"If he wants his copy by midnight, he should have cut the reaming by an hour. And God! Only an hour and a half for visiting and we'll never get parking at the hospital," Lois was muttering. "We're getting a cab." She stopped and turned to him. "And you're buying. The least you can do after you ditched me."
"I didn't ditch..."
"I don't want to talk about it. This is going to drive me nuts." Lois strode to the curb and whistled loudly. "I mean, I get it. There are obvious things we can't disclose, considering we're pretending to not know them."
"Lois, it's best for everyone if no one gets a hold of the hard evidence. And we still have the pictures and..."
"I know, I know." A cab slid to a stop near them and she opened the door. "But it doesn't make it easier. I have enough to deal with and..."
"Thank you," he said, putting his hand over hers on the door.
She stilled and looked up. "What?"
He shrugged. "Just... Thank you for the secrets and the lying. I know it isn't easy."
"No. It isn't." She stared up at him and her eyes... They seemed so wide and lost somehow. "Clark, you said we'd talk and I... I think I really need to.."
"Jenny? Jenny, just leave Mr. Fluffy. Don't... Jenny!!"
He looked to the left, things slowing down around him, his eyes moving down the street to...
"No." He started forward. A toddler running toward a fallen stuffed animal. Running in front of a bus. Running until... a man pulled her away. Nothing in a cape. Just a man who happened to be there. And before Clark. He stared ahead as the bus passed, the man holding the girl away.
The girl stroked a stuffed lamb as her mother rushed forward.
"Jenny!" The mother dropped her grocery bags and grabbed the child, pulling her away from the man. His vision pulling back as his hearing still picked up the voices. "Thank you so much... Jenny, you bad girl... She really is a good girl and I don't know what possessed her... You're having liver and onions for a week, Jenny... Thank you, Sir. You're... a regular Superman."
"Clark?"
He turned. Lois was still holding the door. He was only a few feet away from the cab. All that time and he was only a few feet away from where he'd been.
"Clark, we need to go to the hospital."
He nodded and turned away, back to the cab. The girl was safe. Someone had helped her. So why was he still so...
Lois pushed him into the cab. "What's the matter with you?"
"I... I couldn't..."
"Metropolis General," he heard her say. She pushed him further in. "You've been off since... Well, I guess I always thought you were a little, but today..."
"I'm okay." He turned to her as the cab started away. "I just... I have a lot on my mind."
She faced front. "I know the feeling."
He turned away, too, his body still tense. What if that man hadn't been there? What if that little girl had been under that bus and all because I couldn't... I just couldn't...
"I'm okay. I'm just... tired. That's all."
"Well, no wonder. You obviously didn't go to sleep." her voice lowered. "I mean, unless you have a super-sleeping ability you've been keeping under wraps." She sighed. "Maybe a cab ride isn't ideal for share time, but I need to know a thing or two... or a billion," she muttered. "Let's start with where you were."
He could feel her eyes on him now, but he stared ahead, taking a deep breath. "I went back."
"Back to the camp? Isn't it under police..."
"No," he cut in, not sure how much detail he could go into with a cab driver a few feet in front. "To the other... place we went."
He heard her huff. "Wish we'd taken my car. Can't even... No. It's fine. We have a story. That's... that's everything." There was silence for a few minutes. "You look tired," she finally said, as if she couldn't hold it in anymore. "You said she didn't infect you again, so why..."
He turned to her. "Lois, I'm not hurt. I'm just..."
"Tired. Yes. You said that." Her eyes bore into his. "But I know you, Clark." She paused, her head tilting slightly. "I do. Even when I don't, I do."
He stared back at her, wondering, and not for the first time, if even through all that had happened to her, she did know him. Not the him that stumbled his way through investigative journalism, not the him that put on a cape and tried to save who he could, the him that grew into it all. Grew into her...
"Metropolis General," the man barked from the front.
Lois shook her head and clutched her bag. "We need to check up on the victims," she said dully. He got out on his side, closing his door, but only standing still as the cab moved away. "I was in the Arctic," he said.
She turned to him, standing on the curb with it's peeling yellow paint.
He moved across the five feet that separated them. "I didn't mean to ditch you. I didn't mean to be gone so long. I thought I could go and... get them back."
She stepped up to him. "I knew it," she whispered. "Your powers..."
"They're faded. Sometimes they... aren't even there."
She grasped his tie. "Clark... What did you do in there?"
"I did what I had to." He pulled her to the side as some people came out of the main door, wheeling a woman with her baby and a ton of balloons. "At the fortress, there was a crystal. It could heal the infection. Morgan was nearly dead. I had to help her even if it... It drained some of my strength."
"Some?" Lois shook her head. "Clark, you look as weak as a kitten. And you say your powers are fading. That's more than some."
"Listen, I've heard it from Ollie and Victor. I've even heard it from myself. But if you gave me the same situation over and over, I'd still save her." He ran a hand down his face and leaned against the wall to the side of the door. "There wasn't time to think. I couldn't let her die when I knew I could help. It was just that Helen..."
"Bryce," Lois breathed. "I saw her. She was..."
"Drained." Clark swallowed hard. "I didn't mean for it to happen. She touched it and it took from her what it should have taken from me."
"So... you could have ended up on that floor, white haired and practically transparent."
Clark sighed. "I don't know. I guess... It could have been worse." He smiled sadly. "I know. I'm an idiot. I just acted without thinking. I could have taken that whole place down first, but if she died, I..."
"Clark, don't." She let go of his tie. "Listen, it's over. I mean... What happened happened and now we just have to deal with what's left... You," she said, suddenly, but louder. "You have to deal with what's left." She shook her head and backed away from him. "I... I need to see the patients."
He stared after her as she nearly stumbled to the doors. He supposed he couldn't expect her to be all she'd always been, just because she knew now, in this new way. To her, he was just her partner, who just happened to be Superman... or he had been.
He wasn't much of anything right now.
************************
The tough part was just figuring out why. Why could she face it now when, months ago, even days ago, the very idea might have sent her to the nearest mental hospital for self check-in? And the pain... She almost cringed in anticipation of it, but it didn't come.
"The relaxant has a great deal to do with it," Murray was saying.
Lois looked up. "Huh?" He pointed through the glass at Allen Kern, laying back on a bed, electrodes on his temples, earphones on his ears, a mask over his mouth and nose. It looked a little crowded above the neck. She knew the feeling on an internal level. It didn't hurt, when things came back, but it still packed a wallop. Just too much... Focus. Story.
"We hope it will convince him that he can remember," Murray was saying. "With our new spliced version of Albright's recordings, along with a more... humane mixture, we're hoping..."
"He said my name," Jennifer said. Lois looked toward her. "He saw me and he said my name." She smiled and turned to Murray. "I can't thank you enough, Doctor Takamoto, just for that."
"We have a long way to go, Jennifer." He patted her hand. "But I think we're seeing real progress."
Jennifer nodded, sniffling slightly. "Can I.. sit with him?"
"Of course you can. But he's in deep and might not know you're there just now."
"Doesn't matter. I'll know."
Murray turned to Lois and Clark as she moved out. "Joanne isn't in such bad shape, but Morgan has signed the papers and we're hoping to see even greater leaps with her as soon as tomorrow. It's... just a matter of peeling back the layers." He stared thoughtfully through the glass.
"How's Morgan?" Clark asked. "I know the doctors gave her an all-clear, but..."
"Oh, Morgan's as healthy as a horse... Well, as a horse with a slight cold. But nothing too troubling."
"I think I'll just check up on her," he said, making his way out. "Maybe just check in with the others..."
Lois watched him leave, thinking about what he'd done. He'd risked himself so readily to save Morgan. It wasn't something built in with his super-powers. It was something that was all Clark. She could call it foolish, but it was one of the things that kept her from throttling him, even all of them. She wanted to be mad. She really did. But these people, all of them, Murray included... They were heroes. If they were lying to her, it couldn't be...
"Wrong. So wrong," Murray said pensively. "But it might be quicker."
Lois turned to him. "What's that?"
"Might be more expedient, using the same sort of concoction Albright used, but I confess... I couldn't stomach it. Not with the risks." He pursed his lips, his face turning slightly red. "They could have all ended up in a persistent vegetative state." He nodded to Kern. "He was pretty close."
"What about Marcy?" Lois suddenly asked.
"The Proud woman?" Murray nodded. "The police did call me on that. If she's connected, I'd like to take a look at her, but the police said her daughter has yet to give consent and..."
"And she might not. Not to them, anyway." She dug in her purse and pulled the slip from her pad that Pammie had written on. "If you call her, I think she'll change her mind." She handed him the slip. "You have a way about you, Murray Takamoto."
He blushed slightly. "Well..."
"No. I mean it. You're as much of a hero as any of them. You help wherever you can."
"And you don't?" He grasped her hand. "However red-faced certain policemen and superheroes may be about the whole thing, you went above and beyond the call of journalism and saved a whole lot of people from a fate I consider much worse than death." He shuddered. "I think you've done something truly heroic. I only wish..." He peered at her. "I wish I could help you. Clark didn't tell me much, but he told me... This Doctor Grady apparently used a similar concoction on you. If it's connected..."
"I'm not sure you can help me," she said, pulling away.
"But if we tried..."
"No." She shook her head, so afraid to hold on to false hope. It's gone. It's empty. They were all gone, The only thing she had was... Chloe. She felt almost light-headed, just thinking the name. Too much.... "I don't know how for sure how it's connected. Albright didn't know me. If she wasn't behind it, then... She said she had an associate who was interested in me. Whoever's behind this..."
"Yes, yes," Murray sighed. "That is the big question, isn't it? They're all pondering it, scanning Helen Bryce's notes and..."
"Notes?"
"Yes. Ollie has his team fairly poring over them, but he has no clue who this backer is. Then again, he might only be looking for Lex Luthor. They're all a little single-minded about him, so it seems. But then they seem to..."
"Ollie has her notes?"
************************
"I can't believe you," Lois was hissing in his ear as the cab moved further away from Metropolis General.
"Lois, I..."
"You said it all had to be destroyed. But you kept the notes?"
"I didn't have any say in that. Ollie preserved them. He hoped they would lead to some information as to who was backing this whole thing and, if you think about it..."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"We have been a little busy," he said, feeling a touch of anger now. "If the notes have some clue about the origin of the blood, then they should be kept from the public..."
"And I'm going to... what? Tell the public? You should have told me."
"This hasn't exactly been a day with time for revelations." He glanced toward the front of the cab and moved away on the seat.
"God, I just want to be in my car right now. Pull over and tell you exactly what I..."
"You can say what you want to when we get there."
"Do what I want, too," she growled. "Still feeling weak?"
"A little bi... Ow!" He moved his leg away from her, rubbing at the spot she'd just pinched. "You've been spending too much time with Linda," he grumbled.
"You just don't get it."
"Get what?"
She didn't answer. She only stared ahead in stony silence as the cab drove on.
"Here's good," Clark said, as it came to the corner near The Tower. He tossed some cash at the driver and got out. "Get what?" he asked as the cab sped away, apparently away from the crazy people.
"Those notes don't just hold answers for this story." Lois turned away, moving down the alley toward the parking garage. "They hold answers for me!" She whirled on him in the alleyway. "You said it yourself, Clark. Your carpet fibers matched, in some ways, the traces found on my shirt and..."
"But we don't know for sure that..."
"I know, Clark." She stamped her foot, her eyes filling. "Albright wasn't behind what happened to me, but she knew someone who was. The person behind this. That person might be behind what Grady did to me. What he took from me."
"If Lex..."
"Oh, will you just shut the hell up about Lex Luthor?!!" She grasped the sides of her head. "Lex Luthor is as much a victim in this as me. You said as much, Clark. And, more than that, I know it."
He stared at her, almost hoping... "What do you know?"
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "It's too much..."
He rushed forward. "Lois..." She looked like she was about to fall. He took her by the arms. "Does it hurt?"
"God, I wish it did," she breathed. "It was almost easier..."
"You should lay down or..."
"I'm fine, Clark." He felt her hand on his chest and looked down. "Better than fine." Her fingers slipped inside a gap in his shirt. "So hard to always... think. Just want to...feel."
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