By the next morning, Lois was feeling much better. She even stepped outside to admire the new snow.
Kal-El found her there and asked, "Should you really be out here?"
"A little fresh air never did anyone any harm. You know this is one miserable continent with its dreadful weather, but that storm did make it rather beautiful even so."
He looked grim and stiff standing there as he looked out across the landscape like he was lord of all he surveyed. She wondered if he'd ever cracked a grin in his life. That's why no jury in the world would have convicted her for what she did next.
She leaned down and packed some of the fresh-fallen snow into the perfect snowball. Then she nailed him in the center of his back.
He turned around with a look of utter confusion on his face that made her laugh out loud. "Why did you do that?"
"Don't tell me you've never thrown a snow ball?"
"No, oddly enough, taking a handful of frozen water and launching it at the people who raised me never occurred to me. I think shooting projectiles is more your people's idea of fun."
That pompous response deserved another snowball. She threw it right in his face this time.
He might not have felt the cold, at least not strongly, but that didn't keep him from being annoyed by the attack and the way the snow clung to his hair and eyebrows afterward. He was also less than pleased at her unrestrained mirth at his expense as he brushed the powdery snow away.
Much to her delight, he bent over to retaliate, creating his own projectile as he called them. She put distance between them right away by running. She wasn't sure if accuracy was one of his superpowers, but she wasn't going to take a chance.
What proceeded next was a battle of epic proportions. And though she could tell he held back on his strength, he had no problem creating an unfair number of ammunition. Finally, she fell down with laughter, crying, "I surrender, I surrender."
He now wore a smile, a brilliant, dazzling smile that far surpassed the sun shining on all the pure white snow. The transformation it made in him was breath-taking. He sat down beside her.
"Did you have snow on Krypton?" she asked.
"It was too warm a planet. If you mean, have I had experience with this kind of precipitation, I've been around it all my life."
"Oh, right you don't remember anywhere but here as home. So strange to think you've lived your whole life surrounded by snow and neither you, nor your parents, I mean clones, thought about having a snow ball fight. And you never even played with other children. I can't imagine growing up that way."
She was so sad for him. It had never occurred to her before how lonely his childhood must have been. She supposed she could forgive him for being reserved and lacking social graces at times.
The momentary warmth and understanding they'd experienced disappeared as he said, "I don't need your pity. My parents did it this way for a reason. I never would have been accepted for who I am. And even worse, I may have turned out like-" he trailed off, not finishing his comment.
"Like one of us," she said, knowing exactly what he'd been about to say.
"All I know is I would never break into your home, the way your father did, and try to steal from him."
"No, you'd rather stay in your little castle here and complain about and judge people you've never even met." She stood up. She may have been a prisoner, but that didn't mean she had to sit there and listen to his bigotry. "Take a long hard look the next time you're standing in front of a mirror. You're not exactly perfect yourself."
sss
Sam stood in the office of his colleague, also a four-star general, trying to convince him why they had to get the president to deploy forces to the arctic at once.
"I'm telling you an alien is there. I saw him."
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the part where you went to Kansas and ended up in Antarctica. I know you were assigned to creating a task force to check out possible foreign or extraterrestrial activity at the Katawatche caves, but we both agreed it was ludicrous before you left. Now you're telling me that not only were you abducted by an extraterrestrial living at the South Pole but so was your daughter."
"I know it's hard to believe, but everything I've told you is true. Call the Planet and ask them where Lois is if you don't believe me."
"I did, and her boss told me that it's not at all unusual for her to go off the grid for a story."
"She's not on a story! She's being held captive, and I have to save her. And we'll be saving the world while we're at it. I'm not asking for the entire army just a few troops, a few tanks, and a nuke wouldn't hurt."
"I think you've been working too hard. The pressure gets to everyone sometimes. Take a leave of absence. Talk about it with one of our team of psychologists. Your daughter's going to call you in a couple days, I'm sure of it."
"I am not crazy."
"I didn't say you were. I get it. I would move heaven and earth for my children too if I thought they were in trouble, but we can't use military resources like that on our own personal whims."
He stormed out of the office. Well, if he couldn't get anyone else to believe him, he knew one person he could go to, the original informant, Alexander Luthor.