Lois began to awake from a deep, dreamless sleep. She felt herself fighting through a fog in her mind. The smell of sickly sweet flowers confused her and lulled her. She felt a tug of memory, though its only shape was a feeling of need. Someone needed her, needed her to fight through the haze...
She unconsciously clasped her side, a searing pain there that she didn't understand. She kept calling for Superman, though it was Clark's face she saw in her dream.
She felt as if she was disappearing into a hole that no one could rescue her from. A hole that would take her away forever from those she loved. LOVED. She loved Clark and she would never see him again. Never see Clark... oh God, it couldn't be true...
"No, no, don't take me away from him... no," she cried softly in her sleep.
She was gently being woken by someone calling her name.
Was it Clark? She called his name softly and she heard a soft curse under her waker's breath.
She slowly opened her eyes, her head hurting as she did so. Her eyes slowly came into focus.
"Lex?" she asked in surprise.
"My darling, I'm so glad to see you are finally awake," he said, reaching for her hand.
"Where am I?" she asked, as her eyes adjusted, she fought the nauseous wave in her stomach. She felt entirely disoriented, and unsettled by Lex before her, who had mysteriously reappeared from the dead. "What happened?" she asked, trying to pull vague memories together to make sense of things.
"I rescued you," Lex said.
"What do you mean?" she looked around. "Where am I?"
He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, ignoring her question. "What matters is we're together again. We've been given a second chance."
She shoved herself up off the bed, wanting to distance herself from Lex to think, but she immediately sat down again, feeling dizzy, and her side felt terribly sore.
"Why am I here, Lex? What’s going on?" Lois tried not to panic, but couldn't gather her thoughts to remember anything from earlier. They were in a strange underground bunker of some sort, or at least there were no windows. The last memory she had was Clark, asking her on a date... Then she had thought she'd seen Luthor in an alleyway...
She turned to look at him, startled. Lex Luthor was dead, wasn't he? Yet here he stood, changed surely, yet the same man. “You’re alive,” she said, latching on to the obvious.
He laughed softly. "I'm alive, Lois. And so are you. Call it a miracle. What matters is we are together now." He moved towards her as if to kiss her cheek, but she pulled back.
"No, I... I could never... I mean..." she stammered. She felt vulnerable and irritated, hating not having control over her memories; though her instincts told her instantly to be wary of him.
Lex sighed. "Ah. I see in your eyes that I've fallen from grace. But surely a creature of such abundant benevolence would allow me the chance to redeem myself."
She shook her head, wishing she could think clearly. "I... there's no... I don't have those feelings for you anymore."
He smirked slightly, "I don't believe it."
"I don't know why I'm here or what happened. You won't give me a straight answer and you expect me to... what, Lex? I will never --could never--" she stammered. Her head hurt, and her memories were foggy, but she knew that Lex was dangerous.
"Yes, I've done terrible things. But I did them for you. Provoked by the blinding light of your beauty," he said, trying to win her with charm as he had once before.
"Lex, stop!" she cried, fed up. "What is going on? Why am I here?"
"You need to recover. You were... hurt. You shall stay here until you feel better." He gently touched her chin, moving her face so he could look into her eyes. "And we can get reacquainted."
"I'm not staying here, Lex," she said, wishing she felt better to put her threat into practice. "And if you try to keep me here, Superman will find me."
Lex turned a pitying glance to her. "I'm sorry, Lois, to be the one to tell you this."
"What? What is it?" she asked, worried by his expression.
Lex sighed heavily. "I was betrayed," he said dramatically. "By Nigel St. John. You'll remember him?"
She nodded. "But what does he have to do with Superman?"
"Well, before my-- death, if you want to call it that--- LexCorp had many varied interests. And one of my---acquisitions happened to be of an interesting rock from Superman's home planet."
"Kryptonite," she whispered.
"Yes, and well, Nigel St. John stole it from my vaults," Lex easily lied.
"Why did you have it in the first place?" she interrupted.
"Merely to study it. You know I have eclectic tastes. I have---*had* a wide collection of interesting works of art and artifacts from all over the world. Why not have a piece of something that was from out of this world as well?" he said.
"So, Nigel---what did he do?" she asked warily.
"Well, my dear, I'm really sorry to tell you this. But, Nigel used the Kryptonite." Lex paused dramatically, "Superman is dead."
***********
Clark was flying. It was a clear day, over Kansas, and Lois was safe in his arms. She knew his secret and loved him all the more for it. She said she wanted to know everything about him, that they would have their whole lives to learn each other. Lois confided she loved flying in his arms, that it was the most freeing sensation in the whole world. He held out his arm, letting her stretch her arms out a little wide, so she could feel as if she were flying herself. Only their hands touched. He relished in her joy, in the sun warm on their faces, and the wind cool in their hair.
Then, suddenly, she was tumbling in the air, away from him. He couldn't catch her, no matter how fast he flew he wasn't fast enough. She was falling to earth quicker than he could fly. He could only watch as she fell faster and faster, further and further away from him.
"Lois!" he cried, waking. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding.
"Lois," he said softer, with sadness, realizing he had been dreaming. He started to lose himself in the grief again, when he felt something, or sensed something that gave him just a whisper of hope.
He said her name again, in question this time, wondering if it was her ghost that was in the room. She felt somehow in the world again, though he knew that was impossible. Had he wanted her back so much that he was conjuring her presence out of sheer desperation to see her again?
He shook his head and walked over to the tiny cell window and looked up into the night sky. "Lois... " He shook his head in dismay, "I must be going crazy..."
********
"Superman is dead?" Lois whispered, the words feeling strange in her mouth. They hadn't registered yet, as she couldn't believe it was possible.
Lex aimed for a concerned air. "Yes, there was an---altercation. Nigel lured Superman to him by threatening to do you harm, and--well, he didn't survive."
She shook her head, unable to comprehend what he was saying. It couldn't be possible! Superman *couldn't* be dead! But she had seen how Kryptonite could make him powerless and hurt. Long exposure could possibly---she didn't want to believe it. She didn't *feel* that he was dead. She believed she'd *know* on some visceral level if it were true.
He moved closer to her, bringing her attention back to his story. He infused warmth into saying, "I brought you here, away from---Well, my only concern was to revive you."
"Revive me? What do you mean? What happened?" she said, though her mind and heart were reeling from the implications of what he was telling her. She couldn't focus on Lex's words as her heart was full for Superman. She remembered flying with him, of him rescuing her. Of her rescuing him from Kryptonite. And she hadn't been able to help him when he needed her most!
Lex watched the play of emotions on Lois' face. His eyes were full of concern, even if his heart only longed to see her turn to him for comfort. He wanted to make her reliant on him, to be grateful to him. He took her hand, bringing her attention back to him as he continued. "You were in danger. I came to try and stop Nigel, and he---when you tried to save Superman, well, Nigel stabbed you Lois. *You* were dead," he said with pained sympathy.
Her mind was spinning with his revelations. She pulled her hand from his, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling sick again. No wonder she had felt so---awkward in her body---*she had been dead*!
"Then how--?" she asked, but Lex was already answering.
"An assistant of mine, Gretchen Kelly, was a scientist who devised a way to revive the dead through cryogenics. It was how I came back to you. And so I merely brought you here, froze you, and brought you back to life in the same manner," he said with a smile, opening his arms as if she would fall into them, immediately grateful.
She turned away from him, trying to think. She unconsciously touched her side again as if to confirm that she had in fact been stabbed.
"And yet you didn't help Superman," she said quietly. She closed her eyes tightly shut, refusing to cry.
"Clark!" she suddenly said, wondering why the thought of Superman made her think of Clark. "What happened to Clark? I remember... he may have been hurt..." she said vaguely with some trepidation. There was something about Clark that she was trying to remember…
Lex almost laughed. She had obviously forgotten the little revelation his--or "Nigel's" use of Kryptonite had brought about. Even though he wanted her for his own, Lex did not relish hurting her. He merely wanted her to turn to him, to need him.
"Lois... Clark is-- *was* Superman," he said softly.
The world seemed to stop with those words. She looked at him, her eyes bright with tears as memory came back. Clark *had* been hurt. He had been in pain because of Krytponite. Because *he* was Superman.
"No!" she cried fiercely, her emotions too high to think rationally. "He *can't* be---" she choked on tears, as the full impact of what he told her hit her at once. She fell on to her knees, clutching her stomach in sick pain. If Clark was gone--- then all was truly lost. She was at the mercy of Lex Luthor and nothing would matter ever again.
"Why didn't you leave me dead!" she cried hotly, realizing the depth of her loss. Clark... and Superman…. "It doesn't matter now! If he's *gone*---!" She cried silently, rebuffing Lex's attempts to gather her into his arms.
"Lois, please. I will take care of you now. *I* will protect you," he said, again trying to give her a hug.
She pushed him from herself angrily. "*You* had the Kryptonite! Why did you have it? Why? When you knew it could--"
"Well, I didn't *know*, Lois," he lied again. "I was merely curious about it."
"Get away from me!" she cried, pushing herself to her feet to try to escape. She was weak and felt ill, but she suddenly had a desperate need to get out of there.
"Lois, you aren't strong enough yet to go anywhere," he said mildly. He pulled a hypodermic needle from a nearby bureau, approaching her slowly, with the needle hidden at his side.
"You need your rest, my dear," he said in a low voice, plunging the needle into her upper arm.
The strong anesthetic hit her system almost immediately. She felt woozy and very, very sleepy. Unwillingly, she let Lex lead her over to the bed, as she suddenly began to have little control over her own movements.
In moments, she was fast asleep.
