I've spent the night here before. The room was cold, the window always a crack open. It was meticulous, sanitized, and everything seemed to have a designated place. Besides the clashing green, powder blue, and purple color palate there really wasn't much to look at. The nagging reminder began to form that at some point today I will be forced to eat something certainly unpleasant.
Hospital rooms. I'm constantly waking up in them. How I have no brain damage from all the blows to the head I've received really is baffling.
I blink again, admiring the bland cream ceiling tiles, and then scoot up once the bed adjusts to allow me to sit straight. To my right is Clark, sleeping with a large arm beneath his chin beside my thigh. His white collared shirt clung to him and I couldn't ignore all of that defined flesh. Once all of the less than innocent thoughts left me, I noticed how much he resembled a cat all curled up and I desperately resisted the urge to reach out and touch him lest he wake.
Seeing him there reminded me of a time several years ago, maybe 6 years now. That night he had snuck in slowly because a nurse had just shooed him out moments before. I was under the impression that the visiting hours rule was pretty strict and that the lady who'd admonished Clark for keeping me awake would surely keep an eye on me. I guess it didn't matter how he got here, but that he just was here. Like the song.
He sat on the side of the bed then, quickly returning his hand to its previous resting-place with mine. The squeeze told me, "I'm back." I knew he was afraid of being overheard but I sorely missed hearing his voice. It's always been a comforting sound to me and at the time I needed all the comfort I could get. I'd been kidnapped by a psycho cop, who had wanted to stage my murder so that he could solve it and then get a promotion.
I was buried alive with a glow stick, so I could watch as the dirt shifted over my coffin door, trapping me. Each shovel rained more upon me and I knew that within minutes I would suffocate. In the final moments, I vaguely thought of Clark. How we'd never spoken about our future, how I never told him what a good journalist he could be, how I had loved the date we had and wanted to go on 1 million more, and how all I needed was to know he was happy.
The coffin lifted, the lid was torn open with his bare hands, and he called to me, "Chloe…Chloe!" He once told me how it had all happened for him, but to me it was just like waking up from a bad dream to a prince, armor clad to rescue me.
I felt nothing until he placed his arms around me. "Chloe, it's okay, everything's okay." I looked at him and I knew I was in love with him. Our relationship had forever been a plague of feelings and unrequited musings, but at that moment beside what was practically my grave, I knew it. He was my hero and I could absolutely never stop loving him.
I didn't understand how he did it, how he knew I was here or how it was I was excavated, but I didn't care. The blatant exultation in his eyes when I finally opened my own, the hug he enveloped me in, I knew he cared about me very much.
Then he did something surprising and very unusual for the diffident farm boy I remembered. He asked to sleep next to me. Normally, I would have perceived the gesture as friendly. He was only protecting me. He needed a place to rest too. But I knew that it was the desperation to believe I was safe again conquering him. I had to be held by him for Clark to be sure. He had to be close enough to hear my heartbeat and my every breath to be sure this wasn't all a hallucination.
I raised the sheets to accommodate him and he removed his muddy worker boots and jacket before climbing in. Immediately and simultaneously we realized that we were in dire need of space. Luckily Clark had a plan. He turned me on my side and he did the same, pressing himself on me and draping a hand across my stomach. Clark and I were spooning. It was as spectacularly surprising as learning of his origins.
I slipped off into my dreams after that, which I didn't believe possible so soon. Clark had stayed up a good deal longer than I had. He had later told me that he was terrified to shut his eyes for even a second that night. "I was so on edge, lying there all tense. If my mom had walked in and took me by surprise, I can't say I wouldn't have mistaken her for your captor and attacked."
Sometime in the middle of the night I awoke to hear Clark talking, I thought at first to ignore it, but then when I noticed that his speech was very much pointed at me I listened more closely. His voice was farther off, Clark had moved across the room to a nearby chair. I imagine he'd been speaking to me this way for a while.
"There was a moment when I didn't know whether I was too late. You were still, with your eyes closed and your lips bluish and cold. I thought—I don't know. What if you were? I'd have to bring you home, your father. It'd break him. And it would all be my fault. If I had only run faster, even a second faster? Oh Chloe, I swear you won't ever end up like that. Not all alone."
The chair suddenly scuffed against the floor loudly as he stood to walk about the room. He almost startled me and almost revealed my eavesdropping.
"But it'll happen someday. I won't be around to help, because I'll go off to try and save some meaningless stranger just when you need me. Or you'll die naturally, with old age. Either way, I won't be able to stop it." He turned to peer out the darkening window as a gust of window swept into the room.
"I wish you didn't want to discover the truth so badly. All it ever does is open up more questions. It never ends. I wish you took up professional needle working, scuba diving, or anything that would get you far from this life. Lies hurt people, but sometimes the truth can destroy them. I wish you understood that."
He pulled a chair up to me; I forced myself to remain completely motionless as he ran his fingertips up and down my arm slowly.
"I didn't even know that I could feel this way. I've been so focused on what was on the other end of my telescope all this time; I couldn't even see it. You, Chloe, have always been there for me. You've been my only tether in the rush of life that's been carrying me away this year. Destiny and responsibility. Everything has been sweeping me away in the current. You've kept me afloat."
"I'm not sure what my feelings are yet, Chlo. I do want to be more than friends, but I'm still confused. So much of my life is a mystery, even to me, and so much of yours are uncovering them. How long can we go before you can't take it, or I can't take the prying? What's the point of ruining us? You said yourself that once we cross that line we can't go back."
I wanted to kick myself for giving that little tidbit of advice. Clark reclaimed my hand in both of his.
"Then today, almost losing you. I don't care about that stuff anymore. All I could think about while you were gone was how much time we wasted being just friends. All I kept thinking about was how the first moment I saw your smile again, I'd fix it. I'd make it worth the wait, for both of us."
I apparently couldn't hold myself back longer and I broke into a silly ear to ear grin.
"Chloe?" His voice layered with concern and annoyance. When my eyes finally opened, he stared down at me. "How much did you hear?"
"You woke me up when you grabbed my hand." He still looked violated. "Don't give me that look. If you wanted a private audience you shouldn't have gone shaking my hand around."
"Sorry. Go back to sleep." I could tell he was embarrassed and the last thing he wanted was for me to force him to talk about it. I respected that.
"You first. I'm guessing you haven't drifted off to never never land yet."
He shook his head and entered the bed again on the other side. He was about to resume his earlier position when I stopped him.
"No, you're sleeping this time. I want to make sure you aren't faking." We rested facing one another, heads pressed together. Clark kept my hand in his, with the warmth of it radiating in me.
With our faces only millimeters apart it was not long before we gravitated closer. Eyes closed, Clark made the first move. His lips grazed mine softly, testing me. His free hand gently touched my face as he kissed me again, this time more boldly on both sides. His tongue slipped slowly into my mouth and his hand latched onto the back of my neck, pulling me deeper into the kiss. The heat of it got too much to bear and his lips followed a trail to my jaw line, down them cautiously and then to my throat and collarbone. I wanted him to bite me and mark me as his but we both knew that it'd be hard to explain away in the morning.
There was a storm of emotion going through me at the time, but no objection could catch anyone's attention. Still, I didn't want to go to fast. I didn't want to scare him off before we got the chance we deserved.
That we still deserved.
I brought him back to kissing me on the lips and I managed to lessen the passion of it, transforming it to one of tenderness. The words bubbled to the surface. I love you. Now that would certainly scare him.
Instead I pulled away and stared him full into the eyes, "Thank you, Clark. I know it was Lana who told you where I was but I also know that had you not gone to the field yourself I would have died tonight."
He looked spooked; I was close to his secret, but didn't realize back then. "You do?"
"Of course. I only had a little while left. The police in this town would have taken forever to come down and get me. By coming as fast as you did you got me out perfectly healthy. I heard the doctor say to my dad earlier that even if I had been rescued a minute or two later that I would have died or at least been severely brain damaged."
"Well, your welcome. Honestly, I don't know what life would be if—"
"If nothing. I'm fine Clark. Now we can focus on the future." I closed my eyes and hoped that he would follow suit. He edged towards me and pulled me closer.
Might have been the best night sleep I've ever had.
Now the boy before me was much more aged, mature in features, more beaten in spirit. I cupped his face sympathetically. "Clark…Clark…Clark!"
He woke at that with a start and looked about the room before he locked eyes with me.
"So what'd I do to end up here this time?" I smoothed the sheets about my legs with my hands.
Some sort of realization hit him and he jumped to his feet. "Lois!"
Lois? "Lois is here?" I looked around the room. Nope, we were alone.
His eyebrows drew together, then he chuckled. "Very funny." He replied laughingly at a joke that I failed to comprehend.
Something was off about him. He looked…different. I don't remember him wearing khakis. "What happened?"
"You've been unconscious for a few days. I was so worried. And Perry, he's been off the wall. I think he was here more times than anyone."
"Perry?" I've heard that name before, but where?
"Yeah, what a softy he turned out to be." Then it hit me.
"You mean Perry White, from X-styles?"
"X-styles…wait—" All of a sudden his face grew deadly serious. "What's your name? What year is it?"
I cocked my head sideways. I remembered everything perfectly fine. "Chloe Sullivan. And it's my third year at Met U so 2008."
"Oh." He sat back down with a thud.
I moved my arms toward him to stop him from falling straight through the chair. "Jeez Clark, be careful. If you land on that like a ton of bricks its going to splinter into a million pieces."
"Ton of bricks?" He looked even more shocked.
"Or Steel. Bricks just sound better." I amended my statement with a shrug. "Seriously, what's wrong?"
He grabbed a mirror off the table and handed it to me hesitantly. "What is it?"
Almost as soon as I took it from him it crashed to the floor, as I felt my entire body go numb.
"You really don't remember? The accident? What happened to Lois?"
I could only shake my head in response. Brown hair! And my face, I'd aged so much.
"Chloe." He paused to sigh. "Wow, it's weird to say that again." He took my hand the way I had so remembered it. "You and your cousin Lois… You guys were heading to your dorm when she was rear-ended by some joy riding punk. The car flipped and without a seatbelt, she died on the spot while you suffered severe head trauma. I had to take you to my father to save your life. To revive you, you had to be reborn just like I had been."
"Ever since then, you've been writing as Lois Lane without any recollection of your past."
He squeezed my hand, bracing me for the next part. "That was five years ago."
TBC…