Chapter 3: Reunion
Lois awoke in a bed, alone. It did not take her long to recall how she had got there. On her way out to the helicopter, she had been, to put it bluntly, kidnapped. Out of the sky came Kal-El, headed directly for her. Secret Service agents fired a few pointless shots at him, but ceased once he seized her. Good thing, too -- bullets that bounced off him would kill her effectively.
Even as she knew it was fruitless, she struggled against his grip around her waist as they rose to dizzying heights. They had done this before, when they were very young; then it had been a flight of wonder, breathtaking. Now she felt sickened, and cursed him. "Son of a bitch -- let me go!"
"If I did, you'd fall to your death," he said. Then he easily jabbed her with a needle and she quickly fell into unconsciousness.
And now she was here, in a comfortable but impersonally bland bedroom. She had no doubt the door was locked, but tried it anyway. It would not open.
Her prison cell had windows, apparently. She pulled back the curtains, looked out on the high-rises of downtown Metropolis.
"Home at last," she muttered.
The skyline had changed since she'd last seen it. She touched a finger to the glass, reaching out to the spot next to the LuthorCorp building where the globe of the Daily Planet once had spun. Now even the building was gone. She was sure the Inquisitor, ever Kal-El's willing mouthpiece, still proudly churned out its tabloid garbage.
So where was she? She could take a guess: One of the floors beneath what, back in the day, had been the Luthor penthouse. The perspective on the city seemed right; she had never stepped foot in the building herself. She had lurked a block away to meet on the sly with Lionel Luthor's son, back when he was, to her, Kal. Later, she had hovered nearby in pursuit of one story or another, but her attempts to get inside had failed.
So had Kal-El kept up residence in this outpost of the family "estate"? It would be one more domain of his late adoptive father that Kal-El had brought under his control. The whole building must now be for his personal use, she thought.
The mystery of her whereabouts more or less solved, it was easy in that empty room to let her mind race to the more pressing questions. Why was she here? Was it a way to get at Lex? Or was it something more personal involving her? That last question begged another: Why now?
The chasm between them was impossibly wide and deep after all these years. There was nothing personal left. She bristled at the thought that he would presume to have some claim on her. Of course, she could just be a pawn in some larger plot. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse.
She realized she was pacing in her cage. She stopped at the window and gave it a good thump with her fist. Behind her, she heard a key turn in the door, and she turned sharply, ready for an ambush.
A guard opened the door, armed, but with her weapon holstered. Absurdly polite, calmly professional, she told Lois, "You have been summoned."
Lois seethed at the word summoned, but the truth was, she suddenly realized she wanted this meeting. She did not even care for her safety. This morning's abduction notwithstanding, it had been 20 years since she had spoken to him. Over the years she had watched him from a distance turn into a monster, a tyrant. A youthful, clandestine romance that had barely lasted eight months before its rather sinister ending -- she should have been able to forget it, were Kal-El not such a pervasive, unseen factor in every aspect of life. It was as if he had grown beyond her memories and overtaken the city, the state, the nation, the entire world. Now, even her husband's dreams, she reminded herself wryly.
Maybe it could end here. One way or another, she would put Kal to rest.
"Fine," she said to the guard. "Where is he?"
The silent guard led Lois to an elevator that took them to the top floor and opened onto a silent, empty hallway. If this place had once belonged to Lionel Luthor, it had been swept clean of all traces of him. Kal had once told her of Lionel's fondness for martial antiques, but no such pieces adorned the walls, which were chillingly bare.
The guard stopped and pushed open a set of heavy wooden doors, stepped aside and gestured for Lois to enter.
The room, Lois was surprised to see, was a dining room. Kal-El rose from the table, which was set for a meal. At a wave of his hand, the guard quite literally bowed out, leaving Lois behind. She was alone with him.
"I understand your meeting this morning was a breakfast affair," he said, "so I assumed you hadn't eaten." He pulled out a chair opposite his.
"You have got to be kidding me. You kidnapped me for lunch?"
The corners of his mouth twitched. "It's only brunch, really."
"Not funny. What the hell do you want?"
"Sit down and ..."
"No. I'm not hungry. Being drugged early this morning made me lose my appetite. So cut the crap and stop trying to act civilized, because I'm not buying it. Why am I here?"
His face darkened. Lois wondered how long it had been since anyone had dared cross him. Probably not since his father had died.
Still, there was no reprisal for her defiance. Instead, there was the slightest hint of sulking in his reply. "Then just sit down if you want to be comfortable." Lois made no move toward the chair, and so he continued, "I need information. That is your forté, right?"
"If you think you can coerce me into telling you anything --"
"I'm not asking you for state secrets," he snapped. "Are you and your husband fools enough to think I don't have spies for that? This is personal. And with all the information about me that you told the world at large, you owe me something in return."
"I owe you nothing."
"You broke every confidence I shared with you."
"You no longer deserved my silence when you started targeting me and people I cared about. I kept your secrets for as long as I could. But eventually there was a greater need to protect the people you were hurting. You threw it away, not me."
"Lies," he said. "It was nothing I did. You were going to expose me while you were still pretending to love me. You thought it would make your career, but Lionel threatened you into silence."
She should have expected something like this, but she still laughed in scornful disbelief. "Oh my God, that's what he told you?"
"You only kept that silence until he was gone --"
"Until you murdered him."
He ignored her interruption. "-- then you thought all you had to deal with was me. I guess you thought you could handle me, and that it was career-making time."
"You know, Kal, if that's what you want to believe, even if you know as well as I do how trustworthy Lionel was, you go ahead and buy his story. I kept what secrets I could. My conscience is clear where you're concerned."
"You kept nothing to yourself. You told everyone about Kryptonite --"
"Of course, I told them about Kryptonite. It's our only defense," Lois said, exasperated. "You know what would have made a great story? That damn cave and your deluded ideas about prophecies in the paintings on the walls. It would have been a fascinating look into your psyche, I'm sure, but I kept it to myself. Why? Because it wasn't relevant. It had nothing to do with reality."
She was surprised to perceive that she had wounded him. "Deluded?" he repeated.
"That was my word."
"I suppose so," he said bitterly. "I certainly was deluded about you, thinking you were that woman on the wall, the one I was destined to be with. I believed it."
"And you're still obsessing on that, after all this time? After all that's happened? Forget about the woman, Kal -- if the prophecies about Naman were right, then there is something very wrong with the world. Or there's just something wrong with you. You lost the woman you were 'destined' to be with, and I don't see anyone stepping forward to protect the entire world. Remember that part of it?"
He glared. "You don't understand, you can't --"
"You are not Naman. The world's protector could be me, if it comes to that. I'll be the last person standing between you and the rest of humanity before you tear us down."
"How? By cutting ribbons and hosting luncheons as First Lady?"
She merely smirked at his attempt to strike back at her pride. "You have no idea what I'm doing," she said.
"Give me an afternoon. I can get that out of you."
"I thought you said that wasn't the kind of information you wanted from me."
"Not for the moment," he said with annoyance, as if the conversation had got out of his control, and he was aggravated to have Lois herself bring him back to the point. Lois did not respond to his threat, but only continued to stare defiantly, and so he resumed: "All right, then -- when we met, Lionel had hired you to investigate the disappearance of his wife some 25 years before. But he fired you before you had produced any results. Lionel paid you to get that information and now I want my money's worth."
She narrowed her eyes. "Lionel's wife left him nine years before you even arrived on this planet. You didn't care about that then; why now?"
"Lillian Luthor doesn't concern me. She never has. But your husband does, and I think there's a connection. The last day I saw you, you told me you may have found something. I don't think you ever told Lionel, and you wouldn't tell me. But what you can find out, I can find out, too."
"And what do you think you've found?"
"The same records that you uncovered. That some eight months after Lillian Luthor's disappearance, a Jane Doe matching her description, with the same heart condition as well, gave birth to a son in Edge City and lived long enough to name him Alexander. The baby was adopted by the Kents of Smallville, who kept the name his mother had given him. Does that sound familiar? I wonder, would it sound familiar to your husband?"
She should have seen this coming. It was inevitable, given the access he undoubtedly had to all government records in the area. Knowing that, and in her present situation, she saw no good reason to dodge the truth.
"All right. No, Lex does not know. I couldn't confirm it at first, and by the time I was nearly sure of it, I had full understanding of what Lionel was capable of. Lex was better off not knowing, and better off being unknown to Lionel."
"But you left me to him."
"Oh, for God's sake. Did you abduct me just to unload this self-pity? To make me feel bad because you think I threw you over for Lex? Send me back to my room, or to a real prison cell, because I don't want to hear it. You have no grounds. No grounds for it at all."
"That's rich, coming from the person who betrayed me, after I trusted you like I never have anyone else --"
"Look, if you want to know what happened, if you want some version other than Lionel's for why I left, then just ask me."
He paused, as though unwilling to grant that she might have an alternate story worth hearing, before saying, "Fine. Tell me what happened."
It was still galling, to this day, that Lionel Luthor had forced her to cave in. He had the power then; she had none. She had done what she had to do, and felt no remorse for her decision. It didn't make the thought of losing to that man any more palatable.
As for Kal, she felt no need to excuse herself, let alone profess the guilt he seemed to want, but he did deserve the truth, if he wanted to hear it.
So then, she resolved, out with it:
"Lionel found out about us. Of course, he fired me, and ordered me never to see you again. And I told him that he had no right to isolate you as he did, that he couldn't treat you like his private property. Soon you would be old enough to see whomever you wanted, and I would see you. And he very calmly and seriously threatened me, telling me what could happen if I did not stay away from you. He threatened not just me, but my family: first their livelihoods -- and I had an uncle who worked for LuthorCorp, you'll recall -- and if that didn't work, their lives. He gave me the night to think on it. As if I needed it. I knew he meant it and I gave in. I traded my friendship with you for the lives of my family. I had a choice to make and I made the best one I could. I can't change it now."
She searched his face; he looked far away, lost for a moment in the past. "Do you believe me?" she asked.
"It sounds like Lionel," he admitted with a grimace. "But you had Lex to run to, didn't you? You never said anything to him -- to protect him from Lionel, you say. And conveniently, you didn't have to tell him about us, either."
"Yes, I met Lex in the course of the investigation," Lois said. He was trying her patience again. "But I didn't go running to him like a scared little girl looking for a new boyfriend. I told you the truth: I did not want to leave you. Or replace you -- just then. But I eventually moved on. And as for the rest, my marriage is none of your damn business, Kal. But I'll tell you something, if I thought it was safest to keep what I knew to myself, it turns out I was right: You've figured it out, Lex is a Luthor by blood, and in response, you kidnap me. Why not Lex, too?"
"Actually, I wanted him brought here. That part of the plan seems to have gone awry," Kal said evasively. "But I didn't bring you here to confirm information I already knew. I brought you here because ... I have another mystery for you to solve."
"Why would I help you?"
"Because you may have an interest in it yourself. Because you'll be intrigued." He walked over to a sideboard and brought back to the table a nondescript black case. "This was found in the old Smallville LuthorCorp plant last night. The workers assure me that it wasn't there yesterday, but no one has any idea how it got in there. It was brought to me, and I examined it. And now I think I know why Lillian Luthor left her husband."
"Why?"
He placed his hand lightly on the black case and said, "Because somebody told her to."
Before Lois could inquire further, a cell phone shrilly interrupted. Kal produced his, and answered it. "What have you found out?" he asked, his voice dark and cold.
There was Kal-El, Lois thought. Kal, the petulant, rejected lover, had vanished like a ghost.
"Don't make a move," he ordered. "Stay concealed and keep on eye on the situation. Let me know if anything changes. Don't interfere unless you see Kent in danger."
"Kent?" Lois echoed sharply.
Kal held out a hand to silence her and continued talking into the phone: "I don't care what happens to Dolman. I'll be there soon." He terminated the call without another word and turned to Lois. "Your husband has been found."
"Was he missing?"
"Apparently so. I told you I wanted him brought here this morning. I charged one of my spies in your administration with the job. He has created a prototype transporter, of sorts, and the homing beacon would have brought both of them to LuthorCorp headquarters, if Dolman had been successful. Except the homing beacon was moved. Dolman managed to smuggle it out, and evidently took it to the Kent Farm, of all places. That's where Dolman and your husband are now."
"At the farm? To do what?" Lois demanded.
"How should I know? Dolman's on his own in this."
"Dr. Shawn Dolman?" At Kal's nod, Lois just said, "Damn." The Scientific Commission, infiltrated. Who else? she wondered.
"He'll have a price to pay for his treachery, but your husband is safe. They're under surveillance, and my agents will make sure he won't be harmed. Let's hope they stay put until we get there."
"You're taking me along?"
"I said I need your help to figure this thing out, this ... whatever it was that I found last night. I'll explain everything I can, then we'll go."
"You're asking me to trust you --"
"I'm not. I know that you won't, but you also don't have a lot of options. You can go with me and see your husband, or stay here, imprisoned. That choice should be easy. As for whether you help me" -- he flipped open the black case to reveal a keyboard and began to tap on its strange assortment of keys -- "I think I still know you a little, and you won't be able to turn away from a good puzzle."
For the first time that day, for the first time in 20 years, she saw a familiar small, almost teasing smile play on his lips. Clearly, he thought he had something irresistible, and despite her blaring misgivings, he had already piqued her interest.
"Just listen ..." he said, and tapped a final key.
Author's Note: Great big thanks go to Mary S., whose simple but brilliant plot suggestion made this chapter possible. Any problems with the execution of said plot suggestion -- the blame is entirely on me. And thanks again to my beta reader Crossbow!