Bruce came to surrounded and canopied by low boughs. Dappled warm sunlight filtered through leaves and branches, warm and golden and soft in cruel contrast to the pain his leg, screaming at him so loudly that it was a wonder he'd gone under at all. Outside, not far away, he heard the sound of chopping wood. He struggled to sit up and see what the hell Clark was doing, and through a break in the limbs the man was partially visible, swinging a crude axe. Bruce whistled, too tired to yell, and Clark stopped and came that way, wiping sweat from his chest and shoulders and face with the shirt he'd stripped off. Ducking down, he joined Bruce beneath the shelter of the lean-to he'd rigged, small and crude and not tall enough for standing.

"Finally. You're up." Clark fell heavily to his heels beside him. "How are you?"

"Like I got sledge hammered." Bruce, propped on his elbows, tried to sit up and his eyes watered at the movement, even as Clark's hands came up to help him, boosting his shoulders. "What are you doing out there?" Bruce jerked his head upwards, at the branches surrounding them. "And why this?"

"I've got a plan," Clark said, working on Bruce's leg, unwrapping bandages.

Bruce winced as his leg was moved, eyeballing the livid purple gash and the stitches closing the wound.

"Matching one on the back, too."

"Tell me about your plan."

"I'll show you after I finish." Carefully, Clark began rewrapping with fresh bandages. "Be still. I've seen enough of your blood for a few days."

Bruce huffed out a non-response. "Come on," he said when Clark tucked the end under. "Give me a hand."

Clark gripped his arm and helped him up and out and into the late afternoon sun and together they took a few stumbling steps. It hurt like hell and Bruce gritted his teeth, taking in the half-dozen logs Clark had chopped down or scavenged, each about twelve inches in diameter.

"A raft," Bruce said. He opened his mouth and closed it again. "We don't have time to build a raft."

"Partway there already." Bruce felt the man's shoulders lift and lower in a shrug as he walked beside him, arm slung around his back, holding him up, basically. "Got a little light left now." He steered Bruce toward a small unlit fire pit, recently prepped. "Caught some fish while you were out. You should gut them."

"I should walk."

"Once around the fire pit, then."

"No," Bruce ground out. "Down to the water and back."

Clark sighed, but dragged Bruce's arm back up around his neck and together they made it, a slow shamble to the stream and back, the only sound Bruce's ragged breathing and the trickling of the water until he saw the skid-logs, sloping downward on the bank. "How close are you?"

"One more day."

Bruce nodded, managing only a grunt of an answer before giving up on talking and walking at the same time. By the time they got back to the circle of stones Clark had laid out, he didn't really have much choice except to sit down and he was glad Clark didn't call him on the way he half fell to the grass. He got his breathing back to normal and Clark gave him a knife and let him get to work while he went back to his own task. He was cutting notches and crosspieces and while Bruce wanted to tell him to quit wasting precious energy, he didn't waste his own by yelling across the space separating them, so they each worked alone.

Night crept closer and the temperature dropped with the sun's descent. Fish long prepped, Bruce sat in the growing darkness, trying to will away the deep, steady pain throbbing in his leg.

"Time for a fire," Clark said when he joined him, like he was surprised it wasn't set yet, and that made Bruce pull himself out of his stupor as he watched him light it.

"We don't know if the river goes where we need to go," he said finally. "And we can't spare a day. We've got to make four hundred miles in the next week."

"I know." Clark pulled his filthy shirt back on. "I also don't know that either one of us is up to that, Bruce."

"You're well enough to build us rafts." Bruce squinted at him in the purple dusk. "Are you feeling any differently…?"

"I don't have my powers back, if that's what you mean." Clark dragged a hand down his face. He was grimy and looked tired. "Keep hoping, but… nothing."

Bruce looked down past his hands, lying still and quiet in his lap, to his injured leg, stretched out straight on the ground. "Averages out to over fifty miles a day."

Clark huffed out a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. "I can do basic math, Bruce." He looked down at Bruce's leg too, and then he got up and came back with a fur. "Lift up." He helped Bruce crook his knee, wadding the fur to shove under it. "Doesn't make sense to let it lock up worse. You up on your tetanus shots?"

"I'm Batman."

"Whittle me a cooking stick, Batman," Clark said, handing over a knife. In the dark, his face was lit by the firelight and Bruce caught him staring expectantly, waiting until Bruce did as he said. When Bruce gave him back a stick, sharpened at the end, Clark nodded, once, and even through his pain and in the darkness, Bruce could make out that some emotion like worry fell away slightly as Clark took it from him and pushed it through the fish, then put the whole thing on the fire. "You lost a hell of a lot of blood."

"Your point?"

"I don't have one."Clark folded his legs, and Bruce didn't miss the way he moved, sore and worn-out. "Except that maybe… maybe we can make it easier on ourselves. Give ourselves that much more of a chance to make our target in time. Heck, Bruce. Maybe if the place we're going… maybe if the stars line up right and the geography's right, we can get past this planet's magnetic field. Maybe if the –" he tipped his head at the night sky, filled with stars. "Maybe if the sunspots or whatever it is let up…" he rubbed his face before looking at Bruce, and his eyes were so hopeful that it caught Bruce by surprise. "Maybe then I'll get my powers back." His voice cracked on the last words, and he took a breath before he finished, clearing his throat. "And I can get us out of here."

Bruce didn't say anything at all for a moment, studying the fire. Then he tried. "Clark, it's not your…"

"Fault?" Clark said, and Bruce could hear the rueful smile in his voice. "Responsibility?" His shoulders slumped. "I know that, Bruce. But it's either me or that radio. And I don't think the radio's going to save us." He turned to face Bruce, expectant. "Do you think it will?"

"It's what we've got…"

"No, Bruce. Your gut feeling."

"Slim odds never stopped us before."

Clark snorted, shaking his head.

The fish closest to him was charred on one side because neither one of them had bothered to watch it, and Bruce reached to turn the thing. His body almost seized because the move hurt so badly, but he breathed through it, didn't let it show. "What do you want me to say?"

"Honestly?" Clark poked the fire with the stick in his hand. "That all signs point to me getting my powers back and flying us out of here, pronto." He smiled, teeth white in the darkness. "It's a yellow sun, after all. Why won't it work?"

"I don't know." Bruce closed his eyes and willed the throbbing in his leg to lessen.

"Maybe I've lost it all for good."

"There are worse things than being human." Bruce's leg pounded with every beat of his pulse, and around the edges of the pain he could hear something sharp creeping into his tone. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," he said, and immediately regretted it.

"You really think I only want powers back for myself?"

"Of course not." Bruce's jaw tightened as he tried to concentrate on the fourth rock from Clark's foot, just to focus on something other than his leg. "We'll find a way out of here, Clark," he said and then he didn't say anything else for a long time. They sat quietly by the crackling fire and stars came out while they cooked and ate. Clark brought him another fur and he took it, grateful but stubborn. "I can still walk. We don't know if the river even goes all the way to the crash site. "

"Yeah," Clark answered, but his voice was quiet. Bruce could tell he wasn't completely on board, but he was too tired to argue. He'd show him, tomorrow. There wasn't any other option. They didn't have a choice. Fifty miles, tomorrow and the next day and the next, for eight days and he could rest when they got home. Or if and when they missed their window and finished out the rest of their useless lives on this miserable planet.

Logbook, Day 133: I was wrong. Yesterday was unmitigated disaster and we have returned to the site of my injury so that S can complete the raft. Plan remains the same: reach the crash site and contact the JLA. Radio is in verified working order, but preliminary experiment this morning proved magnetic field still too strong in this location. Will try each day hence.

Clark looked up from where he knelt, lashing logs together to watch Bruce hobble toward him, dragging a fur, balled up around some kind of load. He looked like hell and Clark knew he was still berating himself for yesterday's failure. "What you got?"

"Found the cache." Bruce dropped the fur, and cans spilled out over the grass. Tins of fish, fruit, some things he didn't recognize, but obviously other foodstuff.

"Nice work." Clark couldn't help but grin. "Almost done," he said from where he was crouched, working. "Got about two hours to dusk. You want to set out now or wait until morning?"

"You're joking, right?"

Twenty minutes later they were off and a couple of hours after that Clark found himself satisfied, looking at the water ahead, then behind them at all the distance they'd made. For the second time in only a few days, he was struck by the specifics of their situation, like something out of a boy's adventure story like the kind Ma had in the attic - two men against the odds, battling nature and finally gliding down a river, as easy as Huck Finn. The effect was only highlighted by looking behind him; Bruce silhouetted against the receding riverbanks, the pile of supplies beside him, lashed to the raft and covered with the pelts they'd skinned in the wilderness.

"It's going to be full on dark soon."

Clark nodded, pushing his pole. "Thought I'd get us right around the bend up there. How many miles do you think we covered today?"

"More than we would've done walking." Bruce scrubbed at his face. "In the morning, when it's light, we should double check for trail markers."

Clark maneuvered the raft around a small rough patch and started sighting a spot to tie up. He'd been lucky today - his first day and the poling had been easy - a certain amount of physical labor, but nothing too tricky. Slowly, however, over the course of the two and a half hours they'd been on the river, the pace had picked up and while he didn't know enough about rafting to know for sure, he thought it meant things might continue to get rougher. He almost asked Bruce but some perverse part of him decided not to admit his ignorance. Of course Bruce would know, and it's not as though he couldn't ask later. Might as well just call it a night and see what tomorrow brought.

He tied up the raft and offered his arm to Bruce, who rolled his eyes, but did accept the hand up, and they found a place to unroll their bedding and make a small fire. It went on like that for two more days, following the river, making good headway, checking on trail markers. Every day the river got a little faster, which was good, and a little rougher, which was challenging, but still manageable. A few low-lying trees Bruce called sweepers, a few boulders, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Between the two of them, Clark muscling them forward at the bow and Bruce steering by rudder at the stern, they did fine. Until the fourth day.

It started out like usual, or maybe even gentler. The stream had been slow and lazy, curving like a snake. If it wasn't for the way they both looked like gaunt crash survivors, it could have been a vacation: the river, land and sky picture-perfect. Beautiful, even. Clark prodded the bottom and pulled the raft with the pole; sending them forward, letting the river carry them, take them home. He was just thinking about how he wished they'd catch a current when up ahead he heard rushing water, louder than the river had been so far. Bruce heard it too. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet all morning but now his head jerked up. "Rough water coming."

Clark felt the raft surge forward with a little pull. He was catching a current, all right. He handed Bruce the second pole, the sound of the water getting louder and louder. "Help me get over to the right." Between the two of them they wrangled it out of the center of the river and close to the bank. "Wait here."

Bruce nodded and Clark tried not to think about what that meant as he waded up out of the water - Bruce just letting him take over like that. Just a few more days… He needed to scout ahead, so he did, pushing the gnawing worry out of his mind. Of course Bruce was hurting. Anybody would be, and it really probably wasn't helping to sit for such long stretches.

He was just promising himself he'd get Bruce to do some extra walking once they camped for the night when he found what he was looking for. The sound of the water was louder and louder, and between the branches of the trees lining the bank, Clark caught his first glimpse of the falls.

The raft wobbled and floated, bumping against stumps in the tall grass by the riverbank, and Bruce, elbow on the fur covering their supplies, head in hand - lost track of time. When he heard Clark tramping back through the brush, he realized he had no idea how long Clark had even been gone, and that worried him. He had to hold it together. So Bruce snapped his head up and looked alive, nodding when Clark described what lay ahead.

"It's not bad." Clark climbed up onto the raft.

"Can we make it?"

"It's either that are bring this thing overland until we get around the next bend." He said something else and Bruce nodded again but it must have been the wrong response because Clark canted his head, squinting at him. "You okay, Bruce?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." Clark reached out and Bruce flinched away but Clark still touched his forehead, then rubbed the dampness on his fingertips. "You're sweating."

"So are you." Bruce concentrated on not shivering. It was too warm to be shivering. He clenched his fists and held Clark's gaze. "Let's go."

Clark looked up toward the bank, like he was weighing his options, looking from it to Bruce and back again. "Just some rocks," he said. "We can do it. And then I want to take a look at your leg."

Bruce held the rudder like it was a lifeline and concentrated on keeping his focus. It's not like there was a damn thing Clark could do. Not a damn thing. Together they got their raft out into the center of the river and a few minutes later he saw what Clark had seen. "Starboard," he said as they approached the dozen boulders and the whitewater pouring over them and the next words he said had to be yelled. "We can get between the two on the far right."

Clark yelled something back, up on his knees as he used the pole to direct them, and Bruce really thought they were going to make it until he caught sight of the snag. Must've been a sunken stump; he could tell it was there by the disturbance pattern on the water surface, but Clark didn't see it, or maybe he saw it but didn't know what it was. Superman didn't do a lot of whitewater rafting, was the nonsensical thought rolling through his brain as he watched the moment unfold, helpless, like everything was in slow motion but there was no way he could stop the chain of events that were bound to unfold. Clark was at the front of the raft, doing his damnedest to stay afloat, trying to get them past the rocks. The water was rushing so loud that Bruce didn't even think he could possibly be heard over it - he felt weak and useless and then they hit - even if he'd been heard it would've been too late. The raft hit the hidden obstacle, pitching them off course and into the closest rocks. The raft flipped and cracked, splintered apart, and blindly, Bruce reached to save the radio, their hope and salvation. He had it in his arms, holding it up over his head as he fought his way to one of the largest boulders, placing it on the flattest part of the rock. The water was shockingly cold and alarmingly strong with undertow. From the moment he let go of the boulder, the river pulled him down, pulling him deeper and deeper below the surface. But he fought back, pushing himself up to splash through to sunlight, eyes immediately searching for Clark.

The shock of the water brought him out of his lethargy - the slow, stupid weakening he'd been feeling for the last seventy-two hours, and Bruce kicked his way forward, even with his swollen, bad leg, scanning until he spotted a figure floating face down a few yards away. He swam toward Clark, and he'd just made it there, was just turning him over when out of the corner of his eye he saw the radio slide from its perch on the boulder and crash into the river.

But Clark was breathing, staring up at him with wide eyes, gasping at him like a just-caught fish, a red gash open across his forehead. Blood was running down his face and he had to swipe it away but Clark was alive, and conscious, and after just a moment he was helping Bruce more than Bruce was helping him, dragging him toward the bank at least far enough for them to both flop in the grass there, breathing hard and staring up at white cotton clouds in a mockingly perfect clear blue sky.