Part 9: An Impossible Choice
"I…wh-what?" she breathed as he bent and, with a quick jerk of the knife, sliced through her binds. He was careless as he did so and nicked her skin, but she barely felt it as he wrapped a hand under her arm and hauled her roughly to her feet. "I don't understand," she said a bit stupidly as she looked between the two of them. Her mind was racing too fast; it was hard for her to focus, to form an escape plan.
Her captor jerked her to the side so she was standing beside Clark's chair, and then he released her. Knowing she didn't have long to act, Lois took the opportunity when it presented itself to her. Staggering as if she was still under the influence of the sedative they'd slipped in her champagne (which wasn't entirely an act), she careened to the side, toppling the table with the glass on it as she fell heavily to the ground. The glass on top of the table shattered as it hit the ground, and Lois palmed one of the shards as surreptitiously as she could in her left hand just before her captor hauled her to her feet once more.
"Hey, Amber," he griped as he yanked Lois roughly by the arm. "How much did you slip these guys, anyway? They're not going to be too much fun if they're too drugged to make a run for it." If that wasn't a terrifying suggestion, Lois didn't know what was.
"I just used the usual amount," the blonde said defensively. "Maybe she just had more to drink than the others did."
As the two of them bickered, Lois tried to stifle her relieved sigh. So far, they hadn't caught on to the fact that she had palmed a sharp piece of glass. Now if only she could find a way to slip it to Clark without anyone noticing, maybe the two of them would get out of this situation in one piece.
Before she could formulate a plan or put it into action, the linebacker grabbed her by the arm and yanked her roughly to the side to stand in front of Clark. "All right, listen up, Princess," he growled irritably as she staggered in surprise and he had to right her again. When cold steel pressed against the side of her temple, she heard Clark scream angrily for her captor to let her go, but even Clark fell silent at the metallic click of a gun being cocked, which seemed unnaturally loud to Lois's ears. "Do I have your attention?" the linebacker snarled. "Good! Because we're about to explain the rules of our little game, and trust me. You don't want to miss out on anything important."
"Oh, Steve, let me do it this time," Amber cooed as she walked up on Lois's other side, brandishing two guns of her own.
If it weren't for the fact that her knees were weak, her breathing ragged, and her lunch less than certain it wanted to remain in her stomach, Lois might have made some sort of snide remark. As it was, she was concentrating on finding an opening, even if it meant launching herself into Clark's lap so she could slip him the shard of glass she was trying to keep hidden.
At Steve's nod, Amber's face contorted into a terrifying smile as she handed Lois one of the guns she had in her hand. "Be careful! It's loaded!" she said mockingly as Lois shifted its weight. "Just one bullet, though, so you have to make it count."
Lois didn't care move her head, since she still had a gun pressed to her skull. However, she darted a quick look between her attackers. "S-So that's it? I just…I try to shoot one of you before you get a chance to kill me first?" There had to be something she was missing here.
Indeed there was, she could tell by the laugh echoing between the people on either side of her. "No," Amber corrected her as she cocked the gun in her hand and pointed it at Clark. "Not quite. You see, you do get to make a choice. You can kill Clark here…or you can kill yourself."
"I can…wh-what?" Lois repeated. "You can't honestly expect me to…!"
"Oh, yeah, we do," Steve interjected. "And not only that, but you are going to do it."
"If I refuse?" Lois retorted angrily, for the moment not even caring about the cold metal against her skin. "What if I say I'm not going to play your stupid game?"
Amber and Steve exchanged glances. "Well, then, if you're not going to play, we'll have to do it for you. You see, Lois," Steve said, "If you shoot Clark, we let you go. If you shoot yourself, we let Clark here, go. If you refuse to decide, we'll take the decision out of your hands and kill you both."
"You're lying," Clark spat angrily from his position in the chair. "You're going to kill us both either way. We're reporters, you guys. We've been sent her to investigate these murders. Eight people have been killed – eight – so you see, we know that you've never let anyone go!"
"Reporters, huh? I see…" Amber said thoughtfully as she looked at her captives through narrowed eyes. "You know, I wondered if there was something up with you two. We almost decided you weren't qualified to play our little game. There was just something…missing between you two. It wasn't until that little scene today in the lobby that we changed our minds."
Lois's mind raced. That scene in the lobby – they must have seen it if that was what caused them to decide to kidnap the two of them. But how would they…?
And then the penny dropped and Lois stared in shock at the woman in front of her. She recognized her now. She was the maid assigned to their room, the one who had interrupted the practice kiss Lois had shared with Clark. She'd been down in the lobby that day, one of the maids who had been watching them from behind the desk.
It made sense, that a maid would have been behind the abductions. Nobody else would be in a better position to clean up the scene of the crime – to wash the drugs from the champagne flutes and dispose of the bottle, to clean up any incriminating evidence that was left behind if anything went wrong and a struggle resulted. No wonder the police had never found any evidence.
But, still, there was a question remaining. Lois understood how Amber could clean all the evidence from the room, but, still, if all the couples were abducted from the hotel, there should have been footage on the security cameras of the bodies being carted out of the room. The only way for Amber and Steve to have covered their tracks completely would have been for them to alter the videotape, but that would mean…
Steve was a security guard at the hotel. Of course. In fact, now that she thought about it, she thought she vaguely remembered him. Had she bumped into him at some point when she was making her way back to her room?
"You were right," Lois told Amber as she processed this new revelation. "There was something up with us. W-we're not a couple; we were just pretending."
Amber smirked. "Yeah, we wondered if you maybe the two of you weren't really happy together. You were trying too hard to convince everyone that you were. But after today…well, sweetheart, let's just say that we've seen people fake a number of things since we started this game, but there's no way the two of you could have faked that scene in the lobby."
"You'd be surprised," Lois offered desperately in an attempt to convince her captors that she and Clark weren't worth the game. "We're just really good actors, trust me, because Clark and I can't stand each other! We're just partners at the paper; we're not in any kind of committed relationship! We're barely friends!"
Amber and Steve exchanged significant looks. "If that's true, then your choice should be easy," Steve interjected. "Shoot Clark here and go free! After all, you're not close, as you say. What do you have to lose?"
Her composure cracked, and Lois screamed, "You're lying! You're going to kill us both you bastards, and we know it! so stop playing these stupid games! I'm not going to do what you tell me to do because there's no point! You're going to kill us anyway!"
Amber laughed. "Actually, you're wrong, Lois. We've always let one person go. If they didn't survive, it's because they didn't live up to the rest of our rules."
"And what are those?" Lois demanded angrily. "Enough of this bullshit; tell me what you want from us!"
Amber shifted so she could meet Lois's eyes. There was such unholy glee in the blonde woman's gaze that even Lois wanted to shrink away from it, not that she would even if she could do so. "All right," Amber capitulated. "The rules. We haven't lied to you about them, honey. You have a gun in your hand with one bullet and one bullet only in it. Use it to kill yourself, and we let Clark go. Use it to kill Clark, and we let you go. Understand?"
"But we just…" Clark began again, but Amber cut him off.
"Either way, one of you is set free and you can try to get away from here. But since we do like our little games, we're not going to let you go for long. Lois, if you shoot Clark here, you have a one minute head start on us. You can run, and maybe you'll even get enough of a start on us that you might actually get away. There's always a chance, right?" The predatory look on Amber's face made the fact that the chance was slim even more stark. "We want you to run, run as fast and as hard and as far as you can…because we love the game. And when we catch you…"
"You'll torture me," Lois finished heavily. "I've seen what you do with the bodies."
"Not all of them," Amber disagreed. "But killing your husband to save your own life…it's just so selfish, don't you think? We think it's only fair in return that we don't make your death so quick and easy when we catch you. It's our turn to have a little fun! Don't you think we deserve it, after all the trouble we've been put through?"
As Amber taunted Lois, Steve turned his attention on Clark. "Now, on the other hand," Steve said as he pulled the gun away from Lois's head, though he did keep it trained on her as he moved to kneel next to Clark's chair. "If you shoot yourself, Lois, we set Clark here go. And as opposed to the one minute head start you'd buy yourself if you kill him, if you kill yourself, we'll give him a full five minutes before we come after him."
"And if you catch up with him?" she asked heavily.
"We'd make it as quick and painless as possible," he assured her. Like there was any assurance to be found in this. "It's the least we could do, after all. I mean, this entire game…we're testing the commitment you two have for each other. Would you believe, so many couples come in and out of that spa every day, talking about how much they love their husbands or wives. Most of it is bullshit, really. Put them to the test, and most people will do what comes naturally to them – they'll save their own asses. I think a little mutilation is the least people deserve if they're going to kill the person they're supposed to be the most committed to, at the slightest chance that they might be able to save their own ass."
Amber spoke up while Lois was trying to process this information. "Personally, I'm kind of hoping you'll choose to shoot Clark and take your chances. Killing people quickly just takes all the fun out of it, but when we get to take our time…? You wouldn't believe how much fun it is to hear people scream for hours, and when they begin to beg for death…it's such a rush!" Amber finished with unholy glee.
Lois felt like she'd swallowed her tongue. "N-No…," she moaned miserably as she felt the heavy weight of the gun in her palm. "I-I can't…Please. Please don't make me do this."
"Why not?" Amber taunted her, a mocking smile on her face. "I thought you were barely friends! This should be an easy choice for you." When Lois couldn't respond other than to shake her head viciously in mute appeal, her captor laughed. "Yeah, I thought so. Nice try, Lois."
Steve, clearly the more impatient of the two, sounded irritable as he broke in, "Well, you either make the decision or we'll do it for you. What's it going to be?"
Biting the inside of her lip, Lois looked between the two people who held her life in their hands. "Can I…Can I at least kiss Clark goodbye before I…before I decide?" she asked, knowing the opening wasn't much, but also knowing it was the likely to be the best they'd get.
Steve and Amber exchanged a look before Amber replied in a bored voice as she took the gun out of Lois's hand, "Fine. Just make it quick. The clock's ticking."
Lois didn't need to be told twice. Climbing awkwardly into Clark's lap, she wrapped one hand behind his neck, threading her fingers through his hair as she brought her lips to his. As she began to kiss him, she trailed her left hand down Clark's arm to his hand, where she passed him the small shard of glass she'd palmed as surreptitiously as she could.
It was then that she realized that what had started as a mere distraction had become something more. Lois began to kiss Clark with as much passion as she could, pouring everything into what might be the last embrace the two of them would ever share – everything she'd felt for him from the moment they'd met, every ounce of conflicted emotion she felt for him today, every hope she'd entertained during endless evening hours of a possible future they could maybe have shared together, if only…There were so many "if onlys."
Even after the kiss should probably have ended, Lois found she couldn't pull away. This could be her one chance, her one shot to tell Clark everything she should have told him before but had never found the nerve to say. If she couldn't tell him with words, she could tell him with her kiss. She loved him. She loved him, and if the two of them didn't find a way out of this, she didn't want…whatever was going to happen next to happen without having expressed her love for him in whatever way she could.
"All right, that's enough!" Steve growled as he pulled Lois back to her feet. It was only once the kiss ended that Lois realized that tears were trickling down her cheeks, dripping onto her shirt. At some point during her kiss with Clark, she'd begun to cry and her tears, once begun, wouldn't stop.
"Let her go!" Clark screamed as Lois raised her hands to hide her face as she cried. When his anger had no impact, he began to beg. "Please…you don't have to do this…please…let her go. Just…you can do whatever you want to me, but don't…" He trailed off, apparently realizing that no amount of begging would gain either of them mercy.
"Lois," he said instead, his voice soft but sure. "Lois, look at me." With a pitiful hiccup, she pulled her hands away so she could look at him, though her vision was blurred from the tears that kept coming.
Grabbing her wrist, Amber thrust the gun back into Lois's hand, an evil smile on her face. "Thirty seconds to decide, sweetie," she said caustically.
"Clark," Lois whispered, tearing her eyes off him only long enough to glance at her captors again. But they clearly anticipated her thoughts, because they both were prepared, a gun cocked and ready, trained at each of the captives' heads. "I don't know what…" She couldn't finish, but she didn't need to. She could see it in his eyes, as well. Though she'd given him the piece of glass, it wasn't enough; the bindings were too thick. It was very unlikely that he would manage to cut through the tape before she was forced to make a decision, and even if he could, it was very unlikely that the two of them would get out of this alive.
"Lois," he said, a steel edge in his voice. "I want you to shoot me."
"You…what?" she demanded. "No! I'm not going to…No!" she cried, so surprised by his words that she stopped crying abruptly. "Are you insane?"
Unfazed by her protest, he continued, "Lois, please. You need to listen to me. You need to trust me."
Breaking eye contact, she looked at the weapon in her hands, pondering it for a second in silence. It looked so innocuous, and yet she knew what it could do. Of course, she'd never actually seen combat, but as her father's daughter, she'd seen what a weapon like this could do. She'd seen the way bullets could tear through flesh, through bone. She'd seen the wounds they left behind in those lucky enough to survive the experience. She'd also seen the coffins, the endless row of polished pine boxes, containing the bodies of those who weren't so lucky.
And she was about to join them. Because though Clark told her to shoot him, she knew with absolute certainty that this was one thing she'd never be able to do.
Her resolve strengthened as she looked back up at him. No, she didn't want to die. She was far too alive to ever want to die. But while she didn't want to die, she knew there was no way she could ever do what he was asking her to do. Her hand shook slightly but her voice was even as she continued, "I can't. I just…I can't do that. When you get free, I want you to run as hard as you can. You'll have five minutes; I know you can do it. Run and…and don't look back, okay?" On this last word, her voice cracked a little, but her resolve stayed firm.
"Lois, please!" he begged as she raised the gun with shaking hands and, swallowing heavily, closed her eyes. "You promised you'd never leave me!" he yelled fiercely, the anger in his voice startling her so much that her eyes flew open again.
They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Though their time had undoubtedly passed, apparently Amber and Steve were as wrapped up in the moment as Lois was, because nobody said anything. Finally, Clark repeated softly, his voice a soft plea, "You…you promised you'd never leave me. So, you see, you can't do this now. You can't…you promised me, Lois."
He was breaking her heart – his voice, the look on his face, his very being shattering it into a million pieces. Did he think this was easy for her? Did he think she would do this if the alternative weren't so completely impossible? She didn't want to die, not ever. But she couldn't – she just couldn't – live with the thought of living in a world without the man in front of her, knowing that she was the reason why he was gone. It would break her and, in the end, though she might survive this day, there would be a large part of her that would never leave this room, that would die right next to him. Of that, she was sure.
He seemed oblivious to her thoughts, however, because he said, "Shoot me, Lois. You can…you can survive this. You can get out of here, I know you can. If anyone can, it's…it's you. Shoot me and run."
Lois shook her head. "Oh, Clark," she murmured. "Don't you remember? You promised me too, you know. You promised if you ever left me, it wouldn't be by choice. So how can you ask me to do that?"
He pinned her with his gaze but he didn't answer her as he said, "If you…," he paused, clearly unable to finish the thought. "I won't leave you behind, you know. Even if it means they catch me, I don't care. I'm not leaving you, so there's no point in you…doing what you're thinking of doing. I won't be saved either way."
Her mouth twitching into a tremulous smile, she said softly, "Yes, you will. You'd never let me die for nothing. I know you too well. Besides, I'm not leaving you, Clark. Don't you realize? No matter what happens, you'll never be rid of me." She was sure there would always be a part of Clark that would carry the memory of her with him, even if it was just as the little voice in his ear, reminding him not to take life too seriously.
"Time to decide, Lois," Steve cut in from his position behind her, where she knew he had a gun trained on the back of her head. "What's it going to be?"
Tilting her chin up, Lois stared into Clark's eyes and said steadily. "Okay. I'm ready." Her hand shaking only slightly, she lifted the gun, heedless of Clark's cries as he tried to stop her from doing what she was about to do. "It's okay, Clark," she said as she pressed the barrel against the underside of her chin. "It's going to be okay."
It wasn't really going to be okay, and Lois knew it. But she also knew she was going to do what she could to get out of this in one piece, even if she wasn't going to be able to join him. No, she didn't want to die, but if it meant saving Clark, she was willing to make that sacrifice.
Clark was straining against his binds, and Lois saw the wicked smile cross Amber's face as she watched the man in the chair scream in rage; Lois knew she was just waiting to see the expression on his face when he watched his 'wife' die right in front of him, with him helpless to stop it. Figuring Steve and Amber were likely to be as distracted as they ever would get, Lois took the split second afforded her and acted.
With all the military training that had been drilled into her head from the time she was small, Lois jerked the gun away from her chin, pointed it in Amber's direction, and fired even as she dropped to hit the deck. She didn't have much time to aim, but, then again, she didn't need much time either. This was it; her one shot. She knew that there was every likelihood that Steve had seen her motion and that his finger was tightening on the trigger of his gun even as she fired at Amber; she knew odds were good there would be a bullet speeding towards her head well before she managed to get out of its way, but she didn't care.
Lois wasn't a quitter, and she wasn't the type to kill herself. Yes, she might die tonight, but she'd be damned if she ever went down without a fight.
Time seemed to slow as she watched as the bullet from her gun lodged in Amber's shoulder, causing her to drop her gun, but even as she felt a surge of self-satisfaction, Lois knew that her gamble was not going to pay off, at least not for her. A split second after her own gun fired, she heard the echo of another shot and she knew she was about to die. She could almost picture the scene in her mind – the bullet speeding towards her head as gravity was too slow to pull her out of the path of the projectile.
Clark might have a chance to make it out of this alive, but it seemed that Lois would not be joining him.
"NO!" she heard Clark bellow, the sound echoing slowly in the strange temporal distortion she was experiencing, and before Lois knew what had happened, she felt a force barrel into her, knocking her backwards. She landed hard, the impact knocking the breath out of her lungs, and lay still for a moment, wondering if she was still alive. The sound of fists pummeling into flesh decided the issue for her, however, and so she cracked her eyes open again and looked around to get her bearings.
Clark had apparently managed to saw his way through the duct tape tying his hands together, and he and Steve were rolling around on the floor, exchanging punches. She didn't know how the bullet headed straight to her head had missed her, but she certainly wasn't going to complain about it. When she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, Lois realized that Amber was racing to grab the gun she'd dropped, her injured arm cradled uselessly against her side.
As Lois scrambled to get her feet under her, she swore that there was no way in hell she was going to risk her own life in an effort to save Clark's only to be killed by a peroxide blonde bimbo who didn't know when she'd been beaten. "I don't think so, bitch!" she snarled as she tackled her former captor, bringing them both heavily to the ground. As they landed, Amber let out a cry, but Lois didn't allow herself to feel compassion for her opponent's injury. Her life was on the line, she knew – as was Clark's – and she could not afford to lose sight of that.
Lois didn't know if her perception was altered by the remnants of the drugs in her system or if Amber's single-minded purpose had granted her an excess of strength or determination, but their struggle was vicious. For a woman who was injured, Amber certainly knew how to attain maximum impact with each of her blows and she fought with an almost manic level of energy. For her part, Lois was fighting for her very life, her desperation lending her a ruthlessness that she hadn't usually displayed when sparring with a partner in her martial arts classes.
"Oof!" Lois grunted as Amber's elbow somehow managed to make contact with her solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her. Struggling for air, she lunged, trying to grab a hold of her opponent to keep her from getting a hold of the gun. Her efforts were unsuccessful, however; before she could pull Amber back into the fray, the other woman picked up the weapon with an exultant cry.
"Say goodbye to Clark, Lois," she snarled, swinging the gun around to point it at Clark, and Lois acted without thinking.
Every emotion Lois had been through in the last couple of days poured out of her in a primal scream that seemed to echo in the tiny room. All of her confusion, her rage, her fear – every emotion that she had suppressed since Clark had disappeared tore out of her in an incoherent cry as Lois threw her weight forward, wrapped her hand around Amber's leg, and pulled as hard as she could.
As a gunshot tore through the air, everything stopped. It was as if the world was holding its breath. Amber pulled her ankle out of fingers that had gone numb, and Lois stopped struggling to restrain her opponent, her breath caught in her lungs. The gun had been pointed at Clark mere moments before. Had the bullet hit its mark?
"Clark?" she moaned as she glanced desperately in his direction, but there was no immediate reassurance to be found there. Steve and Clark had been grappling moments before but, as with Lois and Amber, they had stopped at the sound of the gunshot.
Struggling to rise to her feet, Lois watched with her heart in her throat as a look of utter confusion crossed Clark's face. And then she watched as Steve tumbled to the ground like a felled oak, the sound of his body hitting the floor eerily amplified in the small area. As he lay motionless where he fell, a dark pool of red liquid began to seep from under his body, the lurid stain on the cement slowly spreading around him.
"Steve?" Amber whispered, the gun clattering against the concrete as she rushed forward to the man who was lying motionless on the ground. Throwing her body over his, she began to wail, "You killed him! You killed him!"
Lois barely heard the commotion. She felt rooted to the spot as her eyes swept over the man in front of her, searching for injuries, needing to assure herself that he was unharmed. It was only when Clark turned to face her, his shoulders sagging with relief, that Lois's heart started to beat again. He was okay. Somehow, miraculously, the two of them had made it out of this entire ordeal in one piece.
Pausing only long enough to kick the gun aside and into the far corner, she raced forward, Clark's name the only word on her lips as she threw her arms around him and held him as tight as she could, her face tucked against the soft skin of his neck. Her breath came in tortured gasps as she held tightly to the man in her arms and the world began to spin on its axis again. "I-I thought…" she moaned, her voice muffled against his shirt, but she couldn't complete the thought; it was just too terrible to imagine.
"I know," he responded quietly, his voice ragged in her ear. "But I'm okay, Lois. I'm okay." Though he was clearly making an effort to sound reassuring, the arms wrapped around her, holding her tight against his body, were as implacable as steel and the voice in her ear was distinctly unsteady. "I thought you were going to leave me," he whispered, the pain in his voice tearing her heart in two.
"Never," she swore, reluctantly loosening the hold she had on him so she could pull back far enough to stare into his face. "I promised you I'd never leave you, Clark, and I meant it. Did you honestly think a psychopath with a gun was going to make me break my promise?" Truth be told, she'd been rather afraid that the psychopaths with guns would do just that, but she'd be damned if she told him that.
He looked haggard from everything the two of them had been through, but the corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile. "I guess I should never underestimate you, huh, Lois?"
"Now you're learning, Smallville," she teased him a relieved smile that was still a little shaky. Brushing the hair off his forehead, she rested her palm tenderly against his cheek, needing to feel the warmth against her skin as reassurance that he really was unharmed. Her voice caught in her throat as she thought about what it was she'd almost lost before she'd even realized she'd found it, and it was with an effort that she choked out, "C-come on; let's find a phone. You call the police and I'll call Jimmy, tell him where we are and to hurry out here as fast as possible." Perhaps it sounded callous, but in the end, eight people had died and Lois and Clark had both come perilously close to joining them. They had risked – and almost lost – their lives for the sake of a story; Lois wasn't about to let it be for nothing. Besides, concentrating on a headline worked wonders in preventing her from thinking about things she'd rather not think about at present. Like whatever it was that was happening between her and Clark.
At Clark's nod, Lois turned to gaze sadly at the picture in front of her. Amber was clutching Steve's dead body in her arms, her tears dripping onto his shirt as she sobbed uncontrollably. It was hard to believe, now that it was over, that these two people had caused so much pain and misery and fear. It was hard to believe that they'd gotten such sick enjoyment out of what they considered a game – kidnapping newlywed couples and testing their commitment to each other by demanding they make an impossible choice.
And now it was all over. Lois supposed she should be relieved. Happy, even. But in the end, all she was left with was a profound sense of sadness. Reaching for Clark, she felt the reassuring weight of his hand in hers. After everything that had happened, he was standing there, right by her side, comforting her with his very presence. He hadn't left her behind. She was no longer alone.
"Come on," he murmured softly. "Let's get this over with, and then we can go home."
Nothing had ever sounded as wonderful as that one word did in that moment. 'Home.' The Kent Farm, where hot chocolate, bunny slippers, and a long hot bath awaited her. Where she had found the first family she'd ever really known, the best friend she could ever have asked for, and the man she couldn't help but love. He'd somehow snuck up on her and stolen her heart while her attention had been elsewhere, and the kicker was that she wasn't even entirely sure he realized he'd done so.
There were a thousand questions that needed to be asked. Some day in the very near future, Lois and Clark were going to have to come to terms with the change in their relationship. After everything that had happened, the kisses they had shared and the realizations they'd been forced to make – that they would rather die themselves than sacrifice the other – things had definitely changed between them and they were going to have to figure out what exactly that meant and where to go from here. But not right now.
For now, it was enough that, after three months of missing him and three days of…whatever had happened between them, they would be going home together. Lois didn't know what was going to happen in the future and, truth be told, she was a little scared to think about it. But for now, she had Clark by her side. And it was enough.
