dreamed of this moment ... dreamed it, imagined it, lived it, breathed it ... been absorbed by it.
Then the bubble of solitude shattered and countless people jostled around her, hugging her, slapping her back, speaking very loudly, laughing, showering her with congratulations.
Lois grinned, incapable of anything more profound than, “Thank you. Thank you.”
She was going.
She was really going.
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Part 1
Kal-El, Supreme Ruler of New Krypton, heard the soft click and looked up from the report he was reading. The red light above the door flashed, signifying someone was requesting an audience with him.
He closed the report and stepped out from the inner sanctum of his bedroom and into the more public Chambers. He positioned himself in the large seat on the raised platform. “Enter,” he directed.
The door flung open and six armed soldiers stomped in.
Six soldiers flanking one woman.
She was small and petite, practically hidden by the bigger bodies of his soldiers as they hauled her forward. They stopped a yard in front of Kal.
“Let go of her,” he commanded.
“Sir.” The most senior soldier spoke with breathless urgency. “She’s an alien.” Not one of them had loosened their grip on the woman.
“Let go of her,” Kal repeated.
The soldiers unhanded her with clear reluctance. Two of them raised their rifles and stood, poised, their weapons aimed directly at her head.
Kal gestured to the closest soldiers to clear the space between him and the woman. They shuffled back.
The woman’s head was down. From his elevated position, Kal could see little other than the mussed dark hair on the top of her head. Then, slowly, her head lifted and she confronted him, brown eyes steady, face set, chin up. Her dark hair hung loose across her shoulders.
Kal stared right back, careful to stifle his surprise. Very few people looked directly into his eyes. No one ever regarded him with such ... simmering indifference.
Fascinated, he studied her. Kal could have ended her life with one word to his soldiers. Either she didn’t realise the precariousness of her situation, or she wasn’t one to cower. To anyone.
“Where did you get her?” Kal questioned, his eyes still locked in hers.
“A primitive vessel crash landed in Shuster’s Paddock,” the soldier answered. “We investigated ... and found *this*.”
*This* was not Kryptonian, that much was obvious. Kal skimmed his eyes down her clothes – they were unfamiliar in both design and material – before settling again in the uncanny magnetism of her unflinching eyes.
Who was she? Where had she come from? Was she alone? Did she represent a threat to his people?
“Are you injured?” Kal asked her.
Her gaze flittered briefly to his mouth before returning to drill into his eyes.
“What is your name?” he said.
Not even a glimmer of understanding showed on her face.
“Your name?” he tried again.
Her mouth opened and a string of sounds emerged. Was she trying to communicate? Kal didn’t recognise any words. He didn’t even recognise any sounds. Certainly she wasn’t speaking Kryptonian ... or anything remotely related to his mother tongue.
Kal swung his attention from the woman to the most senior of the soldiers. “Take her to the Noble’s Prison,” he ordered. “Give her food.”
“Sir,” the soldier said. “We barely have sufficient food for our own people.”
“Take her to the Noble’s Prison,” Kal repeated, his tone fortified with steely authority. “Put her in one of the first floor rooms and leave food with her.”
The solider nodded and the woman was thrust from Kal’s presence.
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Lois Lane didn’t appreciate being propelled by six armed men.
However, they hadn’t shot her.
Yet.
Although she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t the plan.
They’d obviously taken her to a top banana – probably their leader or something. Maybe he was in charge of illegal aliens.
Lois sifted through her fragmented memories. It had happened so incredibly quickly. In the spaceship, they’d ordered her ... in panicked voices and with terrified faces ... to get into the one-person, cramped pod that was basically the equivalent of a life-boat on a ship.
She’d got in. Matt, one of the astronauts, had slammed shut the lid, entombing her.
Then there had been an almighty roar and her pod had been tossed around like a solitary snowflake in a blizzard.
She’d blacked out.
Surfaced.
Blacked out again.
Felt grossly nauseated.
Then awakened to stillness and silence.
Both of which had been shattered when the door of her capsule had been violently peeled back and the business ends of six weapons had converged on her face.
They’d hauled her from the capsule, adding a few extra scratches and bruises in the process. As they had hustled her forward, she’d got her first view of wherever she’d landed. It was arid ... dry, bare and ugly. It was cold ... freezing, although she saw no ice or snow. It was dull ... as if they were in heavy shadow. And everything was tinged red. Lois looked up, searching for the sun. A bloodshot haze hung above them.
The place smelled.
Bad.
Like someone had been boiling gym socks.
The soldiers had set her before Mr Top Banana.
Lois was fairly sure there had been communication between the soldiers and the boss guy, although it had sounded so unlike any language she’d ever heard, she’d checked his mouth for movement.
Now she was in a room – stark and bare except for a small, raised platform which could have been a bed. It was cool, but definitely warmer than outside, for which she was grateful. One of the soldiers had brought a bowl of something and left it with her.
As soon as she was alone, Lois had tried the door. It was locked.
She examined the contents of the bowl. It was lime green in colour and had the consistency of thick yoghurt. She bent low and sniffed.
It didn’t really have an aroma of its own ... which meant it smelled like boiled gym socks.
Lois wrinkled her nose.
She was hungry.
She just wasn’t sure if she was *that* hungry.
Or if this was even food.
Lois sat on the platform and shuffled back into the corner where the cold, hard walls met. There was no mattress, no pillow, no bedding of any sort.
Where was she?
Somewhere remote, obviously. Greenland? Siberia? Shouldn’t there be snow? Deepest Africa? No, the people weren’t Africans. So where *was* she?
Were there any other survivors from the Mission To Mars?
The men who found her pod had seemed surprised ... although the expressionless mien of their faces hadn’t altered ... but there was something in the quick jerkiness of their actions that seemed to suggest that finding stray space vehicles wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Lois surmised she was probably the first.
How long was it going to take to get back to Metropolis? She needed to contact Perry ... soon ... because this story had ‘guaranteed Pulitzer’ stamped all over it.
She realised, with a sigh, that it was in her best interests to appear compliant. She hungered for that Pulitzer so badly she could taste it ... but being awarded it posthumously didn’t have quite the same appeal.
And she was going to need help to get home.
The door opened and an older person walked in, holding a white garment. The person’s face was blank and pallid. It was hairless like a woman’s but held not even a hint of femininity. Lois glanced down. Under the shapeless cloak-like gown, there was the hint of a bust. She was probably female.
Lois stood. The woman held up the garment. It was a satiny dress - short and sleeveless. The woman pushed it towards Lois.
The woman said something – something totally incomprehensible. She gestured to Lois.
With a sinking feeling, Lois realised she was meant to wear the dress. They were going to freeze her to death.
Lois nodded and held the dress next to her body, trying to indicate that she understood she was to wear the dress, hoping the woman would get the hint and leave. The woman stared, unmoving.
With a sigh, Lois unbuttoned her jacket and slithered out of it and her shirt. She slipped the dress over her head, removed her shoes, then pulled up the dress and eased her jeans from her body.
The woman pointed to Lois’s thick, dark socks – socks that now jarred visually with her bare legs and the shiny whiteness of the dress. Despite the woman’s vacant expression, Lois sensed her disapproval.
With a sigh, Lois bent and removed her socks. The bare, concrete floor was cold.
Seemingly satisfied, the woman turned and left.
A minute later, two armed soldiers stormed through her door. They pushed Lois out of the room and kept her moving with regular jabs from the ends of their rifles. Lois realised she was being taken back to the building where she’d seen Mr Top Banana. As they went inside, they passed between two armed sentries – neither of whom even glanced in their direction.
They took her to the same room as before. Mr Top Banana was there, standing this time, instead of entrenched in the big, ornately-carved seat.
He barked something – it actually sounded more like a dog’s bark than anything human – and the two soldiers turned and left. Obviously, he had clout. People did what he told them.
Lois faced him, her head high. He wore much grander clothes than the soldiers and lived in a guarded – and heated - palace and had a pompous seat to perch on ... but she was going to let him know it took more than that to impress Lois Lane.
He was tall ... dark-haired ... and – despite his weird dress-and-pants outfit – not bad looking. His eyes were brown and cold ... no, not cold ... empty. His mouth moved as he ‘spoke’ – if those strange noises were supposed to be speech – revealing nicely-shaped teeth.
Whatever he was trying to say, it was taking a long time. Lois gave up trying to understand and surveyed her surroundings. Other than the ‘throne’, the room contained very little – some shelves laden with large books and a small table. The decor – if you could call it decor – looked like brown mud smeared on concrete walls. The floor was bare – and cold.
Her attention returned to Mr Top Banana. She tried to judge what she could expect from him. Compassion? Brutality? Justice? Assistance?
“Excuse me.” Lois cut briskly across his monologue. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet, Metropolis. I need to get home. I have a very important story to write.”
He’d stopped talking at ‘excuse me’. He considered her – his face showing neither anger, nor annoyance, nor surprise, nor any other recognisable emotion. He waited in silence for a short time and then spoke. When he stopped, he waited again. Lois suspected he wanted her to reply. She shrugged.
He strode to the table and picked up what looked like a syringe – without a needle - containing purple gel. He approached her purposefully.
Lois held up her hand to thwart his progress. “Don’t touch me,” she warned, making no attempt to rein in her belligerence.
Her body language, her tone, her words – all were completely ineffectual. He stepped closer with calm determination. Her hostility gave way to fear. “No,” she cried, backing away from him. “No.”
He followed her until she thudded into the wall, then advanced a further step and towered over her. He was going to drug her, she was sure of it. Lois felt a scream rise in her throat, but feverishly swallowed it down, as she tightly clamped her mouth.
He grasped her right wrist with his left hand. Lois kicked at him and tried to wrench back her hand. The battle was hopelessly uneven – his strength far exceeded hers. He leant his forearm across her chest, pinning her against the wall. He brought the syringe to her captured wrist and squirted its contents onto the back of her hand.
It stung and Lois instinctively jolted back, but she was neither quick enough nor strong enough to lessen his purchase on her wrist. She peered across the inches and into his face, expecting anger or triumph or even manic cruelty. She saw none of them.
The realisation hit her with the force of a tornado - he took no pleasure from this.
Lois relaxed against the wall and he immediately lifted his forearm from her body.
When the syringe was empty, he tossed it onto the table. Using his thumbs, he rubbed the purple gel into the back of her hand. He spread it from her knuckles to her wrist ... from her thumb to the base of her little finger.
His touch was neither gentle nor rough. Lois sensed neither kindness nor malice. His actions were ... deliberate, devoid of feeling.
The stinging abated. The colour faded.
Then the door opened and two soldiers came into the room and Lois was, again, hustled away.
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At gunpoint, Lois was taken to high-ceilinged, austere building. It was dingy and cold. She was forced the length of it - to the front where an old man in a white robe awaited her.
For the next few minutes, the old man droned on. It appeared to be some sort of ceremony.
A pre-funeral?
Was she being prepared for death?
Offered to their gods?
Lois stood quietly, uncomfortably aware that the two soldiers had their weapons trained on her. To her right, slightly in front of her, was a large bin. Lois could feel warmth emanating from it. She surreptitiously edged sideways, hoping to get a little closer to the heat source. The point of a weapon knocked against the right side of her head and she teetered back.
When the old man had finished his oration, he moved to the bin and withdrew a long iron from it. The end of the iron - the end that had been in the fire - emerged from the bin, glowing red. He approached Lois with purpose and she gasped.
She wanted to scream, to run, to kick, to bite ... but her searing terror had paralysed every part of her body.
One of the soldiers lifted her right arm towards the old man, who pressed the end of the iron onto the back of her hand.
Lois screamed as the world reeled. She swayed. From behind, someone grasped her, steadying her.
It took what seemed like a long, long time for her brain to register that there was no pain.
The red glowing iron was on her hand - held there by the combined efforts of the soldier and the old man.
But there was no pain. Pressure, but no pain.
They removed the iron from her hand and returned it to the fire bin. Lois examined her hand. Emblazoned upon it was an irregular five-sided shape around the letter ‘S’.
A slither of logical thought struggled to surface from amidst the haze of her confusion. Why, when they didn’t use recognisable sounds to communicate, did they use a letter from the English alphabet as a symbol?
What did this ‘S’ signify?
This had to be some sort of ceremony. The old guy was officiating. The soldiers were there to keep her in line. Lois couldn’t shake the idea that she had just been ... processed.
Did it include her in something? Or exclude her?
Would they brand her if they intended to kill her?
And what could possibly have given them the notion that this was acceptable?
When she got back to Metropolis, someone *would* pay.
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Lois was taken from the ceremonial building and across a bleak courtyard to a row of parallel rooms – three on each side. She was led to the last room on the left and shunted into it.
The door was closed and locked.
Lois looked around her new room. Her first impression brought tears to her eyes. It was warm. Not hot, but warm, certainly.
And there was a bed. It had a thin mattress, a flat, limp pillow and a thin, rough length of material that could just about pass as a sheet. Lois took it from the bed, folded it in half and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She inspected her hand. It was red and blotchy. It looked sore. It wasn’t. It was kind of numb.
Lois gingerly prodded the edge of the ‘S’. She couldn’t feel her own touch. Clearly, it *had* been numbed.
Was that the purple stuff Mr Top Banana had put on her hand?
And exactly how much would it hurt when the numbing agent wore off?
There was a closet in the room. Lois opened the door. Her clothes were there! Her jeans and shirt and jacket. Even her socks and shoes. Two grey gowns – similar to those worn by the old woman – hung below the shelf, and ... most wonderful of all ... a long, thick coat.
Lois discarded the sheet and put on the coat. Immediately she felt more comfortable – less exposed, certainly, and warmer.
Lois lay on the bed and covered herself with the sheet.
She was hungry. But there was nothing in the room that could possibly be food.
Confused. But she had no way to communicate with these strange, robotic people.
Homesick. But right now, she could do nothing about getting home.
Weary. She had a bed ... she may as well sleep.
Lois closed her eyes, stilled her mind and allowed her exhaustion to overwhelm her.
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Lois was woken by the woman who had brought her the white dress. Before Lois could properly piece together where she was and how she’d got there, she became aware of the persistent throbbing of her hand. She sat up from the bed and examined it in the dim light.
The woman gestured for Lois to get up and follow her. Once outside her room, Lois looked behind her for the soldiers. There were none.
She toyed with the idea of running away. She could outrun the old woman, Lois was confident of that. But then what?
With a defeated sigh, Lois followed meekly.
They crossed the courtyard – it had no flowers, nor grass, nor decoration of any sort – passed the two sentinels at the door and entered Mr Top Banana’s place.
Thirty seconds later, Lois was alone with him in his room. She faced him, waiting.
In his hand, he held another syringe filled with the purple substance. He approached Lois and she lifted her hand to him. He squirted the gel onto the ‘S’ symbol and Lois tensed, anticipating the stinging sensation.
It came, but was much milder than the first time.
Again he rubbed it into her hand – with all the emotional connection of a man tying his shoelaces.
“Why did you do this to me?” Lois demanded.
He’d heard her. His eyes lifted from her hand and to her face.
He replied – in the same guttural grunts she’d heard before – but he didn’t stop working the gel into her hand. By the time he’d finished, the throbbing had completely subsided.
“Why did you do this to me?” Lois repeated angrily.
Her wrath had no effect. His face remained inscrutable. He began the noises again, but Lois cut in.
“Why?” she shouted, allowing her fear and her indignation and her confusion to eke into that one word. “What gives you the right to disfigure me like this?”
He stared back, not even attempting to answer her question.
She pointed to her hand, then raised both hands, palm up in a gesture of ‘Why?’
He barked something loudly and the old woman returned to escort Lois to her room.
Once there, and alone, Lois noticed there was a metallic bowl with a meagre helping of the green stuff she’d seen in her first room. Next to it was a stick – beige in colour, cylindrical in shape, about three inches long and half an inch wide. One end was tinged green – looking far too much like mould to ever be appetising.
However, Lois was hungry.
And it seemed this could ... possibly ... be food.
And as she had no way of even communicating her desire to go home, let alone actually achieving that, and given she had to eat something, she should probably try it.
She picked up the stick. It was hard – like very stale bread. She touched the end of it on her tongue. It had no discernable taste.
There were no implements to assist in eating the green gunk, so Lois dipped the end of the stick into it. The mucousy substance clung to the end of the stick like a thickened dip.
Grimacing, Lois tested it with the tip of her tongue.
It didn’t taste disgusting. It had a mild flavour ... vaguely reminding her of ricotta cheese. If she ignored the colour, it was edible.
She hoped so, anyway.
Lois ate the remainder of the green stuff. She then looked at the stick. Was she supposed to eat it too?
The end she had used to slurp up the gunk was now stained a deeper green colour and had softened.
Tentatively, she bit off part of it. She chewed and it disintegrated into a sandy consistency. There was nowhere to spit it out, so Lois swallowed it.
It was a little gritty, but other than that ... not too bad at all.
