Title: End of an Era
Author: Trowa B
Rating: G
Summary: Everything comes to an end.
Notes: This is really not a fandom I ever thought I'd write in. But it happened. It sort of sprung into being fully formed at 11pm when I should have been unconscious and wouldn't let me go until I'd written it. So here it is.
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The dark haired young man was here again.
Nora had assumed at first that he was one of Mr Luthor's grandsons, but after several months of careful observation, she had decided that there was something off about the young man. She hated to intrude – the visits seemed to make the old man so happy, even if he never remembered them for long - but she had checked with the front desk and no-one remembered seeing the young man sign in or out.
If there was one thing Twelve Oaks prided itself upon, it was the privacy and security of its patrons, even if said patrons were senile; mere shells of their former selves. Mr Luthor – Call me Lex, Honey – had good days which were becoming less frequent as the months went by, but they often seemed to coincide with the days the young man visited.
Because of this, she felt she had to speak to the young man quietly before someone on security took notice and stopped him visiting. She liked Mr Luthor, even though most of the nursing staff found him so difficult to get along with and didn't want him to lose something which so evidently made him happy.
Quietly, making sure no-one on staff noticed her movements, she headed over to the corner of the landscaped gardens that Mr Luthor and his young friend frequented during the visits. She frowned as she approached. The pair had always sat together, Mr Luthor in his chair, the young man on one of the marble benches scattered strategically through the grounds, but today they were side by side on the bench, the young man with one arm around Mr Luthor's waist.
The other hand gently held the old man's head against his shoulder, fingers unconsciously stroking the bald, age spotted scalp.
She must have made a noise of some kind, she thought, because the young man looked up then, his eyes overly bright behind the lenses of his out-dated glasses.
"He's only sleeping," he murmured, barely loud enough for her to hear. "Just sleeping," he added, mostly to himself as he bowed his head again to press his lips briefly to Mr Luthor's head.
Nora felt her own eyes welling up. She moved over to the bench, sitting on Mr Luthor's other side and taking the old man's cooling hand between both of her own, stroking his gnarled knuckles. "I was coming to warn you about signing in," she murmured, unable to find anything else to say. It sounded hollow to her own ears, but the young man nodded.
"I...should remember to do that," he agreed sadly. After a moment, he looked up at her again. "Just a few minutes?" he asked thickly.
She nodded her agreement and rose with one last pat of Mr Luthor's hand. "I'll be back in a few minutes," she confirmed.
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When Nora returned a few minutes later, the young man was gone. Mr Luthor was in his wheelchair again, a slight smile on his face and tears drying on his lined face.
In his lap, half wrapped in one crabbed hand, was a set of car keys for some old, outmoded automo-whatsit, the plastic ends twisted out of shape by some great force.
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It came to her suddenly, many days later, as the news reports about a change in Superman began to gather pace, that the walls at the hospital were twenty feet high, that beyond coming through a security gate the only way a person could enter the compound would – literally – be to fly in.