A/N: Dearest people, this story is on hiatus. It hasn't been abandoned, but put on ice because I thought I could handle writing several multi-chapter stories at once and - at the same time -take care of real life issues. Obviously, I failed. As soon as I'm done taking care of things, I'll be back.
Prologue
Far off, the deep, grumbling boom of a scout ship breaking the sound barrier blasts across the landscape. Lights search the coppery sky. There's a blaring siren. How close? Impossible to tell. The sound bounces off the craggy hillside and echoes, multiplies, confuses.
They're searching for them. They're searching, relentlessly searching, and they're getting closer.
Something is clear by now: they are never going to stop.
It's night-time, but it's not particularly dark. The sky is clear. Spring's on the way. The four moons are clearly visible above the agitated, black sea. It's cold – freezing. The last vestiges of the iciest winter in decades. Both fugitives are on the ground, the lowest levels between Silten Hill and Teklon, where there are still streets to walk on, on foot – Kandor's underbelly, far away from the Citadel and the AH and all those lofty buildings high up in the hills, from which Krypton's future is decided.
They have rid themselves of all technology, hurrying along on ancient, broken, cobbled streets in nothing but the clothes on their backs. Their steps echo loudly, reverberating, hitting old buildings and lower hills and bouncing around like projectiles. For those who live in the upper strata of society, it's sometimes hard to remember that people live down here, people with lives and problems and struggles that are real and tangible and so far removed from the affairs of the high and mighty and-
No. No time for that. No time.
The streets are weirdly empty; the area's inhabitants are sticking to themselves, hiding in the deepest shadows. Upper-class people are trawling their home. Better to stay out of the way. Better not to be seen.
She wraps her thick coat closer around her body, pulls the hood over her face. As she's been doing so often lately, she hugs herself around her torso, protecting her midsection – the midsection of doom, he likes to joke, a note of high panic in his voice. It's not funny. It's never been funny, but by now she knows him well enough to understand that he needs to joke, constantly joke, because otherwise, the world might crush what little is left of him.
She overthinks everything. He jokes. Everyone copes in their own way.
He is by her right, hurrying along laboriously, breathing hard. It's not so much that he's out of shape. He just isn't used to being on the run, literally on the run, for hours days weeks eternities. Not only the body gets tired. At some point, the mind reaches its breaking point, too. Not even four months, and both their minds are even wearier than their bodies.
She knows that he'll only give up once he's run himself ragged, once all his resistance has been stripped away from him. It can happen. Before all this business started, she never thought to question this kind of thing, to question her own resolve, to ask herself what might be too much for her to handle. These past few months, she has had much time to think – too much. Thinking is dangerous. It leads to questions and ideas. It leads to unrest. It might even lead to change, and that, on Krypton, is a capital offense.
It's heresy, plain and simple. Plain and simple.
They turn a corner into a small alley, flanked by run-down, metal-coated buildings. Some lights are turned off, shutters closed frantically. She doesn't blame the people. Word got out. They know that danger has been brought to them. She'd be afraid, too. Her heart is hammering, her stomach in constant knots. The linings in her throat are being slowly eaten away by heartburn.
Fear has a way of eating away at everything – strength, sleep, peace of mind, confidence, and even love.
That's when it happens: blue light hits them square in the face, punching their retinas, flooding the entire area. The deep, rumbling roar of assault choppers fills the humid and salty air. Both of them stop dead in their tracks. He takes her hand. Her stomach lurches. She is freezing, paralysed. This is it. There's nowhere left to run. They tried. They lost. She turns to her right, sees the panic in his huge eyes, the wind in his hair, the tension in his shoulders. Rao help him, he still believes they stand a chance.
She tries to smile but can't. That's something she always sucked at, as the vernacular goes. Taking his other hand, she mouths, "I'm sorry," because over the roar of the choppers' engines, he isn't able to hear her. "It's over. We've lost."
They hug each other closely, as if it's the end of the world. In a way, it is.