A/N: Fuzzy science alert is in effect for the next several chapters!

Chapter 6: The View from Afar

The mood at the Daily Planet was solemn. Each time a news flash came upon the TV screens announcing Bobby Knightly was still at large a silence would fall upon the newsroom. Those out in the field, whether friend or rival, held their ears open for any possible leads to his whereabouts and updates on Lois' condition. Because when one of their own went down in pursuit of the truth, they all took it personally.

In his office Perry White sat attuned to the same TV screens, still in disbelief over the events that transpired in the last several days. Although Lois was no longer marrying his nephew, his affection for her didn't end with their split, so the attack felt very much like an assault on his own family.

That's why for the last half hour he'd been on the phone with Richard, looking for reassurance that Jason was safe. No one had seen or heard from him or Clark in several days. But Richard assured him that if his son was with Clark, then he couldn't possibly be any safer than he was. Perry wished he could put as much faith in Clark as his nephew clearly did.

He hung up the phone and stared at the screen. He was still staring at it when Jimmy knocked on the door. "Excuse me, Mr. White. I'm sorry to interrupt…"

Without looking up he replied, "Then don't!"

Jimmy stood in the doorway with a stack of photos in his hand, debating whether or not to enter. He'd been at a building fire all morning and his clothes stank of smoke. He looked at the screen. "I'm sure she'll be okay."

The younger man's words broke him out of his trance, and he regained his composure. There was work to be done and headlines to compose. "What have you got for me?"

Jimmy laid out the photos on his desk, and the Chief thumbed through them. His eyes settled on a picture of a firefighter carrying out an infant. "I thought it was an office building that burned."

"It was, but there was a daycare center in the basement."

"Any casualties?"

"There were a few workers on the upper floors that suffered smoke inhalation, but no reports of any deaths."

The Chief flipped through the photos once more, making sure he'd seen them all. "Where are the pictures of Superman? You didn't leave before he showed up did you?" He liked the young man, but he was still green and needed to be guided.

"Of course not," he replied, a little too defensively. "He never showed up."

"What do you mean he never showed up? If this isn't a calling card for him I don't know what is."

Jimmy surmised, a little naively, "Maybe he just needed a vacation."

"Superman doesn't take vacations." After Perry said it, he realized he had no idea whether or not it was true. "That's the third day in a row no one's heard from him." Suddenly he had a thought. He picked up the phone and told to Alexa Huntington to write a page one brief about Superman's whereabouts the last few days.

"You put Alexa on that article?"

Admittedly, she wasn't the best choice, but Jimmy's gall for questioning his decision irritated him. "Well I'd put Clark on it except he's not here. He's never around when Lois is gone and I need him to write about…" He let his words fade with his thoughts.

"Strange, isn't it? Superman takes a few days off and everyone starts wondering where he is." Jimmy seemed to take something under consideration. "Chief, you don't think he left again, do you?"

Thinking about Lois lying in the hospital, he thought how odd it was that Superman would choose this weekend of all times to vanish. After hearing the two up on the rooftop the other night his suspicions were confirmed that their relationship was much more than a simple friendship. But where was he? Lost in thought, he didn't hear Jimmy's next comment and asked him to repeat it.

"It's too bad Clark's not here. I wish there was a way we could contact him."

Richard explained to him earlier that they had gone camping. What kind of man takes a five-year-old out in the woods with no means of contacting the real world? Despite that, picturing Clark in hiking boots pitching a tent made him laugh out loud. "I had no idea their relationship was getting that serious."

Jimmy smiled, pleased that he could provide a little insight into the pair's relationship that the Chief didn't know about. "Oh, it is. Clark is crazy about Lois."

Perry sneered, "But is Lois crazy about Clark?"

The question took Jimmy aback. "What do you mean?"

"Jimmy, I've known Lois a long time. In some ways I think of her as family. She isn't the kind of woman to go after a man like Clark. I can understand her leaving Richard for someone like Superman, but…"

"What are you saying, Chief?" Jimmy said defensively. "That Clark isn't good enough for Lois!"

"Of course that's not what I'm saying! Now I know Clark's your friend Jimmy, and I like him too, but…" He wanted to ask Jimmy to have a heart to heart with the man about Lois, and knock some sense into him, but decided that it wasn't an appropriate time to do so. He changed his strategy. "We all know that Superman cares for her. He should be here for her."

"And so should Clark," Jimmy added.

"It'd be nice if at least one of the men who claimed to care about her could be bothered to show up when she needed them."

That was a statement Jimmy couldn't argue with.

While Clark piloted the ship into the Earth's atmosphere, Jason sat on the floor beside him pouring piles of red Martian sand into a glass Coke bottle, interweaving light and dark waves like his dad taught him. His first thought had been to bring it to school for the next show-and-tell. But he decided against it after he realized he'd have to lie about where it came from.

As the ship approached the surface it emitted a low rumble, but Clark focused his thoughts on another sound, one that filled him with happiness. He reached out with his super hearing, expecting to hear the faint thud, thud, thud of Lois' heartbeat. But he heard… nothing. Panic set in before his mind engaged the obvious; having been further away from the yellow sun for the last several days, his powers weren't back to full capacity. Despite that fact, unease settled in his stomach.

The ship came to a halt in a cornfield, the darkness having masked its descent. Clark helped Jason with his backpack and he threw the sleeping bags onto his shoulder as the door thrust open. Walking slowly towards the house, Jason ran up ahead, jabbering excitedly about something he couldn't decipher. Meanwhile, Clark made a mental note to bury the ship in the morning when his strength returned. He briefly entertained the thought of hiding it instead, given he had so few crystals left in his possession. But the chances of its discovery and the implications that would follow it were too great and he dismissed the idea.

After spending several days in space, Clark was glad to have solid ground beneath his feet again. Despite the pleasure of spending time with his son, the last several hours had left him rather claustrophobic. Flashes of his previous venture into outer space and the consequences of it scurried through his mind. In some ways, he hoped he'd never have to go on such a trip again.

Over at the house, the porch light flickered on and a lone silhouette appeared in the shadows. Jason broke into a sprint when he saw it was Martha, and Clark knew his feeling of unease had a just cause. Earthquake? Hurricane? Or was it a train wreck? The boy wrapped his arms around her, oblivious to the tension in the older woman's face.

The smile she painted on her face for Jason's sake could not hide her pained expression, but she mustered a hello and tousled the boy's hair as she spoke. "Did you enjoy your trip?"

Jason broke into a rant about stars, dirt and comets, and Martha did her best to listen. "Jason, honey, why don't you go inside and unpack your things while I talk to Clark for a minute. Then you can tell me all about your trip."

As the boy ran inside, Martha sat down on the steps, and Clark sat beside her.

He knew instinctively that whatever disaster had happened it had hit much closer to home. He braced himself as he asked what happened.

She dropped her head to avoid his gaze, not wanting to see his face when she spoke, but thought better of it and met his eyes, "Lois is in the hospital. She's gravely injured."

The tumultuous flip-flops in his stomach made it difficult for him to assemble his next words. "What happened?"

The woman pursed her lips. "She was attacked in her apartment two nights ago. The police are saying that it was someone she wrote a story on once. I don't remember his name."

Clark shut his eyes. He knew this day would come. How could he have been so stupid to leave her alone? "Is she going to be all right?"

"She's in a coma. I don't know anything more than that. They wouldn't tell me because I'm not… family." Her voice broke with her final word. Family. When the nurse said it it felt like she herself had been stabbed.

Clark stood up, lifting his feet off the ground as though he were expecting to race into the sky and be at her bedside the very next minute. But gravity had other ideas. He started pacing back and forth across the porch. Leaning against the railing, he gripped it with frustration. "I can't do this. I can't stay here and do nothing!"

"The last flight out of Smallville Airport left an hour ago. You could take the truck."

Martha was just trying to be helpful, but he knew full well that driving there would be futile. By the time they hit the interstate it would be early morning, and by then his powers would begin to regenerate. That was assuming, of course, that the old truck could make it that far. He knew his only option was to wait.

He stood frozen, not wanting to look at Jason but seeing him through the screen door happily untying his shoes. While Martha distracted the boy, Clark went inside and called the hospital, keeping his voice low as he asked for more information about Lois' condition. But they would tell him no more than they told his mother.

He debated whether or not to tell Jason right away, or to wait until morning when he had the means to transport them back to Metropolis. Deciding on the latter, he tucked Jason into his old bed and said goodnight. His mother patted him on the shoulder and then retired to her bedroom upstairs.

His body was shutting down, but with his mind still reeling he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. Agony and guilt churned inside him, but he was too numb to move. He'd never felt so helpless.

He turned on the TV and caught excerpts of late night comedians and a low budget movie. He flipped back and forth between the stations waiting for a news report. Laughing faces made his anxiety all that more difficult to contain, until finally, he caught a taped newscast.

It was from the 11:00 p.m. hour, and the reporters provided few details. The story had already been relegated to after the first commercial break, and when it aired the ten seconds in which they spoke of the incident provided no new information other than that Bobby Knightly was still at large. Ten seconds. It was hurtful that someone he loved could be so neatly packaged and dismissed in such a short time.

Why had he been so foolish to leave her alone? Danger stuck to her like a second skin, he knew that better than anyone. He always feared that Lois would start taking more risks after he entered her life. But a part of him knew better, that Lois would take risks regardless of whether he'd be around to save her. But the knowledge of it left little comfort.

The sleep he'd been evading eventually overcame his exhausted body, and he fell asleep on the living room couch.

At Metropolis Hospital, two armed police guards stood watch outside Lois' room. Inside, she lay unconscious as machines measuring her vital signs beeped at prescribed intervals. A lone nurse, Gillian Platley, showed her badge at the door and entered to check on the patient. She moved about the room, checking monitors and making notations on her chart.

A man in his mid fifties, slightly balding with plastic frame glasses, walked into the room a few minutes later. Dr. Hubert Stein was a veteran of Metropolis Hospital, having been there for nearly twenty years. To him it was like a second home, even more so after he'd caught his now ex-wife getting it on with a resident after walking into the wrong patient room. "Any change?"

Gillian shook her head silently, and the short blonde hair tucked neatly inside her white cap fluttered slightly.

Dr. Stein was deeply conscious of the star status of his patient. He'd treated other high profile persons in his days, most recently the quarterback of the Metropolis Tigers after he was sacked during a playoff game. "Her stab wound was treated and cleaned. I'm concerned that she hasn't regained consciousness."

The nurse nodded at him confidently, "She's a strong one, I think she'll pull through."

Dr. Stein was in deep thought. "I hope so, for her sake. She's pregnant."

"About two months. They're a lucky pair, that stab wound was deep. What did you do?"

He shook his head, looking puzzled. "Nothing. I took her off medication. As soon as her temperature started dropping she started having complications. Medically it doesn't make any sense."

The nurse lifted a gauge up to the light. "Her temperature's still dangerously high."

The doctor flipped through his chart. "Whatever happened, that baby seems to have its own ideas about how to help itself."

An eruption of laughter interrupted their conversation as it drifted through the door. The stern voice of one of the security guards immediately followed.

Dr. Stein pointed towards the door angrily, thinking how much things had changed from when he was young. "What's that all about?"

The nurse smiled shyly, almost ashamed for knowing the answer to his question. "It's Lois Lane. People are hoping for a glimpse of Superman when he shows up."

His eyes could not hide his shock, "And they think he's going to come?"

"Of course."

He rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable." Was he getting old? Was there still a concept called privacy in this world? Angrily, he tucked the chart underneath his arm and threw open the door. A small crowd of about six or seven female staffers stood on the other side. They went silent when they saw his angry face.

"Is this a peep show or is it a hospital?" The group immediately looked away, unable to meet his cold glare. "Ladies, you have better things to do. Behave like professionals."

The crowd immediately dispersed, the guilt evident in their slumped shoulders. Afterwards, he said to the security guards, "From this moment on, only Gillian and I are to be allowed in this room. If anyone else tries to enter tell them they have to clear it with me." He'd be damned if he allowed one of his patients to be treated like some spectacle, especially when her condition was so critical.

His thoughts were still lost with his patient's conundrum as he moved on with his rounds. As he walked away he asked Gillian, "Do you really believe those rumors that Lois Lane is Superman's girlfriend?"

The nurse seemed to genuinely consider his question. "It's fun to pretend that a mortal woman somehow snared a god. But do I believe it? Only when I'm in need to believe in a fairy tale."

The muffled sound of his son talking in his sleep awoke Clark on the couch. Although it was still dark outside he already felt much stronger than the night before, the sun's rays had been working overtime on him.

He slipped outside and grabbed a shovel from the barn. Looking at the ship now, he questioned why he agreed to the trip with Jason in the first place. He knew better. He should have chosen a normal destination, something Jason could talk about with his friends and teacher at school. But he just had to show off, didn't he? If his son wanted to see red sand, why didn't he just take him to the Australian Outback? Then he would have been around to save Lois.

He watched the sun slowly peak above the horizon and felt the warm rays hit his skin. It felt like betrayal. Here it was shining brightly as though it were just another ordinary day. He leaped into the air about ten feet and quickly crashed back down to the ground. Flying was still out of the question.

He tried to focus on the immediate task at hand. He started digging, and with his less than super speed it took him over an hour to bury the ship. As he shoveled the last few piles of dirt on top his son greeted him.

He tried to reciprocate the boy's enthusiastic "Good morning!" but couldn't. And he couldn't wait any longer to tell him the truth. "Jason, there's something I need to tell you." He kneeled down in front of him so that he was at eye level with the boy and explained the situation.

His eyes immediately filled up with tears. "But she's going to be okay, right?"

"I hope so. But that's why we need to head back to Metropolis very soon. We need to see her and make sure she knows we're there for her so she can get better."

"Is she in the place you were in when you got sick?"

"Yes, the hospital." Clark responded.

Jason hugged Clark as tears spilled onto his dirty white t-shirt. He returned the boy's embrace, fighting back his own tears. He looked up and saw Martha walking towards them. She said nothing, just wrapped her arms around the pair. Who says that they weren't a family?

A few minutes later they said goodbye to Martha, and Clark picked up his son and flew away, now certain that he would not be falling from the sky. Normally Jason would play "Catch that Cloud" as they flew through the sky, but this time, the boy's arms gripped Clark firmly and remained like that all the way back to Metropolis.

TO BE CONTINUED