Survival

Chapter 2

By L Mouse

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The silent plane hit the water and skipped like a stone, powerless. Lois bit her tongue, and the seatbelt definitely left bruises on her hips.

Sorry, Superman! Lois thought, frantically, as Superman was thrown airborne. She heard a thump behind her as he collided with something. She gritted her teeth, and guided the plane down again. She could barely see the water; just moonlit sparkles against the darkness. She was landing blind, groping for contact with the seawater.

BOOM! She found the ocean.

They bounced again, this time with a little less force. The plane groaned and creaked, protesting the impact.

The fourth time down, the plane finally decided to stay in contact with the water and it glided to a stop, momentum dying slowly. When it finally sat motionless on the still, quiet, slowly rolling ocean, all was silent except for the ticking of cooling engine parts and the metallic lap of waves against the steel pontoons.

"We're out of gas," Lois said, into the silent cabin. "We'll have to call for help."

They hadn't filled the plane's gas tank since last week. She hadn't gone far, though the city lights were over the horizon. She'd been expecting Superman to wake up and he hadn't.

Superman didn't respond. Was he even still alive? He'd said he thought the bullets contained kryptonite and she was reasonably sure that was bad. He'd been hit at least twice.

She unbuckled the seatbelt, snapped on the cabin lights, and stumbled back to check on him. The ocean waves made the little plane roll steadily. His head lolled back and forth as the plane's deck pitched and heaved. He was sprawled on the floor, suit stained dark with blood.

Lois knelt, "Superman. Superman, can you hear me?"

Nothing. He was out cold. He was still alive, which was a profound relief. He was breathing shallowly, and blood pumped steadily from the wound. She needed to stop that bleeding.

There wasn't anything cloth in the boat. His cape and suit were not absorbent. With a growl of frustration, she yanked her shirt over her head and pressed it against the wound. Under her fingers, she felt the grind and crunch of -- bone?

She lifted her shirt up and peeked. No, kryptonite. Embedded in that ugly dark wound she could see shards of green crystal. With a sense of deja vu, she retrieved a pair of needle-nose pliers from the tool kit under the plane's back seat and -- fighting down nausea -- she pulled as many bits and pieces of kryptonite from the wound as she could. Nasty stuff; it had splintered on impact and some of the pieces were no bigger than grains of sand.

Fortunately, the bullet had hit his collarbone and hadn't gone very deep. His collarbone was broken, she didn't have to be a doctor to see that, but it had absorbed most of the impact. She flushed out the wound with clean water, getting everything she could find out, and put pressure on it again. The bleeding had slowed as she worked, and she could almost see him healing.

The bullet in his calf had gone clean through and the wound also appeared to be closing up. He wasn't waking up, but considering what she'd had to do, maybe this was a good thing. She would have lost it if he had screamed. And later, she was going to have a serious case of the shakes about this whole mess.

She opened the plane's door, leaned down to the water, and washed his blood off her hands in the ocean. Since he wasn't bleeding much anymore, she also rinsed out her bloody shirt in the seawater so she'd at least have something to put on if rescuers showed up.

It was a quiet, warm night and thankfully the ocean swells were mild. She could see the glow of the city in the distance but the city lights were below the horizon. Rescuers didn't seem like an immediate proposition. Nor did it seem likely Superman was going to wake any time soon and get an eyeful of her bra.

Lois sat down and contemplated her problems. The plane's radio wasn't working; the sniper had shot at the craft several times on takeoff and she thought something vital might have been hit. She could also smell gas now that the plane's door was open, so they'd run out because the fuel tank had been punctured -- and they hadn't had much gas to start with.

Superman was still out cold, no help there.

She didn't have her cel phone with her; that was back on her dresser in her house. Where, hopefully, Jason and Richard were just fine.

The plane had emergency water and food under the back seat, next to the tool kit. Enough for a few days, if Superman didn't wake up and save the day. Hopefully someone would spot them if that was the case. Hopefully that someone wouldn't be Lex Luthor or any of his goons. Thinking of Lex made her grab a hammer out of the toolbox. At least it was a weapon, even if it wasn't a very good one against a man with a gun.

Help didn't arrive before dawn; she stayed awake and watched the sun rise. Superman was breathing steadier, but didn't stir until the sun hit his eyes directly sometime around eight or nine AM.

"Lois," he said weakly, "Where are we?"

"You're awake! Thank god!" She yanked her stained, salt-water-stiff shirt on in the front seat of the plane, and then knelt at his side.

"Kryptonite bullets," he said, sounding only partially coherent. Her heart sank at the glazed look in his eyes. I probably didn't need to bother putting this yucky shirt back on, she thought, sourly. He wasn't really with it yet. "I think ... somebody ... shot me with kryptonite bullets."

"It's gone. You're going to get better," she said. "Right?"

"Unh." He closed his eyes. "Hurt."

That wasn't exactly a reassuring response. C'mon, Superman. I need you to be the hero for me and save my butt again. "Superman? Stay with me, here."

"Lois. Where are we?" His eyes didn't open, but he sounded a little stronger.

"Somewhere at sea. I had to put the plane down. They shot the gas tank. I ... I got the bullet bits out of your shoulder. You're going to be okay, right?"

"Call ... for help. Jason. Richard. Are they okay?" Superman asked. She saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard.

"Radio's dead," she informed him. "You're going to have to fly us to safety."

"Cel... phone." He suggested. "Can't fly."

"I left it home. Didn't plan on being attacked tonight. Guess I need to coordinate my plans better with Lex!" Lois said, anger tingeing her voice.

"Mine. In my boot."

Superman has a cel phone? She was momentarily surprised by that. But she supposed it made sense. I'd give my right arm to know who he's given the number to. And I want it.

She'd already taken one of his boots off, the one on his injured leg. She tugged the boot off his good leg -- this elicited a groan from him, as the motion jostled his injuries -- and discovered he'd tucked both a cel phone and a wallet into the top of the boot, which was fairly loose fitting. He also had a key chain with two house keys on it, and a folding pocket knife in there. Well, she supposed his costume didn't have pockets ...

Eagerly, she snapped open the cel phone and discovered it was soaking wet and completely dead. Damnit!

"It's wet!" she complained.

He didn't answer; he was out cold again.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit, c'mon Superman, you have to get better!"

"Hurts," he mumbled. Possibly, that was worse than out cold -- Superman wasn't supposed to be delirious. He sure sounded that way, though.

She started to put his stuff back in his boot, then paused. Wallet. It was a brown leather wallet, hand tooled, with a picture of the American eagle embossed on the front and -- she was amused to discover -- a Boy Scout logo on the back. It looked old and worn, like something a boy might have made a long time ago as a Scout project. How had Superman gotten it? she wondered. How long has he been on Earth? His English is absolutely perfect, no accent, but that doesn't mean anything -- he's an alien, God only knows how fast he learns and what sorts of technology they have.

Still, when she thought about it, it made sense that he'd been on Earth for awhile. Long enough for the wallet to have gained that patina of well-worn age, anyway.

There was no way on Earth she could resist the lure of snooping in it. She didn't even try. She snapped it open, and had a look. And for a moment, she was both disappointed and puzzled: the wallet belonged to Clark Kent, not Superman. It had Clark's driver's license, two credit cards, a membership card to a local grocery store, a Blockbuster Video card, and photographs of his parents and people she didn't recognize -- and one of her, standing on an overlook at Niagara Falls, which was weird, because she didn't remember ever visiting Niagara Falls with Clark ... no, wait, she did, she had, a faint memory tickled at the back of her mind. Something about a story, and a fireplace, and Clark falling ... hmph. Must have simply been a boring trip for her to have forgotten it that utterly.

Clark must have dropped it, the absent-minded idiot that he is. I bet Superman spotted it and was going to return it to him. I swear, Clark's such a moron sometimes ... The wet leather smelled strongly, and she almost put it away, when she saw the driver's license.

The license had Clark's picture on it but the license itself was dated several years prior -- from before she'd ever met him. It was expired, but she supposed he'd been out of the country and had no reason to renew it. In the picture, he wasn't wearing glasses and his hair was shorter and slicked back. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt. The resemblance to Superman was obvious and striking; there wasn't any way she could possibly miss it.

She eyed Clark's driver's license, and then Superman's pale face.

Well, hell. Why didn't I see that before?

A boat's horn startled her so badly she nearly fell over. She lunged to her feet on the pitching deck and saw, to her utter relief, there was a coast guard cutter approaching the plane. She was rescued!

Quickly, she stuffed Superman's -- Clark's -- wallet in her pocket, then yanked the door back open and waved frantically. "Help! Help!"

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Lois stood silently, eying the charred rubble that had been her home, two days later. The police captain -- not anyone she knew, just an anonymous officer -- told her the bald facts.

Richard dead.

Richard's friends, dead.

Jason gone. They'd found no body and assumed he'd been kidnapped.

The house destroyed, burned to the ground. Hiding tracks, most likely. Their attackers wanted to leave no evidence. Though she had little doubt that this was the work of Lex Luthor.

She hadn't seen Superman since the ambulance had whisked him away. She honestly wasn't sure how she'd passed the time over the last two days -- talking the police had been part of it, and she remembered getting very drunk in a hotel room because she didn't know what else to do. She'd gone through at least four packs of cigarettes before falling asleep. She'd woken up to a report on the news this morning that said that Superman was still unconscious.

"Lois," A voice said behind her. Jumpy, paranoid, she spun about, reaching for the gun she'd bought yesterday. Superman hadn't saved her this time: now she knew she had to save herself.

It was Jimmy. He flinched at her sudden move. "Lois, we've been looking all over for you. Perry said to see if you were here. He's really worried about you. Are-are you okay?"

Something wild and terrible was showing on her face; she could see the fear in Jimmy's eyes. "They killed my fiance and took my child, Jimmy. What do you think?" A wild laugh escaped her. She sounded nuts, which was perfectly okay, because she felt nuts too.

He said, tentatively, "Clark didn't show up for work yesterday either. We're afraid ..."

Lois hugged herself, feeling desperately alone. "I don't want to hear about any of this."

"Lois, are you going to be okay? Perry said to tell you to take a couple weeks off." Jimmy took a step towards her, looking very young and frankly terrified. "I'm sorry about Richard."

"Me too." Richard hadn't been a part of this until she'd gotten him involved.

"Perry said to tell you to come home -- to his place. He'll put you up."

"I've got a hotel room." The last place she wanted to be was with the father of her fiancé. She just wanted to be alone.

"Clark's fine, Jimmy." A familiar -- very familiar -- voice said, from her right. She whirled again, startled, to see Superman landing.

"Superman. Oh, thank god. You're okay!"

Her sense of relief was so strong she was startled by it. She burst into tears and ran into his arms. "Superman, you have to find Jason!"

"I know," he murmured. He ran his hand through her hair, and held her tight for a second. It felt so good to be held by him -- and then she felt guilty for the reaction, because Richard was dead and Jason was missing ...

She heard him say, over the top of her head, "Jimmy, I'll make sure she's okay. Tell Perry that Clark's fine, and that he'll be at work later. We're looking for Lex Luthor and he's helping me out with the research end."

"Sure, Superman. Thank God you're okay."

After Jimmy had left, she felt Superman sag a bit. She looked up, into his face, and saw in his expression that he was far from okay. He was pale, and his eyes were feverish-bright. He was also holding his arm tight to his chest; the hug had been one-handed. She could feel waves of heat radiating from him.

"Do the doctors know you left the hospital?" she asked.

"I'll heal. They had to dig more bits of kryptonite out of me and I'm not sure they got it all by the way I'm feeling. The bullet shattered like glass when it hit my collarbone ... But -- we need to find Jason. I'll worry about the rest later." He hugged her again. "I'm so sorry about Richard, Lois."

"Yeah. Lex knows Jason is your child, I think. I think that's why he took him." Lois buried her face in Superman's good shoulder. "I don't know what he's planning to do. My baby, we have to get him back!"

"I promise you, I'll find him," Superman murmured.

She stepped back, suddenly, and fished in her pocket for his brown leather wallet. "This is yours."

He eyed the wallet for a moment without reaching for it. Then he bent over and tucked it back in his boot. His movements were painfully stiff and he used his left hand -- it was the right shoulder that had been shot. He was right-handed. With wariness, he asked, "Where'd you find that?"

"On the plane. You told me to get your cel phone out. It was with it." She shrugged, and hugged herself, and eyed him. The resemblance, she decided, wasn't entirely obvious unless you were looking for it. As Superman, he moved completely differently, in addition to wearing his hair different and the lack of glasses. But if you knew ... well, that was a scared Clark Kent looking at her, not the almighty Man of Steel.

Scared for Jason, I think. Not afraid for himself. That's a whole different level of terror than just a fear of me blabbing his secret about.

"I was afraid that someone at the hospital had it."

Yeah, it would be worse than usual if someone stole Superman's wallet, given the secret it contains.

"Did you ..." He trailed off, frowning at her.

"I looked. What, you think I wouldn't?" She snorted morbid amusement at the thought.

He was silent. Staring at her. Waiting for her to say something.

She finally did, a question that had been bothering her. "Did I know, before? Was that the secret you had to take from me?"

He nodded once. "Yes, Lois, you knew."

"Will you make me forget again?" She sounded terrified even to her own ears. She didn't want to lose this. She needed to know.

"No." His eyes searched her face. "The first time was a mistake, I never should have ... I'm going to go back to my apartment and do some research on the internet. Would you like to come with me?"

"Internet?" she said, stupidly.

He explained quietly, "I've been flying around the city for an hour and there's no sign of Lex or Jason. He's gone to ground somewhere. The best way to find him is going to be through good old fashioned research, I think. I'm going to hit the tax records and try to find out if there's any property he bought with his recent inheritance."

"I can help," Lois said. "Let me get my lap ..." top. Which had burned with the rest of the house, and her life. She swallowed hard, and said firmly, "Nevermind. Let's go."