Disclaimer: Remember, I don't own any of these characters.

Martha Kent nervously picked up the phone and dialed the Metropolis General Hospital. Her husband was busy attending to Clark in the bathroom.

"Hello...yes, my name is Martha Kent, I'm calling from Smallville, and this is an emergency," Martha said quietly. "Superman was flying around the area, and he crash-landed on our farm. He's very sick, he's running a fever and vomiting. I think he's suffering some kind of virus." She paused. "Well, he obviously needs some sort of medical attention, and you're the biggest hospital around, so I figured you'd be able to help him. My husband and I thought that you might even be able to call in someone else who has more expertise."

Jonathan entered the kitchen and began to pour a glass of ginger ale for his son. Martha, who had been panicking twenty minutes earlier, looked very much relieved as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone. Tears of joy were in her eyes as she thanked whoever it was and hung up the phone.

"Jonathan, good news," Martha told her husband anxiously. "The Metropolis General Hospital is sending a helicopter. They're going to airlift Clark to the hospital to treat him. We'd better get him into his Superman suit."

"I don't think we can, Martha. He's so ill he can't even support his own weight."

"How's he doing?"

"Still in the bathroom, the poor boy. He's stopped vomiting, but he's curled up by the tub. He's too weak to make it back to bed."

"I think between the two of us, we can help him. Let's carry him back to bed and then dress him in his costume. The helicopter will be here within the hour."

Lois may have been excited about reporting on a story by herself, but going to a Luthor press conference was more nerve-wracking than exciting. Lex was always trying to ask her out, and it wasn't easy for Lois to say that she preferred the arms of Superman to the arms of Lex.

Standing in the very back row of the press conference with her tape recorder running, Lois was scribbling furiously while other reporters were asking all sorts of questions about Lex's new solar energy plant.

"The best thing about solar energy is no waste!" Lex exclaimed enthusiastically. "It's a completely clean facility that will give us power and energy without any kind of environmental danger."

A reporter that Lois recognized from a rival newspaper raised her hand. "But what about on cloudy days? How will Metropolis get power?"

"Excellent question! Well, LexCorp has built a backup generator that will provide artificial sunlight-"

Lois sighed. Lex was handsome, but she could only tolerate so much of his fake sweetness. She wanted to raise his hand and ask him if there were anything in the new plant to hurt Superman.

But sadly, that was one question she was probably going to have to wait to have answered.

The doctors who had arrived with the helicopter loaded Superman onto a stretcher and strapped him in.

"I'm sorry if I made too much of a mess, M-Mrs. Kent," Superman said, slurring some of his words together as the stretcher was loaded back onto the helicopter. Martha was relieved that Clark had remembered to call her "Mrs. Kent" instead of "Mom" around the doctors.

"It's okay, Superman," Martha assured her son. "When we're sick, we can't help it. Mr. Kent and I just want you to go to Metropolis and get better."

"You will be able to help him, won't you?" Jonathan asked one of the doctors.

"We sure hope so," the doctor told him. "We plan to draw some of his blood, then fly in a team of experts to look at it. Hopefully, some of the techniques we use to bring down fevers and quell nausea will also work on Superman."

"I want to come back to Smallville," Superman said, still slurring his words. "I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Kent again, to thank them for their kindness."

"Superman, you're delirious. Just lay back and rest," a female doctor soothed him. "We're going to take off in a few minutes."

Tears in her eyes, Martha waved goodbye to her son. As the helicopter took off, her husband turned to her. "Don't worry, Martha," Jonathan said, reaching for her hand and giving it a tight squeeze. "Let's clean up the mess Clark made when he threw up in the sink, and then catch the next train to Metropolis. We'll stay at Clark's apartment."

Martha nodded. "Okay."

In Metropolis, Lois was busy typing up the solar plant story when she heard Perry White shrieking in his office.

"GREAT SHADES OF ELVIS! Lane, Olsen, get in here QUICK!"

Lois stood up and raced to the Chief's office, Jimmy at her heels. "What is it, Chief?" she asked him.

Perry was just staring at the television, where a female newscaster was giving in a live report. "The helicopter carrying Superman will be landing in about ten minutes," the newscaster reported, looking anxiously into the camera. "Superman is apparently too weak to fly himself, and had to rely on a helicopter to seek medical attention. Insiders say he is probably suffering from a Kryptonian virus he picked up out in space while defeating the asteroid last week-"

"Well, don't just stand there!" Perry White shrieked at Lois. "Get going! Olsen, take your camera and go with her!"

"Superman's sick!" Jimmy yelped as the pair rushed out of White's office. "I sure hope they can help him down at the hospital!"

Lois was fighting back tears as she practically crashed into her desk and frantically grabbed her purse. "So do I," she wept. "Come on, Jimmy. I want to know how this happened, and when he's getting better!"

Unluckily for them, Perry White hadn't been the only person who had caught the news report. At the very moment Lois and Jimmy were leaving the Daily Planet building, Lex Luthor was shut up in his penthouse, sipping coffee in his office and smiling as he watched the panicking newswoman report on an ill Superman.

"Superman's sick, huh?" Luthor asked aloud, a smile creeping up on his face. He paused for a few moments, and then the smile broke out into laughter. "This day just gets better and better!"