From Part 31 ...
Riz pointed to one of the bags she had brought. “You have food and drink in there,” she said. “Eb-Ur baked for you.”
They really had thought of everything.
Tek and Riz disappeared into the inland tunnel.
Kal turned to Lois.
His wife.
His only wife.
His wife who deserved a little payback. He moved to the bag and peered inside. “Hungry?” he asked nonchalantly. “I’m starving.”
He bent low to investigate the food. Behind him there was silence. Kal grinned. One to him.
Then Lois spoke. “If you so much as reach into that bag, I swear I’ll strip you buck naked with my eyes and feast on you while you feast on the food.”
One all.
Part 32
Lois watched the tension ease from the seat of Kal’s pants as he straightened. She grinned, already anticipating the look on his face when he turned. Would it be his smile? Or that adorable slightly embarrassed look - the one he’d had when she’d threatened to catalogue his assets during their wedding ceremony?
When he turned, she saw a combination – although his smile was very definitely in ascendency.
Kal saw her expression and his laughter broke so naturally, she felt its warmth envelope her heart. He approached her and turned off their translators. “Have you looked before?” he asked.
“Once.”
“Where?”
She placed her hand horizontally on his chest. “From here up,” she said.
His hands disappeared into the pockets of his pants and he glanced down, trying to control his hovering amusement. “Did you like what you saw?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Very much.”
Kal looked up with a quiet smile of satisfaction. Keeping his hands in his pockets, he leaned forward and nuzzled into her neck. His lips whispered across her skin as he edged slowly up her throat. “Are there rules for this?” he asked.
Lois tilted her head, granting him better access. She flattened her hands on his chest and closed her eyes. “No rules,” she breathed.
When Kal reached the lobe of her ear, one hand slipped from his pocket and brushed aside the screen of her hair so his mouth could explore the secrets of her neck. “Can I take off your clothes?” The warm breath that carried his words gently floated across the skin that had been sensitised by his mouth.
Lois’s hand drifted up his shoulder and curled around his neck. Her fingertips delved into his hair. Under her palm, she could feel the shifting of his neck muscles as he kissed along the curve of her shoulder. “Yes.”
Kal allowed her hair to spill over the neck he had stippled with tender kisses. His hand lifted her chin and positioned it perfectly to accommodate his clear intention. The first kiss was little more than a touch. He backed away and her eyes shot open. His gaze was fixed on her mouth and slowly, inevitably, he inched forward again. His lips parted and his tongue brushed the length of her lower lip. “Will you take off my clothes?”
Her tongue ventured forward and greeted his and Lois felt Kal shudder in response. Her hands converged to the top button of his jacket. She loosed it and within seconds, the jacket hung open, granting her access to the soft, clingy material of his undershirt. Her fingertips began their exploration of the sculpted curves of his chest. “Yes.”
His hands again dived under her hair and located the buttons of her dress. As he journeyed down her spine, releasing them, his fingers brushed against her bare skin, leaving a trail of spot fires in their wake. “Can I touch anywhere?”
Lois pushed the jacket from his shoulders and his hands left her body just long enough for her to free his arms. She reached for the back of his shirt and tugged it from his pants. She burrowed under the material and flattened her palms on the plains of his back. “Yes.”
Kal slipped his hands inside her dress as his mouth plied hers with escalating intensity. He brushed lightly across her back with the merest fingertip touch. “Does your gown go up or down?” he asked.
“Down,” she said, not wanting to lose his mouth even for the short time it would take to lift her dress from her body.
His hands crossed her back and rose to her shoulders and very slowly slipped down her arms, pushing the dress ahead of his touch. It made no sound as it crumpled to the sand. Kal broke their kiss and stepped back to look at her. His face filled with wonder. “You are beautiful,” he said. After a long moment, he stepped to the bag, his eyes not leaving her for a second. He withdrew a large blanket and spread it on the sand.
Kal held out his hand to Lois. “Please come to me,” he said. “Please come and be my wife.”
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“Lois?”
“Yes, Kal.”
“What we just did ... what is that called?”
“Making love.”
He smiled. “Yes! I loved you so much ... but now I love you more. We *made* love.”
“We did,” Lois said with a long, satisfied sigh.
“I need you to teach me a new word.”
“What word?”
“A word for how I’m feeling now.”
“Happy.”
“More than that.”
“Amazing.”
“More than that.”
“Blissful.”
“More than that.”
“Euphoric.”
“More than that.”
Lois chuckled. “I don’t have words more than that.”
Kal gently touched her face. “I’m glad they didn’t tell me about this,” he said. “I’m glad I found out with you.”
“Not telling you was cruel.”
“Perhaps they meant it as cruelty, but I wouldn’t change anything.”
“They kept you as half-man, half-child,” she said darkly.
“It wasn’t not knowing that kept me from being whole,” he said. “It was not knowing you.”
Lois reached up and swept her hand through his hair. It felt so good. Even after all they’d shared, he still appreciated the simple touch of her hand through his hair. “You say the most beautiful things, Kal,” she said.
“Are there any other rules about making love?”
“Like what?”
“Like how often you can do it?”
“No rules about that at all.” Lois smiled him an invitation that reignited his body.
“So we can make love again now?” Kal asked.
Lois smiled. “Oh, yes please,” she said.
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Kal wasn’t wasting time with sleep.
Lois lay in his arms, her shoulder against his chest, her hip against his stomach, her legs entwined with his inside the blanket they had wrapped around themselves.
He’d never seen anyone asleep before.
Kal had wondered what happened *after*. He’d wondered if clothes would be put back on. But Lois had merely said she was tired, kissed him sleepily and relaxed into his embrace.
Every time he looked at her, he marvelled at the depths of her trust in him.
He should be thinking ahead. He should be planning. He *had* to find a way to be with Lois for much, much longer than a few days.
He set his thoughts to finding a solution, only to discover within moments that his mind had again been lured away by his memories.
The memory of Lois as she walked towards him in the white dress, her face alight with happiness.
The memory of all that had happened between them after Tek and Riz had left the cave.
Every time Kal thought of it, he smiled. Or laughed quietly with just the sheer joy of being with her like this.
In his arms he held his whole life.
He hadn’t known life could be this good.
This precious.
This worth fighting for.
Lois refused to believe their future would be ripped from them.
Kal couldn’t see how they could possibly have a future, but something of her belief had lodged inside him and was beginning to grow despite everything that insisted there was no way back.
Even with Nor gone, there was no way Kal could reclaim the right to live.
He had offered his life so Lois could go to Yent. The very thought of that caused Kal’s arms to tighten around her. She was his and he would fight to his last breath to keep her.
He wanted *this*. He wanted to be with Lois. He wanted to be able to lie with her tucked against his body. He wanted to be able to watch her sleep, listen to her breathe, brush back her hair from her face – even if it wasn’t actually on her face. He wanted to see her smile and feel her touch. He wanted to share her laughter.
And he wanted it forever. Even a lifetime wouldn’t be long enough.
He had watched her fall asleep; watched her face relax and her eyes still. Some time later, she had moved and he’d wondered if she would shuffle away from him. She had settled back against him. “Kal,” she’d murmured and he saw a glimpse of her smile. Then she slept, oblivious to the fact she had again flooded his heart with love.
Tek would come. They needed to make decisions.
Except to make decisions, they needed options and Kal couldn’t see even one possible option.
They couldn’t live here in the cave. There had been a certain enchantment in being here – isolated and alone – with Lois. Particularly in the time following their Marriage Ceremony when neither of them had thoughts of anything other than being alone.
But they couldn’t *live* like this.
They couldn’t stay in the cave forever.
It had occurred to Kal that physically, Lois could be safe. She had survived being shot and she had survived being swept into the ocean. But what if her sudden invulnerability was temporary? He wasn’t willing to risk her life on the assumption it was permanent.
And she could be hurt because he was definitely *not* invulnerable. He would never forget her face as he had stood against the wall. He had to save her from that.
So they couldn’t leave.
And they couldn’t stay.
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“We should ask Tek to bring us beverage,” Lois said as she ate one of Eb’s puddings.
Kal smiled, although his thoughts didn’t budge from his reverie. He’d told himself he needed to plan while they ate – needed to at least formulate questions to ask Tek. Yet his mind stubbornly refused to relinquish his reminiscence of being with Lois when she awoke – hungry. And not for food. “No hot water,” he said absently.
“I could fix that,” she said.
He shifted his attention from Lois of an hour ago to Lois of this moment. “How *did* you dry the clothes?” he asked.
“By glaring at them.”
“Ouch! Unless I want to be fried, I should definitely try to keep you happy.”
“Oh, you’ll keep me very happy,” she drawled.
The wave of happiness rolled through him again. He’d known the intimacy would be sublime. What he hadn’t known was that the intimacy would immediately infiltrate their wider relationship; would infuse a simmering heat into something as ordinary as eating breakfast together.
Not that anything with Lois was ordinary.
He was tempted to close the half a yard between them, take the pudding from her hand and begin again. Most incredible of all was the knowledge that if he did, she would welcome him.
But it was already past when Kal had expected Tek would arrive.
And, tripwire or not, there was no way Kal wanted to risk being caught like that.
Before they had finished the puddings, a soft buzzing sound echoed through the cave. Kal hastily pulled on a few extra pieces of clothing and helped Lois do likewise. They stood together as Tek emerged from behind the rock partition, carrying a bag and another container of water.
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Lois watched Kal spring forward. “What’s happening?” he asked Tek.
Tek put down the container and offered Lois the bag. “Thank you, Tek,” she said as she peeked into the bag. “Did Eb cook for us again?”
“Yes.”
“What’s happening?” Kal repeated as they sat on the sand.
Tek took a long breath. “New Krypton has changed so much in a day,” he said in a tone of one who acknowledges that what he has to say is unbelievable.
“How?” Lois asked.
“At this stage, it is mostly speculation,” Tek said. “But these are things we haven’t even contemplated before because we believed they were not possible.”
“Such as?”
“There is talk the Lady Za will join the Cabinet,” Tek said. “Yent is old and Nor’s son is a still a child so cannot take his place for many years. Ching is young.” He glanced to Kal. “Your family’s seat has been abolished.”
Kal must have known this would happen, but Lois saw the impact of Tek’s words jolt her husband. She moved closer to him, put her arm across his back and hooked her hand on his shoulder.
“Two great Kryptonian houses,” Kal said sadly. “El and Ra - abolished.”
Lois leant her head against his arm, wanting to console him. “I think the Lady Za is exactly what this planet needs,” she said.
If Kal was surprised by her comment, he didn’t show it. “There has never even been the thought of a woman on the Cabinet before,” he said.
“There is also talk of a Register for Women,” Tek said.
Lois straightened as her hackles rose. “Why?”
“The Law that women can be taken at seventeen as concubines is Canon Law that cannot be changed,” Tek said.
“But that is a terrib-,” Lois blurted.
Kal put his hand on her knee and calmed her with his smile. “How would the Register work?” he asked.
“A woman could register one week before her seventeenth birthday.”
“Meaning she can be taken a week earlier?” Lois asked sourly.
“No, meaning if she is on the Register, she is unavailable to be taken as a concubine,” Tek said.
“So women could no longer be forced to be concubines?” Lois said eagerly.
“It will take time,” Tek cautioned. “But for girls like Dom, there is the possibility of a better future.”
“That is good news,” Lois said.
“Only one law has been changed already,” Tek said.
“Which one?” Kal asked.
“The Supreme Ruler can no longer take any woman he wants. Marriage is to be honoured by all.”
Lois met Kal’s eyes with a knowing look. “Does Ching have concubines?” she asked.
“Two,” Tek said.
“Bet he won’t have them for long,” she muttered.
Kal leant forward and Lois saw the solemnity in his expression. “Is there any speculation about the law of Offering Your Life?” he said.
Tek looked at them unflinchingly, but Lois could guess his reply before he’d begun to speak. “With one retraction, the entire Law of Offering Your Life becomes meaningless,” Tek said quietly. “As a Law, it won’t function unless people know it means certain death. That is the very thing that keeps it as the absolute last resort.”
Lois felt the shroud of hopelessness settle on her. She met Kal’s eyes. “What are we going to do?” she asked quietly.
Kal and Lois looked to Tek.
He looked back, eyes steady. He said nothing for a long moment. His silence answered more effectively than a long-winded explanation. There was no going back.
“What choices do we have?” Kal asked eventually.
Still, Tek said nothing.
“We could stay here, couldn’t we?” Lois said. “Just until things settle down.”
“People have become increasingly suspicious of my movements,” Tek said. “For years I have come down here and no one seemed to notice or care. I was just a man with a limp out walking.”
“Now, they think you know my whereabouts,” Kal surmised.
“Yes,” Tek agreed. “I believe it is only a matter of time until someone tracks me. Nor had support – he was the great hope of those wanting Southern rule. They see you as responsible for his downfall and want revenge.”
Tek glanced momentarily to Kal, but if there was significance attached, Lois couldn’t discern it. “Staying here is not a long term solution?” she said.
“It isn’t even a short term solution,” Tek said. “I have multiple ways to access these tunnels and I am careful to use different entrances and exits, but every time I come here, we risk exposure.”
“Could we move into a remote farmhouse?“ Lois suggested. “Maybe if we disguised ourselves as Mr and Mrs Average, no one would recognise us.”
“You would last less than a day,” Tek said direly.
“You know this planet as well as anyone,” Kal said to Tek. “Are you sure there is no remote location? Another island maybe?”
“I am sure,” Tek said. “My father circumnavigated this planet from space before our arrival. He mapped it and studied it in detail. There is only one land mass.”
Lois could feel the desperation clawing up her throat. “There has to be a way out of this,” she said. “Maybe we should just move into a house in town and make an unequivocal statement that we are not scared of them and we think the stupid rule should be changed. Even if they tried to kill Kal, they are going to have to do it through me.”
Kal’s hand tightened on her knee. “Lois,” he said quietly. “You would never have a moment’s peace. Every time we’re apart, you would worry. You would worry that I wouldn’t come home, you would worry that someone had found me. That is no way to live.”
He didn’t go on to say that as the former Supreme Ruler, he would do untold damage if he was seen to be flouting the law. It would bring instability and probably precipitate the very war he had spent every day of his memory trying to avoid. Understanding this, Lois conceded with a small smile. “You’re right,” she said. “But there *is* a liveable long-term hiding place on this planet and we need to find it.”
“How do you know?” Kal asked.
“Because they hid you for thirteen years.”
Kal looked to Tek. “Do you know where?”
“No.”
“But it was your father who took care of Kal,” Lois said. “Your father who protected him and kept Nor from killing him years ago.”
“My father was given jurisdiction over the ... over Kal ... by his parents before we left Krypt -.”
“If your father could hide Kal for thirteen years – hide him well enough that Nor and Ked couldn’t find him – we can hide for years as well.” Lois looked expectantly at Tek.
“On New Krypton, there is much danger in knowledge,” he said. “The people thought Kal had died in the Transition. My father told me Kal-El was safe and would claim the mantle on the day he achieved sixteen years, but he would tell me nothing else.”
“You *must* have asked,” Lois insisted.
“He refused to answer.”
Lois nearly erupted with exasperation. “And you accepted that?” she demanded. “You just accepted that?”
“He had good reasons.”
“So when Kal just *appeared*, what happened?”
“One day my father told me he had to begin to prepare Kal-El to be the Supreme Ruler. He said it was imperative that New Krypton have a Supreme Ruler who was not just a puppet of Ked. He said Jor-El had trusted him to equip his son for the task.”
“Did you go with him?” Lois said. “Did you see where Kal had been kept all that time?”
“No,” Tek said. “My father told me he would be with Kal-El for an extended period. He told me to look after Ard and if anyone asked where he was to say there was much that needed to be done for the forthcoming Investiture.”
“That’s all?” Lois spurted. “What did people say when he disappeared, then appeared with Kal-El?”
“Most believed Kal-El was dead,” Tek said. “They believed my father was nothing more than a deranged scientist who had lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy.”
“But then he appeared with Kal?”
“Yes. He walked through the town very early one morning with Kal. They both went into the Regal Residence. My father didn’t emerge for nearly two days as Ked and Yent questioned him extensively. When he came out, I asked him and he still refused to give me any information. He said the appearance of Kal-El would destabilise our planet in the short-term, but if we were to have a future, it was the only way. He said that the less I knew, the better it would be for me.”
“Kal *walked* through the town?” Lois asked.
Tek nodded. “That was the first time I saw him - other than when he was a baby on Krypton. He walked with my father -.”
Lois swung to Kal. “You said your first memory was waking up with Ked and Yent.”
“It is.”
“You don’t remember walking through the town?” Lois said. “You don’t remember arriving at the Regal Residence? You don’t remember Kip preparing you in the ways of your father?”
“No,” Kal said. “The only knowledge I have of my father came from the globe and from reading the history he wrote.”
Lois turned to Tek. “What did your father say about waking Kal from his hiatus?”
“He didn’t say anything about that,” Tek said. “Two days later, my father was dead.”
Lois looked into Tek’s eyes and knew he didn’t believe his father’s death had been an accident. She didn’t either. But going over that would not help now. “You have no idea where Kal could have been kept?”
“No.”
“Have you looked?”
“Yes.”
“Under here? Everywhere under here?”
“Yes. I can find nothing from Kal’s early years.”
Lois felt herself slam into the dead end. She knew the feeling – it had happened often enough on Earth when she was chasing down a story. The feeling was even less palatable now because this involved the man she loved.
There were only two people who’d been there for Kal’s lost years; one was dead and the other had no memory of it. “Then *what* are we going to do?” she demanded.
Neither of the men had an answer, so they both just stared at her.
After a silence that threatened to suck the oxygen from the cave, Kal cleared his throat. “Are the water drilling operations continuing?” he asked.
Lois felt the rise of her annoyance. She didn’t want to talk about water. She stood abruptly. “I need to stretch my legs,” she said.
Without a backward glance, she strode through the alcove and into the tunnel. Half a dozen steps later, her frustration-driven pace slowed.
Tek had said this tunnel terminated near the Regal Residence. Za lived there now.
Za had made an agreement with Kal. In the courtyard, she’d said she didn’t know about the plan to depose Kal. She probably didn’t consider Kal to be an enemy. Would she be willing to use whatever influence she had with Ching to speak for a retraction of Kal’s offer?
Surely two women together could find a solution; a way to overturn the death sentence hanging over Kal.
It was worth a try. Neither Kal nor Tek had any answers.
Ahead the tunnel veered to the right. Lois hurried along it, already planning what she needed to say to Za.
From behind her, she heard Kal’s voice resounding through the caves. “Lois! Lois!”
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Kal sprinted along the tunnel, barely noticing the occasional scratch or bruise inflicted when he misjudged the protrusion of a rock. He had to get to Lois before she got to the end of the tunnel. His pounding heart mingled with the drum-roll echoes of his footsteps on the hard sand.
Then he saw her – coming back to him – and his relief coursed through him. “Lois!”
The distance between them closed and he looked at her, panting, as she looked at him. Was that irritation he saw on her face? Or merely a question?
“Where are you going?” Kal asked breathlessly.
“I’m going to see Za,” she said.
He wanted to grip her shoulders. Instead he plunged his hands into his pockets. “Why?” he demanded.
“I thought that, being two women, we could work out something reasonable.”
“Lois! You –.“ Kal stopped and shook his head. “You can’t go up there,” he said desperately.
“Yes I can, Kal,” she insisted. “It isn’t me they want and anyway, I won’t let anyone see me. I’ll just talk to Za and get back here without anyone following me.”
Kal dragged his hand through his hair. “You can’t, Lois.”
“I have to, Kal.”
“You can’t, Lois.”
“We have no other ideas,” she said. “We sat and looked at each other and decided there was no possible solution to this. We have to do something.”
“You can’t go up there,” Kal said.
Lois stepped closer and her face softened. “You’re worried for me,” she said. “And I appreciate it, but Tek says this tunnel comes up near the Regal Residence. He has got in and out safely for years, I can do it once.”
“Tek hadn’t been charged with murder.”
“What?” Lois’s shriek ricocheted around the tunnel with jangling dissonance.
Kal lightly soothed his hand down her arm. “They’ve charged you with the murder of Nor,” he said. “They believe you deliberately turned the bullet from me and onto him.”
“When did you know this?”
Kal felt his last remnant of good feeling drain away. He hadn’t told her. Again, he’d kept information from Lois. “Tek told me yesterday while we were waiting for you to complete your preparations.”
Lois pushed back her hair and hooked it behind her ear. “I’ve been charged with murder?” she asked quietly.
She wasn’t shouting – yet. Kal nodded.
“The sentence is execution?”
Kal nodded again.
“Are you mad at me?”
That question rocked him. “I’m hoping you aren’t mad at me.”
“Because you didn’t tell me about the murder charge?”
“Yes.”
“But I was about to run off to meet Za without telling you.” She grinned at him and righted his world. “Which we’ve already established is a bad thing to do.”
Kal smiled with relief and leant forward to kiss her forehead. “If either of us has any other ideas, we should share them before acting on them.”
Lois sighed. “That is *not* the way Lois Lane worked.”
Kal could see she wasn’t as aggrieved as her words implied. “Perhaps marriage changes things?” he said hopefully.
Amusement glinted in her eyes. “Marriage certainly changes one thing,” she said with a suggestive tweak of her eyebrow.
He wanted to back her into the rock wall and press his body against hers and kiss her until they were both senseless.
“How long until Tek comes looking for us?” she mused.
Surely, she couldn’t be thinking now ... here ... was possible? “Can you look?”
With a wide grin, Lois scouted beyond him.
Then she gasped. “Is Tek coming?” Kal asked.
Lois shook her head. “No. But I found something else.”
“What?”
“It’s round and silvery.”
“What is it?”
She shuffled along the tunnel, moving her head up and down as if trying to get a better view of something. “My vision is blotchy – there are patches I can’t see.”
“What can you see?”
“A vehicle of some sort. Maybe a boat.”
“A boat?”
She moved again and her mouth gaped. “It’s not a boat,” she said quietly.
“Then what is it?”
“A spaceship.”
