Part 16 - Leah Hall
9:30 am
May Johnson stepped into the hospital.
She was going back to work today, a step back into part of her life which she left over a week ago.
Today wouldn't be anything too strenuous however, and actually barely qualified as work.
It only involved the beginning stages of diagnosing and treating, and today simply involved observation.
She had requested a change of jobs as well as status, which was given to her without question.
She wouldn't be a doctor to a sole hospital anymore. She would be a special city employee, a doctor who had a license for free range in jurisdiction so to speak, since her knowledge in research and disease was unprecedented.
A part of her wondered why she had never thought about asking for this before, but it didn't really matter; not anymore.
Megan, the one who had watched David, had moved into her home.
May had insisted, mainly because of Megan's sake, but part of it was secretly for her own.
She couldn't stand being in an empty house where memories could rise and overtake her.
She forced her mind to focus back onto the task at hand: find Nurse Schmitt. Then she would do what she did best: diagnose and treat.
Today she would meet her first patient since that day, Leah Hall.
Leah was four years old and a ward of the state.
She had a unique case of leukemia, Acute Myeloid Leukemia to be exact.
A part of May wondered if she should continue treating patients who only served as a reminder of her son's diagnosis, but then that just drove home the fact of why she continued, of why she was still here in Metropolis and not burying herself in her sorrow somewhere unknown.
Besides, her family was watching, and they wanted her to continue.
The previous day she had been working hard to prepare for today and hadn't even bothered watching any television. She was too busy reading up on everything doctors knew about this horrible cancer…but then, what cancer isn't horrible?
She prayed she would be able to make at least a small breakthrough to help this young girl. This girl who had probably met her son on a few occasions, this girl who had already been through treatments her own son would have soon started.
She turned the corner, wondering why there was this extra bit of expectation hanging in the air but wrote it off as just her own anticipation as a short lady bearing the name tag "Schmitt" came to her.
"Dr. Johnson, I'm Nurse Schmitt. I was asked to help you with anything you asked for."
"Yes, thank you. Um, I'd like to get started as soon as possible."
"Alright, Leah Hall is ready. Follow me."
O o O
Clark knew he was in a bind.
How had he overlooked it?
He couldn't be in two places at once!
He'd have to talk to Lois.
If he went at it right, she'd certainly understand.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
'Hi, Lois. Um, well, you know that thing at the hospital today? Well, I can't go…'
Yeah that'll go over real well, Kent, he thought to himself, glancing over at Lois who was currently looking up stuff on the internet.
It was now 10 am.
Finally gathering up the nerve, he stood up and went to her.
Standing in front of her desk he looked down at her.
She didn't look up.
"Uh, Lois, could I talk to you for a moment?"
"Sure, Smallville, what is it?" she asked, still not looking up.
"Um, alone?" he asked quietly.
She looked up at that.
"Okay, Clark…"
Going into the conference room, he shut the door behind him.
"Lois-"
"Is this about today at five?"
Clark froze, not yet completely facing her.
Poor Clark, he doesn't even want to think about it.
"How did -"
"Clark, I understand. You don't like hospitals. You clearly have a phobia. Nosocomephobia, I believe."
"The fear of hospitals?!" Clark asked, wondering where this had come from, but then he remembered.
After leaving Saint General with Lois that time after going in and talking with Dr. Price…
She must have thought he was having some kind of a panic attack.
"Lois," he began, not sure how he should continue.
I could just let her believe…
Yeah, but that would be lying.
Not exactly. You were kind of having a panic attack…
It was clear to Lois he was having some kind of internal battle with himself at seeing his long pause.
"Clark, it really is okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really."
"Wow, Lois." He couldn't really continue. She had taken him by surprise. He thought this was going to be a lot harder than it had turned out.
"Okay, Clark, not a big deal. Now, we have work to do," she interrupted, as if she remembered something.
"I went and saw Bobby."
"When?"
"Last night, like I said I would."
"Oh. Okay, well, what did he say?"
"We're onto something dangerous, as usual. And we're right, the Mafia is doing things secretly, like they've always been. But Bobby told me they've been more active recently, as if they're getting ready to do something big."
"Then we have to stop them before they do it."
"Exactly what I was thinking."
O o O
Saint Andrews Hospital, 4:57 pm
May glanced toward the window where everyone was currently staring, waiting and watching.
It hadn't taken her long to discover why the hospital was buzzing with anticipation earlier when she had arrived.
She had entered the Children's Ward to find that the far wall was covered in pictures the kids had drawn, all of them containing their newly found hero, Superman. Nurse Schmitt had commented on how the children were all quite excited about who was going to come at 5, and upon seeing May's clueless face, she clarified.
That had been at 9:40, and now she too was eager.
She looked back to the occupant in the bed beside her: Leah Hall.
She was an amazing child who didn't need to use many words to get people to listen; in fact, she barely ever spoke. She communicated mostly through touch and expressions.
Just from the way her eyes would focus, one instantly knew she was a fighter.
Though her small frame and light skin revealed her sickness, her head covered only by a backwards light purple cap with the visor angled to the side, her spirit seemed to glow despite it all.
Many of the other kids had their own amazing resilience against gloom. Looking around her there were some who couldn't really even leave their beds, and others who were barely ever comfortable, but they would smile…and laugh.
It was indescribable.
There were some other people in the room beside the children. There was Nurse Schmitt; the hospital administrator, Dr. Tolman; a few other doctors; and a surprisingly small handful of reporters, one of them being Lois Lane. She knew this because the Daily Planet was the only newspaper she would pay attention to.
She looked down at her watch.
4:59
And then they heard the unmistakable sound, his sonic boom. Soon after, he came into sight.
"Superman!" the children shouted excitedly as they watched him step inside.
Superman beamed, his face noticeably lighting up.
"Alright everyone, calm down, we're all excited," one of the head doctors said, stepping up. "Remember what we went over. Everyone will get a chance to talk to our guest."
They barely listened, smiling in awe at the man in red and blue.
He went forward, hardly registering that he was shaking hands with some of the adults in the room, feeling all eyes on him.
Standing in the back, Lois met his eyes for an instant, and her heart did a flip before his eyes moved to the woman beside her…Dr. May Johnson.
He gave a solemn smile for a brief instant, then moved his gaze to the faces of the expectant children before him. Jimmy and another photographer were already taking some pictures.
There were no video cameras, an order laid down flat by none other than Nurse Schmitt.
"Well, I'm sure you all have some questions. I'll be happy to answer them, so go on and ask," Superman began, the adults in the room privately noting how timid this god on earth was.
Several hands shot up.
"Alright, you young, sir," he said, pointing to a boy in a wheelchair, causing several of the kids to giggle at the fact he called one of them 'sir'.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Well, I like a lot of colors, but if I had to choose one, it would be blue."
He pointed to another kid who was in a bed with monitors beside him.
"An article I read said you eat but you don't have to, does that mean you don't eat your veggies?"
The way the kid asked, everyone knew what kind of answer he was hoping for…
They looked to Superman.
"You want to know if I eat those funny looking brussel sprouts, huh?" Superman asked.
The boy gave a guilty nod before adding, "Yeah, or spinach," now wrinkling up his nose.
"Or broccoli!" another kid piped up.
Many of the doctors laughed while Nurse Schmitt tried to look offended. She occasionally did deliver the kids' suppers after all.
"I do, though I don't think I've eaten spinach in a while…but I did eat some brussel sprouts yesterday."
"Really?! Even though you don't have to?"
"Yeah."
"Why!?"
This little boy could not understand why anyone would eat those 'shrunken lettuce heads', especially when they didn't have to.
"I made a stop at a little town in Italy after hearing a shout for help in the back of one of the restaurants there. There was a fire in their kitchen. I blew it out and the head cook fixed some Cavolini de Bruxelles Gratinati for me as thanks. It's brussel sprouts baked with cheese. It was really good. I'm thinking about going back to visit."
He then chose another hand, many of the kids having paused at the thought of cheese covered shrunken lettuce heads.
"Uh, does your 'S' stand for Superman?" a girl asked, a teddy bear beside her.
Everyone quickly turned their faces back to Superman who had unconsciously lifted his hand up and briefly touched his chest.
"It is my family crest, the House of El. It is also Kryptonian for 'Hope'."
"'Kryptonian?'" many of them asked. "What's that?"
"Kryptonian is a language as well as a race or kind of people. Like you all are Human."
They nodded, understanding.
"So you're a Krytonion?" one asked from his right.
"I'm Kryptonian. It means I'm from the planet Krypton."
"Wow! So it's true, you are from another planet!"
"Yeah," he replied, happy that they thought it was cool.
More raised their hands and he chose another.
"What's it like to fly? Is it hard?"
"It's um…" he had to stop and think about how to describe it. He then smiled to himself as he looked to the administrator, as if asking permission for something. Not getting a worried look, just a questioning one, he decided it would be ok.
He sat down, not in a chair or on the floor, but in the air.
The children gave excited gasps and giggles as he crossed his legs and softly hovered a few feet above the floor, gently bobbing up and down a few inches in the air, his cape brushing against the floor.
"Before I knew I could fly I had a few dreams, like most people have, about flying. The feeling in my dreams I got when I flew is the same feeling I get when I fly in real life. And the way I've heard people describe their dreams of flying are the same as mine, so I'm sure if you've ever dreamed that you were flying, that is how it really feels."
Muttered 'oohs' escaped their lips before he went onto the next part of the question.
"'Is flying hard?' At first it was, going up was easy, but coming down…was a little scary."
"Scary?!"
None of them could believe that their hero had ever been afraid.
"Well, even though I knew I couldn't get hurt, I didn't want to hurt somebody else or break something. And I don't think it really matters who you are, falling can be scary."
They all nodded in agreement, some of them remembering a time when they had fallen off of something.
"So have you ever flown into a bird?"
"Or a building?"
"Yeah! Or a tree?!"
"Or a plane?!" they asked, now getting excited.
May and the other adults hid their grins pretty well at hearing the children's questions, but couldn't hide them any longer once they saw Superman's reaction to them.
"Well? Have you Superman?" another asked, knowing by Superman's face that he had a very interesting answer.
"I've uh… come close to hitting a bird once. Actually it was more like the bird had come close to hitting me. The little thing came out of nowhere, if I hadn't heard it whizzing through the air it would have hit me," he started, still hovering in the air before them, a few of the children now giggling at the thought of a kamikaze bird dive bombing Superman.
"It happened a few weeks ago, over the Indian Ocean. It was a Paille-en-queue, a very pretty kind of bird. Long tail, white with some black feathers."
"Why was it attacking you?" a little boy asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Well, it wasn't attacking me, but at the time I didn't know. Later I found out that it catches fish by diving down from very high. I had just gotten in the way."
"So have you ever hit anything?"
Lois held in a giggle.
Superman is actually looking sheepish, she thought.
"Not in a long time," he finally admitted.
"So you have!" the boy in the wheelchair continued.
"It was the only thing I have ever hit-a roof. But it was before I knew I could fly." He knew now he would have to finish this story, everyone was eagerly waiting to hear it.
"Actually, that incident doesn't really count…but I'll tell it anyway. I had been jumping, since I can jump really high, and I was having so much fun I wasn't really watching where I was landing because if I happened to land on a roof or even a tree, they never broke.
"Well, I quickly learned that that was not always going to be the case.
"I jumped, I landed, I broke through, and fell."
He had said it with such short and quick sounds that the pictures going through the minds of his audience were sharp and fast.
"Did it hurt?"
"No, but then, I never hit the ground…"
"Whoa!" many shouted.
"Yeah, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the floor just inches below me. I had unconsciously stopped myself."
"That is so cool!"
Superman smiled broadly, not even aware of Jimmy's flash capturing it.
Nurse Schmitt, seeing that a fair amount of time had already passed, decided to take the floor.
"I think it's fair to say that it's time to move on from questions."
She glanced back over at Superman who was standing on his feet again.
.
.
The other children quietly played, having been told earlier in the day that they'd have to wait their turn to have their time with the Man of Steel.
Superman had nearly spoken to every child in the ward when he made his way to where May and Lois were. Lois' notebook was almost full of her scribbles which she would use for her article later.
They discreetly moved off, as to be fair to the last children who had not yet spoken to him.
They watched Superman take a seat beside yet another bed, both of them marveling at how gentle he could be, and of how softly he would speak so that only that boy or girl he was speaking to would hear, making each of them feel special in knowing Superman was giving them his full and complete attention.
"He's good with children," May whispered to Lois.
"Yes, he is, but then, he's good with everybody."
May turned slightly to Lois.
"So are you two friends?" May asked.
"What makes you say that?"
"Ms. Lane, I know a friendship when I see one."
Lois paused for a moment as she continued to watch Superman whisper to the bedridden child beside Leah's bed.
Finally, she nodded. "I believe I can say we are."
Superman stood up, casting his eyes back in Lois and May's direction.
The two of them instantly knew that he had heard as he mouthed, "Me too," before he moved to Leah's bed.
He turned away from them just in time to miss Lois' blush and honored face, his attention narrowing down to the young smiling girl with the purple cap.
"Hello, what's your name?" he asked, easing himself onto the edge of the mattress.
"Leah Hall," she answered, sitting up in her bed more.
"How old are you? Five?" he asked.
She lifted her little hand and raised four fingers.
"So what do you like to do? I know that some of the kids like playing the new games that are in the Rec Room."
She smiled, putting her hands together before opening them like a book.
"Ah, so you're a reader. So am I." He glanced over at the shelf beside her bed to find a surprisingly large amount of books considering their owner was only a four year old. Dr. Seuss and classic fairy tales filled up the two bottom shelves. The one above that was covered with little horses. A single black stallion stood among brown and white spotted ones.
"And you like horses. I like them too." He then hushed his voice down so low that Leah had to lean in slightly. "When I was little I would ride them all the time. Have you ever ridden one?"
She nodded.
"Is there anything you'd like for me to do? Tommy over there wanted me to freeze his drink, and Maggie had me float, and I'm sure you saw me picking up Jack's bed."
"Yeah," she said, "that was cool."
Superman waited, seeing that Leah was thinking, until she gave him her wish.
"Can I float with you?" she asked quietly.
"Of course."
Her face lit up beyond what anyone would have thought possible. Superman scooted over slightly, welcoming her into his lap, being cautious of the IVs in her right arm.
"Ready?" he asked once she seemed to be comfortable.
She nodded before he gracefully slid off the bed and into the air.
May and the other doctors tried not to gasp as he did so, and Clark inwardly regretted not asking permission, but they quickly calmed and didn't stop him.
"Good?"
"Uh-huh. Do you ever sleep while floating?"
Superman gave a little laugh before answering. "Yeah, sometimes."
"You want me to read you a story?" he asked, rotating slightly toward the shelf.
"Okay," she replied excitedly.
Superman floated over and picked a little book.
Leah had not been the first child who had asked for him to read them a story, and he had made sure he did two things for each child, whether that had been him lifting their bed and freezing a glass, or doing pushups with no hands or doing some other power.
"The Three Little Pigs…" he began, turning the first page.
.
.
He finished reading, hearing Leah's heart beating at a nice and slow pace. He knew she would fall asleep soon.
He put the book back, Leah now resting completely against him.
There were only two more kids left and he was sure he'd get to them well before bedtime, which, Nurse Schmitt had told him, was going to be 8:30 tonight.
He gently stood up, putting his feet on the floor and raising himself up, her light frame in his arms. He gently laid her on the bed as she assisted with the IVs. Clearly she was used to being placed in the bed.
Superman leaned over her, making sure he laid her down with the utmost of care.
She was noticeably tired and Superman grew concerned, so he leaned down closer.
"You okay?" he asked, just loud enough for her to hear.
"Yeah, I just get tired easy," she murmured before she lifted herself up slightly.
Lois watched and was surprised when she saw Leah raise herself up the inch or so needed for her forehead to touch Superman's.
It was a moment that was suspended in time.
Superman closed his eyes briefly, her skin cool compared to his.
When he opened his eyes he found hers staring into his, so full of innocence.
Lois and the others who were watching couldn't help but smile.
The image of the most powerful being on the planet with one of the weakest – at least physically – was an amazing sight.
Superman smiled down at her as she relaxed back against her pillow. He then pulled up the blankets and tucked her in.
Without another word, just a last exchange of smiles, Superman went to the next bed, once again shifting his attention onto the next child, just as he had done with the ones previously.
When he had finished talking to each and every kid, it was time for him to go, and time for the kids to go to sleep. The day was done, but everyone in the room knew, without a doubt, that the children would remember this for the rest of their lives, however short or long that may be.
O o O