Smallville, January 2, 2008. A weathered hand reached over to the telephone on the wall and quickly lifted it off it's jack. "Hello?"
"Martha? It's Lois."
Her face immediately grew full of concern. "Do you have any news?"
"No, not exactly…more like a complication. I thought I should tell you just in case."
She braced herself for the worst. "Tell me what, Dear?"
Lois paused on the other end of the line before continuing. "Agent Woodrow thinks that there is a leak in the department, someone who is working for Luthor and Finneran, and that's why we haven't been able to locate Clark yet."
"But that can't be," Martha said, "Everyone has been working so hard to try and find him, they don't want to see him harmed anymore than we do. Why would someone try to undermine all that work?"
"Well…" Lois stopped talking and Martha heard Jason moving around in the background. Both mothers waited until the child was out of the room before Lois explained how she thought Special Agent Chase was involved.
The older woman bit the back of her hand as she composed her thoughts. When Lois finished talking, she added, "I will admit that it does sound like you're onto something, but Agent Woodrow is right, you need more proof."
"I know, and I'm working to that end, but it hasn't been easy. If I'm right and Chase is involved, than it's got to be because of the money. And my contact at the Bank of Metropolis left his post a couple of months ago so I don't have anyone on the inside to help me follow the trail. Between ferreting out the traitor and searching for Clark…Martha, I'm almost at my wit's end here!"
The older woman smiled to herself before replying, "Honey, I think I know someone who can help you…"
"???", Day 122. Clark slouched in the center of the room surrounded by four large sunlamps, and he waited impatiently for his captors to exit so that they would turn them on. The light and the heat were overwhelming to the hired men, but to him the glow they cast was invigorating; it was in these few moments of sunlight and solitude that Clark's harsh reality temporarily melted away.
One of the men turned around before closing the door and caught a glimpse of the Man of Steel pulling off his dirty white cotton t-shirt, exposing the toned but heavily bruised physique underneath; the inadequate food rations he'd endured over the last few months having done little to change the make-up of his musculature. With the simple flick of a switch Clark was bathed in light and he stood in the center of the room, arms outstretched, soaking it all in.
He let a sad smile creep to his lips in these moments; the power generated from the sun lamps was nothing compared to the actual yellow sun, but it did much to comfort him. Finneran was right when he referred to Superman as being very much like a battery, and his time in the light reminded him in the midst of his despair that he hadn't always been so weak and powerless. But the smile quickly faded as he realized just what these sessions preceded, and his expression was replaced with one of contempt at what was to come next.
The lamps were turned off, revealing less purple skin on Superman's body where the bruises had once been their deepest, but Clark noted that even the artificial power of a yellow sun was doing less for him than before. He didn't have time to dwell on that thought, however, as he hastily put his shirt back on and Luthor and Finneran's hired thugs re-entered to take him away. Clark fought them off like he always did, and he managed to get the upper hand of one of the less-experienced men before being subdued and carted out of the room, crying out against the injustice of it all.
Metropolis Airport, January 5, 2008. Chloe waded through the hordes of other passengers who were dragging their luggage away from the turn stile and she strove to find a familiar face.
"Lois!" she called out as soon as she saw the young woman. They met in the middle of the crowd and shook each other's hands.
"Chloe! Thanks so much for coming on such short notice."
She leaned into the City woman so that only she could hear. "I'm only sorry I couldn't get out here sooner, but the higher-ups at the Tribune wouldn't take 'I have to go help search for my missing superhero friend' as an excuse for running out of town." Then a dark look stole over the Kansas woman's features and she lowered her voice still further. "You know that I would do anything to help Clark, and have felt pretty damn helpless this whole time, so you really don't need to thank me. I've tried running my own investigation, backtracking the internet videos that Luthor's been broadcasting, but the bastard hired someone cleverer than me to cover his tracks…and that's saying a lot."
Lois nodded, recognizing where the woman was coming from as her own frustration over the past several months' events mounted in her chest. For her guests' sake she tried to remain upbeat and positive, knowing how quickly those negative thoughts and moods could suck you in and stall the investigation. "It's funny, I never would've guessed during our meeting last May that you were so handy with computers."
"Yeah, well, it's a talent of mine that used to get me into quite a lot of trouble back in the day, so I tend to stay off the radar as much as possible now."
Lois arched an eyebrow at her, hoping to hear more but not wanting to seem too pushy. She felt that under a different set of circumstances she and Chloe could become close friends; right now, however, they united their efforts in the common goal of finding Clark. Lois led Chloe outside and hailed a cab.
"So, where are we headed?" she asked curiously.
"To my apartment. I figured it would be better to work from there instead of at City Hall, given…"
"…given that you suspect a corrupt member of the FBI may be working among you? Yeah, I'd say that working from your apartment sounds like a good idea," she replied as she stepped into the cab. Lois smiled at Chloe's biting sarcasm…oh yeah, given the right set of circumstances we could definitely become friends.
The woman from Smallville quickly set-up shop and wasted no time once they got back to Lois' apartment, immediately taking over the dining room with all of her equipment. The reporter recognized the laptop, but everything else spread out along the table looked like it came straight out of a spy film.
"So, did you order this set from the 'Mission: Impossible' catalogue or was 'Spy Kids' where you got the hardware from?"
"Ha ha ha. Laugh if you want to, Lois, but this is some of the best hacking equipment money can buy. Now, do you want to start with the accounts he has here in Metropolis and work our way out from there, or vice versa?"
Lois responded from the kitchen where she'd gone to get them some sodas. "I think that's the best bet. I doubt he'd keep his ill-gotten gains in Metropolis, but then again people have done stupider things and maybe he figures we'd never look closely at him, so we should start taking his financial life apart from the inside out."
"Agreed."
Chloe began pecking away at her keyboard and the two spent several hours poring over all relevant and irrelevant financial documents that she could come up with. Lois excused herself around 2 pm to go pick up Jason from a play-date with Danny and returned to the apartment a little after three with a brown-haired little boy in tow. At the sound of their return Chloe got up to introduce herself to Lois' son.
She bent down to the child's height and waited for him to get his jacket off before he turned to face her. "Hello Jason, I'm…OH!" his blue eyes connected with her green ones and she knew immediately that it was Clark's son. Lois'… and Clark's …Oh. My. Goodness.
The boy giggled at her shock. "That's a funny name," he said, giving her a crooked grin. Ok, now there's no doubt about it—that is definitely Clark's grin. Chloe looked up into Lois' face, the questions written plainly across her features; the other woman simply nodded yes in response.
Chloe turned back to Jason and said, "Silly! OH isn't my name! My name's Chloe Sullivan, and I'm a friend of your Dad's from Smallville. I've come out here to help your Mom with something."
Now it was Jason's turn to be confused, and he looked up to his Mother for guidance. Mr. Clark being my Daddy is s'posed to be a secret! How does she know? What do I do?
"It's ok, Jason," Lois said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Chloe knew your father growing up and she knows his secret. In fact, she knew it before you or I did."
Chloe chuckled, taking Jason's little hand in hers, and said more to herself, "Yep, that's my claim to fame; I knew Superman before Superman did." She stuck her tongue out at Jason and winked at him. He stuck his tongue back out at her and it cemented their friendship.
"Hey Buddy, why don't you go play in your room for a little while before starting your homework so Chloe and I can get some work done to find Daddy, ok?"
Jason didn't need to be told twice, and he bolted off down the hallway at super-speed toward his room.
Chloe stood up and looked at the reporter with a newfound respect and a countenance full of bewilderment. "Lois, I didn't…I had no…I knew you had a child…but Clark? Wow…"
"Yep, that pretty much sums it up. We had a relationship before he left for Krypton, of which I have no memory of, and Jason came along nine months later. I only discovered his Kryptonian heritage about a year and a half ago when Luthor held us hostage on that godforsaken yacht where he set about creating New Krypton."
"But he looks so much like him!" Chloe blurted out, staring down the hallway where Jason had just been.
"I know, which made me feel like even more of a fool when I finally discovered Clark's secret. You see it in their mannerisms…"
"You see it in their eyes." Both women looked at one another and swallowed down their sadness, missing the man who was being held captive for far too long.
Lois was the first to break the stillness. "How about we get back to work, shall we? There's got to be something in here, I just know Chase is dirty…Jason will be able to keep himself amused until dinnertime, so we should see what we can do…"
The two women halted their efforts long enough to partake of some take-out from the local Thai place down the street then soon dove back into their work. It became readily apparent to the two women that Agent Chase was involved with something, but whether or not that something was linked to Superman's continued imprisonment they couldn't be sure. They hit the hay very late in the evening, determined to get an early start with fresh eyes and see if they couldn't crack the case the following morning.
"???", Day 124. He sat on the thin mattress of his cell, staring blankly at the Kryptonite-infused walls. One of the thugs walked by, peeling back the small latch cut into the door so that he could properly view the prisoner, only to find him locked in his mind-numbing gaze with the wall. Superman didn't even make a move at the small amount of artificial light that entered the room. The man outside walked away.
His trance wasn't as mind-numbing as it had appeared; he was busy thinking of Jason, the little boy who was growing up without him, only now he knew what was missing. Every moment that Clark had ever spent with his son, even before he knew the child was his, flitted through his mind like a silent movie on repeat. That's because he couldn't bear to recall the boy's infectious laughter, or hear him utter the name 'Daddy', without breaking down into tears—and he wouldn't dare give Luthor the satisfaction.
Clark knew that when Luthor was finished with him the man wouldn't be so quick as to give up his trophy, more likely than not stuffing the dead Man of Steel and mounting him on his wall like a prized shot. There'd be no chance for him to ever receive a proper burial, as Superman or as Clark Kent, yet he knew his life would not go un-memorialized by the people he most cared about in this world. He pictured Jason wearing a little black suit, standing next to Lois and Martha over an empty grave in the Smallville Cemetery. He imagined the extent of their collective sorrow, then tried to envision what their lives would be like in the future, without him, as they tried to partake of society without ever really getting over their grief.
He saw his Mother die old and alone, without him there to comfort or help her...or bury her.
He saw Lois grow cold and cynical, pouring herself into her work to numb the pain, her articles nothing but a diatribe against the world.
He saw Jason become a man, an angry and bitter young man, stalking after Luthor to avenge his death, only to become another one of the madman's victim.
These images and more rent his heart into a million pieces, but they also forced him to keep breathing so that the future he imagined would never come to pass. I have to live...I have to save them, I have to protect them...I have to live so I can tell them how much I love them...
The worry and pain he knew he must be causing them hurt almost as much as the incessant throbbing he felt from the Kryptonite walls.