Here Comes the Sun 1/2
Intro & Disclaimer:
First off, many thanks to my allustrious Beta Reader Virginia R, who was dauntless in attacking the innumerous spelling errors even Lois would cringe at. She was wonderful and very understanding when RL kept me from getting back for days and most recently weeks on end.
This was part of the Summer-Fic-a-thon challenge, albeit a little later than I would have liked. I do have ideas for a sequel, but for the moment it's on the back burner.
This is my first fanfic to these boards, so if I missed some etiquette, I apologize. Please know it was not intentional.
As always I don't own these characters, nor do I make profit from these endeavors. This is just for fun.
This is a vignette and stars the AU Clark and Lois.
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Lois
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Here comes the sun, another brutal, betraying, sunrise. Another day in the cane fields, another evening in the kitchens. I don't know the day, the week, or even the year for sure. I barely speak the native language. Oh, I know the curses they shout at us, and the orders, mostly the crude unrefined expletives and imperatives. None of which grants me enough knowledge hold a conversation with any native speaker older than 5. The people they put in this camp were mostly English speakers, 18 currently, 3 have died in the last 6 weeks. Most of my fellow laborers are too sick or depressed to be any real help. Most just work for food and sleep.
But for me, the night is not just for sleep. The night is mine time to do with as I please. My time to think, to 'write'. It's so seldom that I actually get paper... much less anything to write with. So I write in my head, memorizing my exposé on this gun cartel, labor camp, and stewing revolution. Every word I fix into my memory, incessantly repeating it. It's practically a mantra. I recite it my head while in the fields, and I use it as a blanket to keep me warm at night.
My life used to be based on paper, on a paper, the Daily Planet to be precise. Me, a star reporter, at a nationally recognized paper. Now, look at me, another indentured refugee, in a camp. Shaved head, missing teeth, somewhere in middle of Congo... I know, I shouldn't hope anymore. They've probably presumed me dead... years ago.
They’ve tried to beat all the hope out of us... of me. I’ve not been the perfect prisoner, I know I should shut the hell up, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. Some moron gets too full of himself and attacks one of the girls or the kids and I just act, usually without thinking, drawing his attention away from his target and onto me. I’ve ended up with more than one broken bone that way. Thank goodness none of the injuries were major.
But even still, somehow, I have hope. Without fail, just before dawn, I look to the west and I'm filled with hope... indefinable, raw, powerful, hope. It's like the universe is telling me, 'Lois, I'm looking for you and I will find you.'
It must have started a year ago or so. At that point, I had almost given up all hope after my first few attempts to get word out on my whereabouts had failed. I was resolved to my washed up fate, to die unknown and be buried in a mass grave.
One morning I woke up before everyone else and just stared to the east, daring the sun to rise. I vowed to myself, 'No, more. It ends today.' I was planning on setting it all on fire. The kitchen, the camp, the forest, everything. I'm not foolish, I knew that we couldn't get out, that the fences would trap us in the middle of the flames, all of us prisoners would surely die. But maybe, just maybe, it would take out all of them as well. And if somehow they managed to get away, then the fire, as grand as I was planning it, would attract attention. So when the site was found and investigated, they would find me. And if I couldn't write the story of the century, I would settle for being part of it.
But that's when I turned around looked to the west, towards my old home, the Planet and was about to say goodbye. I looked deep into the fading black, and I felt it. I froze. All I saw was stars, beginning to be bleached by the oncoming sun. But... I know this sounds weird, but, I felt like I saw it. The smoke trail off the end of the cavalry charge. I believed I could feel this rumble as if tanks were about to top the far hill. It's like all they lacked was a tiny piece of intel. Almost as if all it would take was me shouting, "It's me, Lois Lane. I'm right here, come get me." As if just shouting could get me out of this mess.
Sometime in the last few months, this feeling, it has exploded. Now I can practically taste
it... It's my freedom... Now, looking out this greasy window in the kitchen I have slept in every night for almost three years, a rare smile breaks across my face. Somehow, I know it's my move. I just have to plan this out. I can feel it, taste it, my freedom and my Pulitzer.
