"So you believe it then?" Captain Luthor asked excitedly.

"I never doubted your Superman was evil," Lois replied. "I've seen a lot of strange things in my time."

"But you think it could happen to your Superman now, right?"

"I don't know. People don't change overnight."

"I'm telling you. He was the same in my world: stopping bank robberies, fighting villains with powers, rescuing people from natural disasters, and then one day he wasn't."

"And you didn't find that odd?"

"Of course, I found it odd, but it's simple too really. Why wouldn't he feel a loyalty to his own people? He had a choice, them or us, and he chose them as your father always knew he would."

"Not my father, and for your information, Clark was offered an opportunity to join them, and he chose us, so it's more than that."

"Maybe having kids here is causing some conflict for him this time," he allowed, "but I'm telling you I've seen this all before. You can't trust him when it comes right down to it."

"Let's say for the sake of argument that I believe you, we can't hole up in here and wait for another world to implode." She obviously couldn't get him to change his mind about Superman, his thinking toward him was set in stone, but maybe she could get him to let her go if he thought she was going to be cooperative and work with him.

"No, you trying to take him down is not going to play itself out here again. If it does, it'll be over my dead body." He got a distant look in his eyes, and he changed the direction of the conversation entirely. "Do you think my wife was close to him? Really close?"

"How should I know?" she retorted, feeling heated that she hadn't got anywhere with him. "The one interaction I saw them share wasn't very pretty."

"But you do know. You love Kal-El, right? What if you were married to someone else? Would you love him then?"

"Life is more complicated than hypotheticals allow for. I could guess, but that doesn't mean it's the way it happened. Yes, I do think I'd love him whatever life I lived, but if I married you, I must have seen something in you worth loving, and I would never betray vows that I made whatever feelings came or went. If the marriage was over, you'd be the first to know about it."

"He was always hanging around. Whatever city we moved to, he was there. She interviewed him all the time, but it was more than that. They shared personal things I know she didn't share with me. They got advice from each other, made each other laugh, and worked closely together on stories."

"I don't doubt it. Clark and I have always worked well together. It's how we fell in love. And he was my best friend before we started dating. None of that means they had an affair. If you have no faith in your wife, have faith in Kal-El. He's too honorable to take another man's wife."

"Your trust in him is making me sick. I should have killed him when I had the chance."

She dropped all pretense, too angry to hold back. "I've tried to have sympathy for what you've gone through, but you want to know what I see? I see a man so jealous, so blinded by hate that honestly I can't say what it was that your Lois saw in you."

She wounded him with that statement. She could see it in his eyes.

"Maybe you seemed like a hero to her, serving your country, but you are holding me here against my will when my children need me. They have to be terrified or do you even care? Maybe they're just animals to you because they're half Kryptonian. I wonder what she would say to that? I bet you wouldn't have to wonder who she preferred if she saw the real you. Did you hide it from her?"

"Lois-" he said, his voice sounding strangled as he tried to search for a rebuttal.

But she wasn't renown for her sharp tongue for nothing, and she continued to attack. "Your answer to the end of the world is to hide until it all blows over? Really? Millions are about to die, and you're just going to go underground and wait it out. And you thought Lois was going to be okay with that? You don't know her-me-at all, do you? You are such a coward. And here you get a second chance to make it right, and what do you do? You try to do the same thing again minus attempting murder twice on an innocent man. Lois may have died, but at least she tried to save the world."

"You're right." He punched in numbers to a hidden panel and the door opened. Thinking he intended to let her out, she went for it, but he pushed her away and and slammed it shut again. "This time I won't fail," he told her from the other side of the locked door.

Lois cursed. Had she just made a bad situation worse?

sss

Clark slammed on the brakes, not because he was afraid of running over the man standing in the road but because his children, especially Jonathan, were in the truck and could be hurt by the impact.

"What's going on, Dad?" Jordan asked.

"Is that Morgan Edge?" Jonathan asked.

Edge laughed. "Did you really think you could keep your identity a secret from me with nothing more than a pair of glasses? I admit you got away with it for a little while because I didn't expect a son of Krypton to lower himself with such a subservient race, but I did wonder what you got yourself up to in your off-hours. Superhearing is such a handy power to have, isn't it? You can listen to whoever you want when you want."

"Leave. Now."

"And miss the family reunion?" he asked jovially as if he really were just a long-lost uncle looking to connect with his nephews.

He got out of the truck, ordering the boys to stay inside, and tried to put up a fight, to use his heat vision, but he was just too weak.

"They are a genetic abomination, an affront to Kryptonian sensibilities," Morgan continued. "But it's a mistake I can make right."

Clark jumped in front of the blast of heat intended for the boys. It crumpled him, but it didn't kill him. "Please, I'll do anything. Don't hurt them."

He smiled. "That's more like it. I suppose I can put up with their existence for the greater good. So you submit then?"

"Dad, no!" Jonathan called.

Jordan attempted to leave the truck to help, but Edge melted the handle on the door.

Clark had to trust that this would all work out somehow because it was really the only choice left if he wanted to save his sons. He had to hope they could rescue their mother without him and that his family could find a way to save him.

"I submit," he said to his brother's satisfaction. One thing was certain he couldn't save himself now because a Kryptonian never went back on his word.