Lois had told Zod that Superman was dead, and she knew it to be true. But she had prayed every minute since he'd walked away from her that Clark might still live.
It had been too long for her to hope any more.
The world she lived in now was ruled by fear and cruelty. She was far from alone in her loss, but there was a special horror just for her. Humanity cursed Superman now, speaking bitterly of the day when Earth and Krypton's destinies became entwined. Every overheard conversation beat at her until she wanted to scream so all could hear, He died for us! He died for all it is to be human! Tears ran down her face as she stood on her balcony. He only wanted on simple thing for himself – not to be alone. Anguish issued from the jagged black hole that sat in her chest where her heart had once been.
There had been nothing he wouldn't give for this world. She had never fully grasped it, how he could be so different from them, so much more than they could ever hope to be, and still he gave everything to them. It was not his strength that she missed, or that humanity needed right now, it was his noble heart, which she had touched for one moment.
His life humbled her. He'd lost a world before he'd even known it. His dying father, in a bid to keep him safe, sent him to a world where he was a god among men. He could have done as he pleased, anything he wanted, and he gave, and gave…
She stared up at the stars. Did you understand, Jor-el? She wondered. Did you truly understand the blessings and burdens you placed on him?
But then her eyes closed. To look up at the sky was no longer bearable. How could his parents have known? They never experienced his infinite gentleness or his fierce protection of all that was good. They never knew the depth of his love for his adopted world, or the trust you gave him, simply because he deserved it.
She had run out of tears and now stood silent, faced with the wasteland left inside her. He was dead. The truth of it sat like a block of black ice in her gut. He was lost to her forever. And – he had died alone.
Lois' knees buckled, but she caught herself on the concrete ledge, leaning heavily on it. Everything she had ever believed in was gone. Everything she had ever wanted, everything she had ever loved. But in the darkness closing in on her was one hard, bright, kernel of knowledge. He had not given up while there was a breath left in his body. She knew it, knew he wasn't capable of dying any other way. To the last, he would have been trying to find a way to save Earth.
With a quick gesture, she wiped her face. Then she went into her bedroom and pulled a suitcase from the closet. Efficiently, she packed three days worth of clothes.
Humanity would not go down with a perverted memory of him. No knew more about Kryptonians than she, no one knew their strengths like she did.
But one man knew their weaknesses, and how to exploit them. One man on Earth knew how to find kryptonite, and that made him humanity's last hope.
Lois left Metropolis and set out to find Lex Luthor.
Tiny fissures crawled along one of the great pillars of the Fortress. It cracked with a mighty noise, and plummeted the long distance to the ground, opening a hole in the structure above. A shaft of white sunlight struck Kal-el's curled body.
He slitted his eyes open, unfocused in the sudden brightness. He became aware that he was lying on frozen ground and he was so terribly weak that he could barely move. In the haze before his eyes, he saw a green glow. Kryptonite, he thought sickly, somehow someone had trapped him. Kryptonite, that was why he felt as if he were… dying…
His eyes closed as it all came crashing back in on him. Dying, should have died, didn't… how…? His eyes opened, fastening on the green crystal. Painfully his hand crawled forward, fumbling at it. It was real, not a mirage, not a fantasy. It pulsed as he closed his fingers weakly on its hard, smooth surface. A memory swam through his muddled mind, handing the crystal to Lois, sitting beside her here. She must have laid it down… he drew it toward him slowly and warmth stole up his fingers, his arm. She must have laid it down, so it hadn't melted with the other memory crystals. This one, the seed. He pressed it to his chest, rolling over onto his back.
The sunbeam made the crystal glitter, and in the bright pool of light, the cold was slowly driven from him. Relief from that constant agony made him able to move, and, staggering up, he carried the crystal out on unsteady feet. He walked far across the arctic field, until he couldn't take another step. He threw the crystal. It traveled thirty feet and fell.
On his knees in the frozen waste, he waited. And then the ice beneath him trembled. Crystal pillars rose, shining so bright in the sun that they burned his eyes. All around him, a new Fortress thrust hundreds of feet into the air. The control panel grew before him and he watched the green crystal emerge from the depths of the structure, rising to its place on the panel. It stopped, the other six memory crystals arranged around it, then it turned slowly and clicked into place.
My son. You do not remember me.
Kal-el wept. He crawled forward, damaged hands fumbling their way over the panel. He had no idea what a second exposure in the crystal chamber would do to him, but it was the only thing his ravaged mind could conceive. The large panel emerged at last from the floor and he pulled himself up on it. The crystal grew around him.
He screamed. His body convulsed in a paroxysm of the purest agony that ripped along every nerve fiber. Encased in the crystal he could not escape as the breath was wrung from him, as pressure built inside his head. It was never-ending, unspeakable suffering.
The chamber cycled down, melted and he fell, gasping against knives driving into his chest. He tried to rise and could not. He wept now in despair as he lay from an interminable time, what little strength he still possessed ebbing from him.
At last, his frail fingers dug into the ground and he pulled himself forward, toward the pad from which the chamber grew. Pushing at it, the dense Kryptonian crystal heavier than anything of the same size from Earth could ever be. It took him a day and a night to force it across the Fortress floor. As dawn touched the white arctic ground, he lay by the pad, spent, but gathering his strength for one last effort. His body trembled uncontrollably. He knew this would be all he could withstand. But, stubborn, his will made him reach his feet and lurch back to the control panel. He took the green crystal. Stumbling, falling more than once, he made it back. With labored breath, he lay still and waited for the sun to rise high. He had not even the strength to beg, to pray. He thought only of the people who died now for his weakness.
At last, he forced himself to his feet and stepped onto the pad. The green crystal lay between his feet as the chamber grew. His heart pounded wildly with fear of the coming pain.
Yellow solar energy merged with the red rays of Krypton's sun, roasting him, burning him alive. Two stars tore at him, ripped at his flesh. His body broke down, turned inside out, collapsed, stretched, was ground to dust.
The chamber melted. Kal-el swayed. He fell, slowly, landing heavily upon the packed snow. He lay motionless in the icy silence at the top of the world.
A/N - Interested writers, please visit the Superman forum "SuperWriting" - a place to discuss our obsession and craft!