This time, his pain wasn't physical.
Within her rose a swell of empathy ... And an urgent longing to fly down the stairs, storm into the cell, and surround him with her arms. To hold him while he wept. To comfort him. To pledge to him that his fight had become her fight, too.
She wanted to ... but what would he want? What did he need?
Probably privacy, she admitted to herself.
And, if she went to him, he would almost certainly feel compelled to try to control the release of his anguish.
She would probably embarrass him.
Like her, he would probably feel better if his tears ran their course.
Lois turned away from him and went back to the staffroom.
Privacy was another gift she could give him.
And it was one that probably meant more to him that she could ever imagine.
Part 7
By the time Uncle Mike's delivery boy handed Lois the two meals, she had settled on her plan for the evening ahead.
After a chain of thought processes that had coiled in an ever-tightening loop, she had concluded that making Clark uncomfortable with her presence in the cell was preferable to leaving him alone to ponder why she didn't want to be with him. She was hoping to stay for at least an hour - longer if he seemed to be coping all right.
She knew it was going to be harrowing for him. Her initial thoughts about entering the cell had centred on her own safety. Gradually, her focus had shifted from herself and onto him - so much so that when she had finally stepped in, she had done so with some understanding that it wasn't going to be easy for either of them.
But now that she had glimpsed the inner destruction wreaked by Trask's brutality, she'd realised that, for Clark, recovery was going to be just as gruelling as survival.
She just hoped that she would know what to do to help him. To know when to gently push and when to withdraw.
This evening, she intended to push by going into his cell with two meals. She'd decided not to ask him if it were OK for her to eat with him. Sometimes - when your brain felt like it was being overwhelmed by new and unfamiliar circumstances - being asked just made everything harder. Sometimes, being told was such sweet relief.
As she carried the containers back to the compound, she was aware that another telling moment loomed. She was going to take a meal into the cell to Clark - with a knife and fork.
It would only be a butter knife, but it was still a knife.
Lois foraged through her feelings in search of any uneasiness ... For any possible squeak of dissent from her gut. She found none.
There was something about Clark Kent.
Something that reassured her.
Something that steadied her.
She was confident that she could go into the cell with an entire cutlery tray of knives and be perfectly safe.
The external door creaked as she opened it. In the staffroom, she placed two knives, two forks, and a bunch of napkins on the top container and unlocked the cell door.
She deliberately paused. They needed a signal. She didn't want to go into the cell at an ill-timed moment. And it couldn't be ideal for Clark's peace of mind to be constantly on edge in case she was about to appear.
Having waited a few seconds, Lois opened the door. Clark was sitting in his place against the back wall.
"Are you ready for supper?" she called.
He got to his feet - diffidence cloaking him like a mantle of misgiving.
Yup, this was going to be tough. He'd had time to think about it. Time to let his apprehension permeate through him like yeast through dough.
Lois lodged the chair in the doorway and crossed the cell. She reached Clark and smiled. "Hungry?"
He nodded.
She picked up one knife, one fork, and about half of the napkins and held them towards him.
He looked up, his eyes ablaze with questions.
"Take them," Lois said.
"Are you s...sure?"
She heard the tiny wobble in his voice and saw his desperate attempt to cover it. "I'm sure," she said, saturating her words with calm assurance in the hope that some of it would reach across the divide between them and light his way through this.
He clasped the little bundle.
Their eyes made contact, and she smiled. We can do this, she telegraphed. She held one of the containers towards him.
He took it and waited for her to determine what they did next.
She lowered herself to the floor. Clark copied her, and they sat side by side on the concrete.
"I don't know what we have," Lois commented. "I haven't looked yet." She pulled back the lid to reveal breaded fillets, creamy mashed potatoes, broccoli florets, and sliced green beans.
Clark opened his container and placed the lid on the floor.
"Do you think the fillets are chicken or fish?" she asked conversationally.
He gazed into the container for a few seconds. "Chicken," he said. It sounded more like knowledge than speculation.
Lois put her container on the floor and cut a piece from the end of the fillet. She held it up to examine it. "You were right," she said. "It's chicken." She cut up the fillets into bite-sized pieces and then discarded her knife, picked up the container, and began to eat with her fork.
Clark put his container on the floor and did likewise.
He speared a piece of chicken and dunked it into the mountain of potato. "Did ... did you cook this?" he asked.
Lois laughed loudly. "Me?" she exclaimed. "No, I can't cook."
Her laughter had cinched tension through his shoulder muscles, but they relaxed again at her explanation. "You can't cook?" he asked in a soft voice that held no hint of reproof.
"Nope," she said easily. "Uncle Mike - he owns the restaurant that provided our meals - has been offering to teach me for years, but I've never had either the time or the inclination."
"I ... can ..." His fork paused on the way to his mouth. "I ... thank you ... for the food." He captured her eyes again. His words were simple and understated. The depth of his gratitude was not.
Lois dropped her gaze to her food. "Which meal did you like the best?"
"Probably the first one," he said.
"The chicken and vegetables?"
He nodded. "Just because it was the first."
The first in such a long time.
Neither of them said it, but Lois figured they were both thinking it.
Lois chewed slowly as she contemplated her next question. It was slightly precarious, but she decided to ask anyway. "Is there any food you really, really miss? Any particular food you crave?"
She could see that he had an answer but wasn't sure about vocalising it.
"Go on, Clark," Lois prompted with a small chuckle. "Tell me."
"I ..."
"You what?"
"I like it when you say my name."
He'd done it again - touched her with his words. "You haven't called me by my name yet," she pointed out.
"I don't know your surname."
"If I tell you what it is, will you call me 'Ms'?"
Her question had stumped him. "Ah ... yes?"
"Then I won't tell you," she declared with a smile.
"You want me to call you ..."
She pointed her fork at him and laughed. "You've forgotten my name, haven't you?"
"No," he said solemnly. "I will never forget your name."
His earnestness nearly undid all of her resolutions to keep her emotions under control when she was with Clark. "Prove it," she challenged.
"Lois."
He said her name with such utter softness that something stupid happened to her heart. Lois put all of her concentration into stabbing multiple green beans. She shovelled them into her mouth and told herself that whatever had just happened had everything to do with her heightened emotional state and nothing to do with the man sitting next to her on a concrete floor. "You never told me what food you'd really like," she said after she'd swallowed.
"Why do you want to know?"
That was easier. "Well, if it's something exotic, I can't make any promises, but Uncle Mike can usually provide just about anything."
"Apple pie."
She chuckled. That was so unexpected and yet so exactly right. "Apple pie," she repeated. "With whipped cream or ice cream?"
He hadn't finished his meal, but he put the container on the floor. "I ... I shouldn't have said that," he said in a voice infused with regret.
"Why not?" Lois said, equally gravely.
He shrugged and stared at where he was listlessly pushing his fork into a piece of broccoli.
"I can guess," Lois said gently.
He didn't say anything.
"I figure it's because someone you love used to make you apple pie. Or you once ate apple pie with someone special. And - much as you love the food - you're not sure if the pain of remembering will be worth it."
Clark was still for a long minute. She heard him clear his throat. "How do you know?" he asked thickly.
"Because I love pizza," Lois replied. She brushed at the moisture drizzling from the corner of her eye. "But I can't eat it. There are days when I figure I'll never eat pizza again."
His eyes slowly rose. She could see the questions burning in them. He didn't ask. He just picked up his container and continued eating.
"Can I ask a personal question?" Lois said.
He nodded.
"Was it your wife who made you apple pie?"
He gasped with surprise at her question, but Lois wasn't sure if it signified more than the obvious fact that he'd hardly been in a position to be married for the last seven years. "No," he said.
"Never married?"
"No." So, the apple pie maker was probably his mom. Martha.
Clark stared at his last piece of chicken. "Are you?" he muttered.
"No."
Lois placed her fork in her empty container, picked up a napkin, and wiped her mouth. Clark did the same, carefully wiping his dark beard - although he hadn't spilt any food in it.
"Does that get in the way when you're eating?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, scrubbing even harder. "But, until now, it hasn't mattered."
"You didn't drop any food in it," Lois told him.
He looked relieved and wiped his lips.
"Would you like tea?" she asked. "Or coffee?"
"Tea, please." He put the cutlery and used napkins into the containers and stood up. When Lois was standing, he gave them to her. "Thank you," he said. "And not just for the food."
Lois gave him a quick smile and took the containers. "I'll be back with the tea."
She walked to the door. He didn't follow.
Lois put the kettle on the stove and took the trash from their meal to her office. She picked up the jigsaw puzzle. She intended to go back into Clark's cell, and - just like at the nursing home - they would need something to do. Something to smooth over the silences.
The picture was of a double-storey house with a wide porch, a thatched roof, a lush lawn, and colourful - if slightly rambling - garden beds. Would this be OK? Clark had come from Kansas. Lois had never been to Kansas. What did his home look like? This? She checked the back. This house was in the Cotswolds in England.
England. Hopefully, it would be all right.
She paused as an image flashed across her brain. She decided not to invest any time into debating its merits.
She was just going to do it.
Lois hauled her camp mattress out from under her desk, gathered Trask's mattress from the top of his pile of boxes, and juggled them well enough to be able to pick up the jigsaw puzzle box. She lumbered down the stairs and dragged them into the cell.
She approached Clark who was looking askance at the camp mattresses. She thrust the box at him. "Do you like doing jigsaw puzzles?" she asked.
He took the box and glanced at it absently, still eyeing the mattresses.
Hopefully, his lack of reaction to the photograph meant that the English house didn't elicit any negative emotions.
"We have a couple of hours to fill before Longford arrives," Lois said. "I'm not sure I want to sit on the concrete much longer." She smiled. "And it seemed a bit rude to only bring a mattress for myself." She dropped them onto the floor. "Do you want to lay out some sheets of newspaper for the puzzle and set up the mattresses next to them?"
Clark nodded.
"I'll be back with the tea."
The kettle hadn't boiled yet. She skipped up to her office to collect the pillows and the block of chocolate that was stashed in her desk drawer.
Coming down the stairs, she refused to admit that this was *really* feeling like a scout camp-out.
It was going to be fun.
And - other than the paper plane flying episode - there had not been even a whisper of fun in her life since the fateful night when she and Linda had decided to trust the wrong person.
As for Clark ... 'fun' had probably vanished from his vocabulary a long time ago.
Lois took the pillows into the cell, dumped them on the floor, didn't linger on Clark's stunned expression, and returned to the staffroom for the tea and chocolate.
When she got back, he had recovered enough that the mattresses were positioned at right angles around the sheets of newspaper. Lois grinned at him. "Good job," she said.
She put the mugs on the ground next to the two mattresses and plonked herself down, intentionally choosing Trask's mattress.
A few minutes later, the jigsaw box was open, and the first few pieces were laid out on the paper. Lois peeled back the wrapper from the chocolate and held it towards Clark. "Want some?" she said.
His eyes dropped to the chocolate and then rose. By the time they reached her face, a half-formed smile had split his beard.
He was smiling.
Clark was smiling.
His beard limited her view, but Lois felt a surge of excitement sweep through her.
She answered his smile, hoping it would encourage him to extend his smile just a little more.
He did.
She laughed.
She just couldn't help it.
He looked a bit bashful, and Lois controlled her laughter. "Help yourself to the chocolate," she said. "And please do it before I eat it all."
He took some and slipped it into his mouth.
Lois broke off a piece, too and then turned her attention to the puzzle. "Are you an 'edge' person?" she asked. "Or a 'sky' person? Or a 'most distinctive feature' person?"
"Sky," he replied, reaching for a blue puzzle piece.
Yeah, he probably yearned for the blue expanse of sky. Lois sipped on her tea ... waiting ... giving him the opportunity to say something ... anything.
He didn't.
"I'll push all the sky bits in your direction," she said as she replaced her tea on the concrete. "I'm going to start with this crimson rose bush."
"OK."
They worked for a time - the quietness only broken by occasional comments regarding the jigsaw puzzle or a quick word of triumph when a piece found its place.
Lois's attention was only three-quarters on the puzzle. Surreptitiously, she watched Clark. There were little signs that he was slowly unwinding. There was the chocolate. She'd felt like dancing the first time he'd cautiously reached for the chocolate and broken off a piece without her specifically offering him some. And there was the puzzle. He seemed to be absorbed in it ... Perhaps, for just a short time, he had been able to forget that he was locked in a cell.
"Clark?"
"Uhmm?"
"We need some sort of a signal."
"Uhmm."
Lois rotated a piece one-hundred-eighty degrees in an effort to make it fit. "How does this sound?" she said. "If - for whatever reason - it's not convenient for me to come into your room, you take the box with the toothpaste and stuff away from the door? I'll open the door a few inches, and if I see the box right there, I'll know it's all right to come in."
"OK."
Lois grabbed Trask's pillow, swung onto her stomach, pushed the pillow under her arms, and rested on her elbows. She scanned the pieces, looking for the one where the rose bush met the lush green lawn.
She saw a piece that was a possibility and swooped on it.
Clark's fingers arrived a millisecond before hers did, and they clashed. His hand jolted back as if he'd been stung. "Sorry," he said quickly.
Lois picked up the piece and offered it to him with a smile. "Is this the piece you wanted?"
"I was going to give it to you," he said. "I think it fits into the part you're working on."
"Thanks," Lois said. She slipped the piece into its place and pressed it home. She looked up at Clark and smiled. "Good job."
He answered her smile with a ripple of movement through his facial hair. Shadbolt had said that Clark was clean-shaven when he'd been captured. Did he like the beard? Or would he get rid of it if he could?
His gaze returned to his steadily growing patch of sky.
Lois picked up a piece of green and absently tried to fit it into the lawn. In her mind, she replayed the moment when her fingers had brushed against his.
He'd pulled back. Apologised immediately.
How would it feel to have been starved of touch for so long?
The effects of what they'd done to him had gone so very deep.
Was he wary of touching her?
Or did he assume that she didn't want to touch him?
Lois put down the piece that didn't fit anywhere and swung to a sitting position. "Clark?"
He also put down his piece and looked up at her.
She smiled. "I'm trying to understand how extremely difficult this must be for you, but I need your help to know how best to do this."
He nodded, and his eyes met hers for a moment before dropping back to the puzzle.
"I know it was really hard for you to admit that you had caught the bullet, and I think I understand why. I want you to know that I appreciate your honesty."
His eyes lifted again. "I wouldn't ... lie to you."
Lois smiled. "I know," she said. "I'm not talking about lying; I'm talking about trying so hard to do what someone else wants that you don't think about what you want."
He seemed to understand. He nodded slightly.
"I'd like to come in here again tomorrow. I'd like to keep doing the puzzle with you, and I have other ideas, but I don't want to overdo it. If I go too fast, I need you to slow me down. If you really need some time alone, I want you to tell me."
"I've had a lot of time to be alone."
"I know," she said softly. "But I want you to know that we can take this at exactly the speed you need us to."
Clark looked down to where his right hand was clenched around his left. "How long will you be here?" he asked. "Days? Weeks? Longer?"
"I'll be here for as long as it takes to work out something better for you than what you've had."
"You've done that already," he said, and his voice shook.
"I haven't finished yet."
His clenched fist pressed against his mouth, and his eyes slid shut.
Lois waited, wishing she had a magic wand she could wave over him that would heal all of his hurts.
His hand dropped, and his eyes opened. "You say that we can take this at exactly the speed I need, but I don't know what you mean by 'this'."
Lois smiled sadly. "The truth is that I don't know exactly either," she admitted. "That's why I need your input. I need to know what helps and what doesn't. If there's a day when you need to be alone and take stock of what's happening, just tell me to stay away."
"I can't ever imagine doing that," he said.
Lois chuckled.
His brown eyes pulsed into hers. "There are people - out there - who don't agree with what you're doing?"
She nodded.
"And you're worried that if anyone finds out that you've come in here, they'll force you to leave?"
"Yeah," Lois said, although she wished that he hadn't been so perceptive.
"I won't say anything," Clark vowed. "Whatever they do, I will never say anything."
She couldn't dwell on the 'whatever they do'. She was sure that, for Clark, that phrase came with graphic images. "It won't come to that."
He didn't reply.
"There's a lot I don't know," Lois said. "I've been told that Moyne has friends in high places. I have to be cautious. That's why I haven't pestered them more about your parents."
"I understand."
She smiled, hoping to dispel the bleakness that had crept into the cell. "We have made a few small steps of progress. The big steps might require more time."
"The *small* steps seem enormous to me."
She had done so little - food, water, clothing ... just everyday items. Her tears threatened again, and she pushed through them to force a smile. "How do you feel about Winnie the Pooh?" she asked.
"Excuse me?"
Lois giggled, easing the build-up of emotional pressure around her heart. "Would you mind using a Winnie the Pooh sleeping bag?"
His eyebrow raised just enough to suggest a speck of amusement. "Pooh Bear is definitely preferable to bare concrete."
Lois smiled. "I'll leave my camp mattress and pillow here and go and get the sleeping bag. You can decide where you'd like to set it up."
"Is this going to cause a problem?"
"It shouldn't."
"I've slept on this concrete for seven years," he said without a trace of self-pity. "It's not worth risking problems."
But *he* was. He was definitely worth the risk. "I'll take these other things away and bring back my sleeping bag," Lois said. She picked up Trask's camp mattress and pillow.
"Whose are they?" Clark asked.
"Trask's," Lois said coldly. "You're not having them."
Her tone caused Clark to shrink back.
"I don't want anything associated with that man coming near you again."
Clark gaped at her as if she had just crossed the line from implausible to unbelievable.
Lois winked at him. "I'm sure that sleeping with his stuff would give you nightmares," she said lightly as she turned towards the door.
In the staffroom, she shut the cell door - just in case Longford arrived early again - but didn't lock it. She hauled Trask's bedding up the stairs and threw it onto the pile of his boxes. She bent low to retrieve her sleeping bag from under the desk and glanced through the window.
Clark was still sitting next to the unfinished jigsaw puzzle. Her pillow was on his lap. His hand was resting on her pillow, and the side of his thumb was absently gliding across it.
Lois set the camera to begin recording at six o'clock tomorrow morning and locked the closet. She emptied her trashcan into a plastic bag, put it in her bag, and quickly tidied her desk.
The next time she looked, Clark was positioning the camp mattress against the back wall.
She locked her office and went down to the staffroom with her sleeping bag. Poking her head into the cell, she called, "This is for you." She tossed it towards him.
"Thanks."
Lois filled his washing bowl with hot water and took it into the cell. Clark was standing next to his *bed*. She stood beside him, and they gazed at it together. "Looking good," she said.
He turned to her, and suddenly, they were only a few inches apart.
His eyes settled in hers. "Lois ..."
She knew what he was going to try to say. And right now, she couldn't take it. She would burst into tears, and that would upset both of them.
"Clark," she interrupted before he had the chance to form his words. "I need to take the chocolate with me, just in case one of the others sees it in here."
He nodded, and she saw relief flood his expression.
"I understand," she murmured.
"Thank you," he murmured back.
She broke away from the invisible bonds that were holding them together and gathered the chocolate.
"Are you leaving the puzzle here?" Clark asked.
Lois nodded. "You can keep working on it if you want to." She pointed to the bowl near the door. "I've left you some water. I'll be in the staffroom. If you knock on the door after you've finished, I'll know I can come and collect the bowl."
"OK."
"See you tomorrow, Clark," she said.
"See you," he replied.
Suddenly, she had to get out. She hurried to the door and shut it behind her. She turned on the coffee machine and began making the coffee - not because she wanted coffee, but because she needed something to do.
Had she done the right thing?
Had she gone too far?
Could she complete what she had started today?
She had to. For Clark's sake, she had to.
It was so hard to believe that she had walked into the cell only a few hours ago. Walked in and faced a stranger.
Tonight, she had walked out on a ...
A what?
He was more than an acquaintance.
Tonight ... just minutes ago ... when they had stood together ... their closeness had seemed to transcend the tangible.
When ... if ...
She had realised that her leaving would be hard on Clark.
But Clark wasn't going to be the only one affected.
She was going to be devastated.
She couldn't leave him.
She couldn't leave him.
Until now, she had thought that she could walk away, content in the knowledge that she had made a difference ... that she had righted some of the wrongs inflicted by Trask.
Until this afternoon, she had been working towards obtaining the best life possible for the prisoner.
How wrong she had been.
Even if she did manage to secure a reasonable life for Clark - safety, dignity, provision of his needs - even then, she wouldn't be able to walk away knowing he was still imprisoned.
She couldn't leave unless he did.
And she had no intention of spending the rest of her days in a compound behind a warehouse on Bessolo Boulevard.
This was no longer about making prison bearable.
This had become about preparing him for the outside world.
And getting him out.
Legally, if possible.
Or otherwise, if not.
||_||
Clark lay on the mattress.
His head was on a pillow.
*Her* pillow.
He'd awoken this morning not knowing that his entire world was going to be turned upside down by a beautiful woman with mesmerising brown eyes and a laugh that was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
The mattress felt strange.
The sleeping bag - Winnie the Pooh, no less - felt weighty.
The pillow pressed into his cheek.
It felt weird not to have to use his arms as support for his head. He couldn't find a position for them that felt natural.
He wasn't tired.
That was good.
He didn't want to sleep.
He wanted to think. To relive. To dwell. To experience again every second he had spent with Lois. Once simply wasn't enough.
He'd awoken this morning with anticipation. Hoping that ... maybe ... she would come into his cell and fly planes with him again.
They hadn't flown planes. The one he had made was still hidden under one of the newspapers.
But they had talked. They had eaten. They had shared the jigsaw puzzle.
They had smiled.
She had smiled more than he had.
And he treasured every single smile she'd given him.
He'd wanted to smile but sometimes it had felt so awkward that he was sure it hadn't worked properly. And he'd known that even if he did manage to smile, it would be mostly covered by his beard.
He had been so nervous that his stomach had felt like knotted threads of turbulence.
He'd been so scared that he would say something to frighten her away.
Or do something that caused her to make a quick excuse and hurry back to her world.
The day was brimming with highlights, but one ... one he hugged close to his heart and replayed over, and over, and over again.
See you tomorrow, Clark.
She'd said, "See you tomorrow, Clark."
She was coming back.
Lois was coming back.
That was enough to wrap his heart in a soft blanket of excitement.
What would they do? Continue with the jigsaw puzzle?
Whatever she did, whatever she brought, Clark doubted she would be able to top what she'd done for him today.
He'd been careful not to touch her. And he'd noticed that she hadn't touched him. Except for when their fingers had dived for the same piece of jigsaw.
He'd apologised quickly.
But she hadn't seemed perturbed at all.
His throat felt dry and raspy. He'd managed to speak without too many squeaks. He had been so worried that the first time he tried to speak to her, nothing would come out. Or worse, that he would make an inhuman grunt.
The muscles of his jaw felt a little achy, but it was such a good soreness.
The best gift she had given him was not the food, not the bedding, not even the clothes. The best gift was how she treated him as if he were just a regular guy. Not a monster. Not a killer. Not an alien. Not a prisoner. Not an animal. Just someone to hang out with.
Someone to share chocolate with.
She'd been so careful to show him respect. So careful not to intrude.
See you tomorrow, Clark.
