Chp 16 – Refuge



-- Congo - June 2010 (2 Months Earlier) --

"Miss Lane. We must go soon."

Lois rubbed her eyes and blinked. "Okay, Valu. I'm up."

The young man smiled and nodded, ducking out from under her tarp.

Lois rolled off of her sleeping bag and stretched. She had been traveling with a group of displaced refugees since a few days after escaping from the rebel camp. The group of IDP's (internally displaced persons) was being helped to return to their home villages after having been driven away by the civil wars. Two Methodist missionaries, Bob and Susan Melhavey, were traveling with them.


Valu had been the one who found her lying in the jungle close to death a year earlier. After three days of fleeing the clutches of the rebel army, Lois had succumbed to hunger and thirst. Dehydrated and barely able to stand, she had been so thirsty that she had allowed herself to drink from a nearby stream.

It hadn't rained, and the dew she collected in the mornings wasn't enough to sustain her through the day. When she had been forced to lie down from the intense cramps in her abdomen, Lois had thought she would never get up again.

That was when Valu found her and brought her to his camp, where Susan had exhausted a three-month supply of antibiotics trying to nurse Lois back to health. When they had heard her story, they vowed to not let her fall into the hands of the roving rebels. During their travels, Lois had often been forced to hide under piles of tarp and supplies as their group encountered other travelers. They had to be careful about her being spotted by one of the rebels.

Bob and Susan were remarkable people. They had been living in Africa for 5 years, originally arriving as missionaries to help with the UN's first attempt at repatriating refugees in 2005. During what had seemed to be a period of peace, the rebels had been secretly re-grouping. The actions to help displaced villagers return home had been delayed when the rebel armies began their attacks again. Even though the political environment was still unstable, the group of villagers from Mayoko, on the other side of the Congo River and 1,000 miles south of Lac Tumba, had decided to return. They were tired of living in fear.

Bob and Susan had decided that their lives were with these people. They had lost their adult daughter when the rebels had attacked, and now they felt that they were bonded to the people and the land.

Katrina Melhavey. That had been their daughter's name. It was the name on the passport that would help Lois return to the United States.

Lois had traveled with the DPI's as they walked across the jungle to get back to their homes. She needed to get to Point-Noire, the shipping harbor located on the coast. It was her best chance to try and get passage back to America without too many questions. There were other small airstrips throughout the country, but rebels manned them, and Lois was not in the mood for another run-in with them any time soon.

The day before, their travels had reached a crossroads. The villagers had turned Northwest, heading for home, while Lois had turned Southwest, toward Point-Noire. Valu had come with her, pledging to see her safely to the harbor before returning to Mayoko.


"It is deep here, Miss Lane," Valu called over his shoulder as he struggled to stay upright while crossing the murky swamp.

"Okay, thanks," Lois yelled back, working to follow his steps.

Crossing swamps was always the most taxing part the journey. When the flies bit, they must have actually taken a chunk of flesh out, because the pain they caused was immense. The leeches were the worst. Lois had learned that the best way to get them off was to burn them with a lighter. As thin as she was from the unintentional diet she'd been on for the last year, Lois didn't know what sustenance the leeches thought they could get from her.

"And I told you, calling me Miss Lane makes me feel old. Will you ever call me Lois?"

Valu laughed and reached to help her step onto solid ground. "It is respect," he replied. Valu's grasp of English was pretty good, but he liked to keep his words simple.

"It makes me feel old," Lois repeated.

"I think because I saved your life, I get to choose." He shrugged and continued walking.

"You know it's unfair to use that 'saved your life' bit to win every argument, right?"

Valu glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "Yes," he answered simply.

Lois shook her head and adjusted her pack as they continued making their way through the foliage.

She often thought about the circumstances that had brought them together. Valu was the about the same age as the young rebel soldier who had been killed helping her escape. She had gotten to know him well over the last year, and she was grateful that his life had delivered him into the care of the Mayoko villagers and not into the service of murdering raiders.

When guerrilla armies attacked villages, they made sure to kill the men and older boys who resisted them. The younger boys were adopted into the armies and given guns. That was the recruiting method.

Valu's village had been attacked when he was eight. He had escaped being taken by hiding under the bodies of his dead parents. The raiders had thought he was dead too. Pain was part of the glue that had bonded him to Bob and Susan Melhavey like a son.

The only ones who profited from war were the smugglers and the grave diggers. If she could do something the slow the first group down, maybe the second would have less to do.


"Are you certain that you will be fine?" Valu asked.

They had finally reached the city and Lois was preparing to make her Escape from Alcatraz.

"Absolutely. I grew up around these ships. They won't find me until it's too late to turn around."

When they had arrived at the bustling port, Lois had been delighted to see that one of the ships at the dock was a US Navy vessel, finishing up the goodwill visit by a couple of senators bearing food and supplies for the UN repatriate initiative. Valu was unconvinced that she would be able to get past the security, and even less certain that she would be able to hide once on board.

Lois grinned and handed him her pack. She wouldn't be able to take it with her. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." She held the passport up briefly before tucking it underneath her shirt. "When they do find me, they'll think I'm Katrina Melhavey. At the worst, they'll lock me in a cabin until we reach the States and hand me over to the police. No big deal."

Actually, it was a big deal, but Lois wasn't about to let her guide know that. She had no intention of allowing herself to be handed to the authorities once she was on her native soil. She couldn't afford the publicity that would come from that.

Lois Lane would engage the media on her own terms.

Giving him a fierce hug, Lois stepped into the shadows.



-- Kansas - August 2010 --

The reaction to finding out that she had stowed away on the ship was exactly what Lois had predicted. She ended up locked in a cabin and the relevant authorities had been alerted. Even though the military hadn't wanted to make public that their security had been breached, the story had leaked, and the media had gone into overdrive trying to find out the details.

Fortunately her past experience with ships like the one she had been on had allowed her the ability to release herself from the room and disappear into the disembarking crowd. The media would have field day when they found out that the Navy had lost their prisoner. They still had the passport, which they had confiscated when they discovered her, but Lois knew it would just send them on a wild goose chase. In the meantime, she had made her way to the Sunflower state.

She sighed and looked up at the placard crossing the driveway. It announced that she had finally arrived at the Kent Farm.



-- Smallville - August 2010 (Present Day) --

Martha shook her head in wonderment at Lois's story. She couldn't help but admire Lois's ability to survive.

"Mrs. Kent," Lois began, preparing to apologize again for not contacting them about Cole when she had the chance.

"Lois, it's Martha. We moved past all that years ago. You were part of the family then, and you are part of the family now."

Lois's face crumpled as the genuine affection in Martha's expression drew out all the emotions and anxieties she had been keeping at bay. Seeing her finally break, Martha pulled her into her embrace and gently rocked her.

"It's okay, sweetheart. It's going to be okay."


"Is everything okay?" Clark asked as he, his father, and Cole arrived at the porch. Lois and his mother were sitting on the porch in silence. Lois held a mug in her hands and her eyes were red.

Martha patted Lois's knee and stood up. "Everything's fine."

"I drived!" Cole announced, clomping up the porch steps.

"Drove, Cole," Clark corrected.

"I droved!"

Everyone laughed and Jonathan and Clark climbed the stairs behind him.

"Well I'm going to get ready to go in to the Talon for this afternoon. Saturdays tend to get busy around one," Martha said as she opened the screen door.

Cole scampered into the house ahead of her, running into the kitchen and reaching to pull his Sippie Cup from the high chair.

"Hey, Big Guy," Jonathan called, walking to him. "Let's go wash our hands first."

When the door had closed behind Cole and his parents, Clark stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the railing.

"Are you okay?"

Lois smiled and looked up at him. "Sure," she said, using Cole's word.

Clark chuckled. "He's something special isn't he? That's why you should stay."

Lois's smile faded. "I can't do that." She met his gaze. "If it were you, and staying had the possibility of bringing harm to the people you loved, would you do it?"

Lois already knew what his answer would be. She had been a victim of him having that line of thought already.

"It's not that simple…" Clark began.

"No?" Lois asked, narrowing her eyes. "Your decision to continue to country hop after Cuba seems pretty simple to me. Don't tell me: you figured that you were keeping me out of danger right?"

"Lois, I would have…"

"Don't say it, Clark. It doesn't matter anymore." Lois glanced toward the house. "I've got to finish this story for a number of reasons. There are people who are suffering because someone in Metropolis is smuggling guns to rebel armies. I've lived with these people, and they are being terrorized. I can't turn my back on them. Not after everything that they've done for me."

Lois ran a hand through her hair. "And there's those two pilots… It won't be long before word gets out and the people behind all of this start putting two and two together. They are going to come for me, and I need to be as far away from Cole as possible when they do. I will not let them know that they can get to me through my son. I need him to be safe so that I can go and do what I do best. Investigate."

Clark was silent for a moment, recognizing her resoluteness. "I'm coming with you."

"No you're not."

Clark rolled his eyes. "Non-negotiable."

"You need to be with your family, Clark. Not out trying to baby-sit me." Lois rose from the swing and set her mug on the railing.

"They were doing just fine before I came back. You, on the other hand, could have used some backup."

Lois wondered if she had the energy to take on Clark Kent when she wasn't feeling her best.

"I'm coming with you," he repeated stepping closer to her. "Lois, we're a team: you, me, Cole… my parents. If you're going out to save the world, I'm going to make sure that Cole gets his mother back."

"What will your wife think about that?"

"What?"

Lois grabbed his hand and held it in front of his face. The wedding band gleamed in the sunlight. Clark had grown so accustomed to wearing it that he'd forgotten about it.

"Your wife. What will she say about you taking off to Metropolis with another woman?"

Clark laughed from the irony. "Uh, yeah. My wife. We need to talk about that…"

"No. You don't have to explain anything to me, Smallville. When this is all over, we can all sit down and talk about having Cole come to visit and…"

"Lois," Clark interrupted, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You don't understand. The person I'm married to is you."


tbc