'You can't do this please,' Lois did not consider herself the sort of person who was reduced to frightened begging. She was tougher than that, besides when had it ever actually worked? Certainly not here, tied up and waiting to be 'sacrificed'.
The ridiculous costume her captors had insisted she dress in was uncomfortably hot, or perhaps that was the knowledge of the flames that flickered hungrily above her. Once her captors had finished with their ritual they would pour downwards and she would burn to death, just like that poor girl in the meteor shower.
'Please don't do this!' even her voice was unfamiliar, choked and too small as if she had already inhaled the smoke that would not get the chance to suffocate her. She sounded like a civilian, she realised to her surprise. Like all of those frightened little girls she had interviewed so many times for the Planet, helpless and afraid.
Lois had never before understood their terror. She was a general's daughter and she had won her share of brawls in the past. She had also faced down death more than once without ever crumbling beneath the weight of it. But always in the past there had been a way to fight it, with clever words, or lock picks, or even just her fists.
Perhaps that was the difference. Because for the first time in her memory Lois Lane felt truly helpless, and she was quickly discovering that it was not a sensation she handled well.
'Please. Can't you see that this is wrong?' she jerked at the ropes binding her with every entreaty, and tried to make eye contact with individuals of the crowd. Praying that someone amongst their number would be moved to sanity. No way would an entire village look on while an innocent woman was burnt to death. Not in the twenty first century. Unless perhaps they were an insane cult who seemed to have forsaken anything more technological than a wheelbarrow... In that case all bets were probably off.
She was actually going to die. Not in some glorious battle, or to expose a grand corruption but in a dirty field, surrounded not by mafia or mutants just a few hillbillies who thought her death would bring them better tomatoes. And it was very likely that no one would ever discover what had happened, seeing as she had been supposed to be miles and miles away, and somehow she could not imagine Tess Mercer putting that much effort into her discovery.
Oliver might; but he would be searching in the wrong place, and the most sophisticated computer systems in the world would not reveal the secrets of a people who had no digital record. Even if by some miracle he did make it here it would be far too late for Lois.
There was a time not so long ago when she might still have clung to hope. There was one other whose strength and speed were the stuff of legend but the Blur whoever he was had put away his cape, about the same time Clark Kent had been torn from her life. It was a connection she had toyed with in the past and discarded only to pick up the pieces and find that they fit... only it did not really matter anymore. Clark was really gone.
Of course unlike her's his death had actually been meaningful. The mutant terrorists had been captured; their meteor rock explosives contained all but one. The one Clark had blocked with his own body so that the people locked in the warehouse would not be vivisected by shrapnel. She had seen what was left of the body; she had snuck into the morgue to do it because that was the only way she could get close, but the sight had not brought her the closure she might have hoped for.
What remained was a ruined mess, pierced with shards of green like a horrifying parody of a pincushion. The funeral had been awful, the worst by far being the look on Martha Kent's face as they had lowered her only son into the ground. It had been as if all the life had been leeched from what had once been one of the strongest women Lois had ever known. It was one hundred times worse than when she had lost her husband and for the first time Lois thought the other woman looked her age.
Perhaps she would see him again now. She hoped that wherever he was he wasn't watching this. She could only imagine how awful it must be to watch someone you loved be killed in such a pointless way.
Her time was almost up. She could tell that from the intensity of the crowd, the shifting excitement that had come over them. The leader was coming to the end of his speech which she had done all in her power to tune out. All around her the villagers were caught up in the spectacle, some masked, could you not bear to let your victim see your face you cowards? Many more were shameless in their staring. She supposed it did not matter if she saw them now that she was as good as dead anyway.
Finally the leader stepped back away from where she stood on her pedestal, his gesture suitably overdramatic.
'This is the sacrifice our village offers in return for your gracious bounty. I hope that you find it an acceptable offering my Lord.'
What happened after that occurred so quickly that Lois almost missed it. One minute she was closing her eyes tightly, steeling herself for the end, when she heard a familiar whooshing sound that she had never thought to hear again. Still she did not look. It was only wishful thinking, or, much more likely, the sound made by flames being released. Then she became aware of something unexpected, a ripple of anxiety in the watching villagers. She opened her eyes half expecting to meet with scalding fire from above but instead everything seemed frozen.
The people had stepped backwards; even their leader was backing anxiously away. The reason for their reaction was the dark haired man lounging against the beam to which she had been tied. He returned her astonished look with a smirk that seemed to imply much more familiarity than their few meetings should have merited before turning, almost lazily to face the leader of the cult.
'It will do,' he informed the slack faced villagers. 'Of course in the future I will expect you to offer one of your own. Much more personal you know. Those unbelievers, they just don't satisfy like a nice home grown sacrifice.'
Then, before the mob could react, before Lois could utter a disbelieving whisper of 'Zod?' she was in the air, supported by arms that were impossibly strong, clinging to a man she had never thought to meet again although she supposed his identity actually made a lot of sense.
All of the times when the Blur had seemed so hauntingly familiar. That tension that had existed between them from their very first encounter in her hospital room that now suddenly made sense. It was a reflection to the unmistakable chemistry she had shared with the Blur. And as for the silence after Clark's death, well hadn't Zod called him an old friend? How must it have felt to have been able to rescue countless strangers but to lose the one person you would have given anything for? Even a hero could not be everywhere at once but Lois knew how it felt to blame oneself. Who wouldn't be shaken by such a tragedy?
They were high, enough so that the alter, and the fire and the villagers all seemed tiny specks beneath them. She thought she saw something like relief flash over his face, but surely she must have imagined it because she knew the Blur and he had defeated far more powerful threats than a couple of overenthusiastic farmers with pitchforks.
The air up here was chilly and her sacrificial gown had obviously not been intended with flight in mind. Leaning into the warmth that seemed to come off him she could not quite suppress a shiver. She felt his attention snap back to her at the involuntary reaction and realised that his thoughts had been entirely elsewhere.
Now though he was focussed entirely on her and she felt suddenly self conscious that the first time she met the Blur face to face she was dressed in such a ridiculous outfit. The wind had drawn her dress tightly against her body and while it was much less provocative than much of what she had worn in the past she could see from his expression that he was certainly aware of the curves the fabric clung to.
Adjusting his grip on her as effortlessly as if she had been weightless, he shifted until she was no longer cradled in his arms but standing pressed against him as if in a lovers embrace. It was a terrifying instant in which she was intensely aware of the emptiness below their feet, and she buried her face desperately against his chest as if this could somehow keep her airborne.
Lois knew that she was shaking and it was not entirely because of the fear of falling. The realisation that she was not going to be burnt alive was only just seeping in, and she could not believe how close it had come. She also knew if she wanted to summon bravado she would have to do a lot better than this, but it was hard, since Clark had died everything had been so hard. Zod was warm and solid and it had been too long since she had felt any real human contact. It had seemed easier to keep her distance, and she had not realised until now how lonely that isolation had made her. He even smelt familiar she realised, recognising the almost spicy smell from the only other time she had been this close to him. When he had been shot and bleeding in her arms.
It would have seemed almost natural to be so close to him if not for the hyperawareness that the ground was a frightening distance beneath them. It was that knowledge, and the fear of any movement unsettling this balance, that kept her in place, with her eyes squeezed closed. His arms were comfortingly solid around her and her own fingers began to relax as rationality took over and told her that if he had not dropped her yet a little movement on her part would not cause him to.
It was still a few more moments before she dared to open her eyes and look up, still pressing herself into his impressively hard body in a way that was not entirely appreciation for his admittedly enviable physique.
When she did so she found that he was watching her with undisguised amusement.
'If I had known it would have this effect I would have flown with you before,' he told her huskily, his face closer to hers than seemed necessary for their proximity. Then again she was the one clinging to him so tightly that an ordinary man would have been in some discomfort, so perhaps she was no one to talk.
Relaxing a little more she turned her own face up so that they were a breath apart and she could see the desire on his admittedly attractive features.
It was the way the Blur had watched her in her fantasies, an expression that was almost hunger. It was a darker look than Clark Kent had ever been capable of. Lois doubted it would have taken nearly so long to develop feelings for him if he had looked at her like that.
That being said there was a resemblance between the two men that was uncanny. It was as if Zod were a matured, darker version of the farm boy. The differences were undeniable, Zod was far colder and there was a side to him that was almost predatory. He possessed none of Clark's earnestness but in its place was an unmistakable charisma, the sort of effortless presence that left little doubt as to who was in command. But both men shared a similar build and there was something of Clark in the angle of Zod's cheekbones. It was little wonder that she might have considered Clark a possible candidate for the Blur. Viewed from a distance the two men could certainly have been mistaken for each other.
Perhaps it was that which had her closing the whisper of distance still between them. Perhaps it was just that she had always been attracted to the Blur, and for the first time she was looking at his face. It was probably a combination of giddiness and adrenaline but the kiss was incredible.
Zod responded to her at once, taking control with a command that managed to be sensual. She could not look away and he did not seem inclined to. His eyes burnt with passion; he seemed like a man whose emotions flared brighter than most, but perhaps his motives were not so different from her own. They had both lost someone close to them. It was a shared pain that drew them together and Lois had forgotten entirely that she was not standing on the ground. Increasing the intensity of her lips she conveyed the challenge with her eyes.
However traumatic her evening had been Lois Lane was not a girl who was easily controlled. Zod smirked into their kiss and reached one hand to trace the edge of her breast, his touch making the gown seem immaterial as she melted against him. She was about to suggest that they take this somewhere else; there was a limit to how far she was willing to go while at a potentially fatal drop, when his touch, the barest caress brushed the gash in her side where she had fallen as the villagers overwhelmed her.
Her involuntary stiffening must have alerted him, because he broke their kiss and touched, ever so gently, the area of the injury. Now that the danger was passed the wound throbbed painfully, and she could feel light-headedness setting in.
'It's nothing,' she told him. 'Just a scrape. They didn't want to damage me before their sacrifice.'
Zod's answer came out almost as a growl
'I should rip their hearts out.'
There was nothing playful about his manner now.
'That would give the anti hero press some relevant material,' she reminded him. 'Best for everyone if the police deal with the village crazies.'
Zod did not look convinced and Lois wondered what she would do if he truly decided to take out vengeance in blood. Nothing, she belatedly realised. Even with her best attitude she could not have hoped to save anyone from a man who could move that lethally fast. She was not entirely sure that in this case she would want to. She shivered again, it was even colder now that their kiss was ended and she could not remember the last night that seemed this long.
This seemed to be what finally decided him.
'Close your eyes and lean into me,' he instructed her, his tone practical now rather than seductive. Exhausted Lois let herself follow his instructions, and even then the flash of the world zapping past was disorienting. Then it was over and she was standing on the balcony of her apartment, with no one else in sight.
True to form she thought wryly. Still rapid exist or not it did not alter the fact that everything had changed. She knew his identity now and somehow she could not imagine that her mysterious rescuer could bear to keep his distance. Not when they had come so close to finally resolving the tension between them.
'Thank you,' she called out into the night. 'Come see me some time.' There was no answer but she imagined him watching her from somewhere nearby his expression one of indulgent amusement.